Clothing the New World Church

Maya Stanfield-Mazzi

Description

The book provides the first broad survey of church textiles of Spanish America and demonstrates that, while overlooked, textiles were a vital part of visual culture in the Catholic Church.

When Catholic churches were built in the New World in the sixteenth century, they were furnished with rich textiles known in Spanish as “church clothing.” These textile ornaments covered churches’ altars, stairs, floors, and walls. Vestments clothed priests and church attendants, and garments clothed statues of saints. The value attached to these textiles, their constant use, and their stunning visual qualities suggest that they played a much greater role in the creation of the Latin American Church than has been previously recognized. In Clothing the New World Church, Maya Stanfield-Mazzi provides the first comprehensive survey of church adornment with textiles, addressing how these works helped establish Christianity in Spanish America and expand it over four centuries. Including more than 180 photos, this book examines both imported and indigenous textiles used in the church, compiling works that are now scattered around the world and reconstructing their original contexts. Stanfield-Mazzi delves into the hybrid or mestizo qualities of these cloths and argues that when local weavers or embroiderers in the Americas created church textiles they did so consciously, with the understanding that they were creating a new church through their work.

The chapters are divided by textile type, including embroidery, featherwork, tapestry, painted cotton, and cotton lace. In the first chapter, on woven silk, we see how a “silk standard” was established on the basis of priestly preferences for this imported cloth. The second chapter explains how Spanish-style embroidery was introduced in the New World and mastered by local artisans. The following chapters show that, in select times and places, spectacular local textile types were adapted for the church, reflecting ancestral aesthetic and ideological patterns. Clothing the New World Church makes a significant contribution to the fields of textile studies, art history, Church history, and Latin American studies, and to interdisciplinary scholarship on material culture and indigenous agency in the New World.

Today, as in the past, these works speak to the early history of Catholic evangelization the Americas. Their preservation to the present suggests that even when damaged or understood as less than orthodox, they were esteemed as sacred historical artifacts. In comparison, the dye-painted cloths of Chachapoyas show the relative freedom allowed in an isolated region that was largely forgotten after the initial push for evangelization. There, in the eighteenth century, an indigenous textile type came to articulate a particular set of Holy Week rituals. Townspeople continue to preserve and take pride in their cotton church cloths. Parishioners in the church of Levanto in Chachapoyas, for example, recall that in the recent past one of the dye-painted tablecloths was laid out for meetings of the town council. Thus, liturgical textiles, with their historical and geographic specificities, offer another (and until now overlooked) dimension of the history of Catholicism in the Americas.

I have also suggested that despite the continuance of many traditional aspects of Amerindian textiles, the story of liturgical cloth in the Americas is one of transformation. The richly dressed churches evoked in this book were new ritual environments that offered a multitude of aesthetic proposals. Church textiles could also be viewed outdoors as they were hung, worn, and carried through streets in processions. It is thus important to consider the impact of church textiles on the wider visual culture of colonial society. We have seen that supreme status was attached to silk. The Church, as an avid consumer of this material, may have influenced the consumption and production of silk more widely, even though the wearing of this material was officially restricted to Spaniards. One particular type of silk that must have seemed fantastic was that described as tornasolado. Now called shot silk or changeant, this iridescent cloth displays different colors when seen at different angles. In 1631 the church of Vilque in Peru (see also chapter 4) had a damask frontlet surrounding a white damask frontal. The frontlet was said to be made of Chinese yellow and crimson tornasolado damask. It would have gleamed yellow and red, approximating the iridescence that was so admired in Mexican featherwork made from hummingbird feathers. Shot silk had been produced in Europe since medieval times and consisted of silk woven with contrasting warp and weft colors. Elena Phipps argues that in the Andes, weavers saw this new, iridescent cloth and emulated it by weaving warp-faced cloths with pink silk wefts and black camelid warps. She suggests that these cloths were then worn by indigenous elites of colonial society. They followed the Hapsburg fashion of dressing in black but ultimately wore blacks that were especially sumptuous. This is one example of a way in which the sacred and esteemed status of church silks extended into colonial society, where indigenous elites used the new, locally made tornesol cloth to enhance their own personas. The silk thread would have come from Spain or China, and when joined with camelid thread from the Andes, the cloth itself stood for the union of worlds.

Introduction

1. Woven Silk

2. Embroidery

3. Featherwork

4. Tapestry

5. Painted Cotton and Cotton Lace

6. Conclusion

Glossary of Liturgical and Textile Terms

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Themes
• Subjects
• Religious
• HISTORY
• Perú
• México
• Catholicism
• Indigenous peoples of the Americas
• Christian Church
• General officer
• Latin America
• Art
• General
• Mexico
• Peru

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 février 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 3
• EAN13: 9780268108076
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 9 Mo

Extrait

Clothing the New World Church
CLOTHING THE
NEW WORLD
CHURCH

Liturgical Textiles of Spanish America, 1520–1820

MAYA STANFIELD-MAZZI
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
undpress.nd.edu
Copyright © 2021 by the University of Notre Dame Press
All Rights Reserved
Published in the United States of America
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020950353
ISBN: 978-0-268-10805-2 (Hardback)
ISBN: 978-0-268-10808-3 (WebPDF)
ISBN: 978-0-268-10807-6 (Epub)
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail]
For my mother and father,
who encouraged my love of textiles,
and for my daughter Petra Elena,
my observant companion on this journey.
CONTENTS List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction ONE Woven Silk TWO Embroidery THREE Featherwork FOUR Tapestry FIVE Painted Cotton and Cotton Lace SIX Conclusion Glossary of Liturgical and Textile Terms Notes Bibliography Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
DIAGRAMS I.1. Plain weave structure. 1.1. Satin weave structure. 1.2. Velvet structure in cross-section. 2.1. Embroidery stitches. 4.1. Interlocked threads in tapestry. 4.2. Slit tapestry. 4.3. Dovetailed threads in tapestry. 5.1. Plain weave with paired threads.
MAP 5.1 Map of Chachapoyas region.
FIGURES I.1. Mass for the Dead and Souls in Purgatory , Peru, late seventeenth century. I.2. Processional Banner with Flowers and Angels Adoring the Host, Peru, eighteenth century. I.3. The Virgin Mary with Two Donors, Cusco, Peru, eighteenth century. I.4. Workshop of José Juárez. Franciscan Procession from Tlatelolco to Tepeyac Imploring the Intercession of the Virgin of Guadalupe to Calm the Cocolixtli Plague of 1544 , Mexico City, ca. 1653–1655. 1.1. Chest of antique vestments at the church of San Juan Bautista de Huaro, Department of Cusco, Peru. 1.2. Silk moth ( Bombyx mori ) on its cocoon. 1.3. Altar Frontal and Draping Cloth, Peru, eighteenth century. 1.4. Corpus Christi Processional Finale , Peru, 1670s. 1.5. Page Beginning Accounting for the Year 1551 , Codex Sierra, Santa Catarina Texupan, Mexico, 1550–1564. 1.6. Seamed Fragment with Pattern of Interlocked Rings, Spain, sixteenth century. 1.7. Fragment with Flowering Plants, Lions, and Birds, Spain, sixteenth century. 1.8. Part of a Cope with Pomegranate Pattern, Spain, sixteenth century. 1.9. Fragment with Arabic Inscriptions, Spain, fifteenth to early sixteenth century. 1.10. Fragment of an Orphrey Band with Seraph and IHS Sunburst, Spain, sixteenth century. 1.11. Green Chasuble with Pomegranate Pattern (back), cloth from Spain, sixteenth century. 1.12. The Virgin Mary as Patroness of Tailors, Cusco, Peru, early eighteenth century. 1.13. Page Accounting the Year 1561 , Codex Sierra, Santa Catarina Texupan, Mexico, 1550–1564. 1.14. Page Accounting the Year 1561 , Codex Sierra, Santa Catarina Texupan, Mexico, 1550–1564. 1.15. Length of Fabric with Double-Headed Crowned Eagles, Elephants, and Flowers (detail), China, second half of sixteenth century. 1.16. Processional Banner with Phoenixes and Flowers, cloth from China, late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. 1.17. Cross Cover with Sprigs of Flowers and Cross Shapes, cloth from Spain or China, mid-seventeenth century. 1.18. Chasuble with Flower Pattern and Franja-Type Ribbon (back), cloth from Europe or China, mid-eighteenth century. 1.19. Chasuble with “Bizarre” Pattern (back), cloth likely from France, ca. 1700. 1.20. Detail of Chasuble with “Bizarre” Pattern in fig. 1.19. 1.21. Chasuble with Floral Pattern (back), cloth from Europe or China, late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. 1.22. Chasuble with Asian-Inspired Pattern Including Gazebos (back), cloth likely from Europe, ca. 1700. 1.23. Detail of Chasuble with Asian-Inspired Pattern Including Gazebos in fig. 1.22. 1.24. Dalmatic with Flowers, Lace Pattern, Radiance, and Pomegranates, cloth from Europe or China, early eighteenth century. 1.25. Chasuble with Floral Pattern (back), cloth from Europe or China, 1730s. 1.26. Chasuble with Floral and Lace Pattern (back), cloth from Europe or China, 1760s. 1.27. Burse with Floral and Lace Pattern (opened), cloth from Europe or China, 1760s. 1.28. Dalmatic with Bouquets and Ribbons, cloth from Europe or China, 1770–1790. 1.29. Tadeo Escalante and others, Mural Scenes of the Dance of Death, Flanked by Murals Imitating Textile Hangings, late eighteenth century. 2.1. Mantle with Bird-Human Figures (detail), Paracas, Peru, 100–200 CE. 2.2. Miniature Mantle, Peru, 1400–1532 CE. 2.3. Man’s Processional Tunic, Cusco, Peru, seventeenth century. 2.4. Side view of bottom of Man’s Processional Tunic in Fig. 2.3. 2.5. Chasuble with Embroidered Orphrey, Spain, early sixteenth century. 2.6. Altar Frontal, Toledo, Spain, ca. 1530. 2.7. Dalmatic Collar with Five Wounds, Spain, ca. 1550–1650. 2.8. Cross Cover, Cathedral of Seville, Spain, second half of seventeenth century. 2.9. Marcos Maestre. Chasuble with Scenes from the Life of the Virgin Mary, Seville, Spain, 1627–1632. 2.10. Saint Peter on Chasuble (front, detail), Spain, ca. 1550. 2.11. Chasuble with the Virgin of the Apocalypse and Saint Peter (back), Spain, ca. 1550. 2.12. Dalmatic with Skulls and Crossbones, probably Seville, Spain, ca. 1600. 2.13. Detail of fig. 2.12, Dalmatic with Skulls and Crossbones . 2.14. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala. Holy Work of Mercy: The Rites of Christian Burial , in Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno, Peru, ca. 1615. 2.15. Gremial with Arma Christi and Five Holy Wounds, Mexico City, 1546–1548. 2.16. Detail of fig. 2.15, Gremial with Arma Christi and Five Holy Wounds. 2.17. Venus Causes a Solar Eclipse , detail, Codex Borgia, Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley, Mexico, ca. 1500 CE. 2.18. Orphrey with Figures of the Virgin and Child, Saint Peter, and Saint Andrew, Mexico City, late sixteenth century. 2.19. Apparel with Saint Lawrence, Mexico City, early seventeenth century. 2.20. Detail of fig. 2.19, Apparel with Saint Lawrence. 2.21. Miter with Artichoke Design and Birds, Cusco, Peru, seventeenth century. 2.22. Nicolás Rangel. Cope for Statue of Saint Peter, Mexico City, 1699. 2.23. Altar Frontal with Saint John of God, Lima, Peru, ca. 1750. 2.24. Mantle with Flowers and Curving Brackets, Peru, eighteenth century. 2.25. Cope with Floral Pattern and C-Scrolls, cloth likely from France or China, mid-eighteenth century. 2.26. Miter with Flowers, Birds, and Feathers, Lima, Peru, seventeenth century. 2.27. Cope with Symbols of the Virgin Mary, Mexico, mid-eighteenth century. 2.28. Cope with Flowers, Fruit, and the Virgin of Mercy, Mexico, mid-eighteenth century. 2.29. Altar Frontal with Saint Rose Strolling with Christ, Musical Angels, and a Dominican Emblem, Mexico, mid-eighteenth century. 2.30. Cornelis Galle II. Coelesti Sponso Comitata , in Vita et Historia S. Rosae , Brussels, ca. 1672. 2.31. Nun’s Badge, Guatemala or Mexico, mid-eighteenth century. 2.32. Mantle with Vases of Flowers and Inscription, Mateo N Guzman Año 1793, Peru, 1793. 3.1. Resplendent quetzal ( Pharomachrus mocinno ). 3.2. Presentation of Captives to a Ruler , Usumacinta River Valley, Mexico, ca. 785 CE. 3.3. Tribute from Petlacalco , Codex Mendoza, Mexico, 1541. 3.4. Xicalcoliuhqui Shield, Mexico, ca. 1519. 3.5. Deities (or Deity Impersonators) of the Amanteca, Florentine Codex, Mexico, compiled 1545–1590. 3.6. Tools and Techniques of the Amanteca, Florentine Codex, Mexico, compiled 1545–1590. 3.7. Artisans of the Court , in Relación de Michoacán, Mexico, 1539–1541. 3.8. Feather Fan or Flabellum with Butterfly, Mexico, ca. 1540. 3.9. Feather Shield with Human-Coyote, Mexico, early sixteenth century. 3.10. Christoph Weiditz. Indian with Feather Shield Decorated with a Cross, in Trachtenbuch, Germany, 1530–1540. 3.11. Motecuhzoma II Wearing Pointed Crown , redrawn from Codex Mendoza, Mexico, 1541. 3.12. Feather Disk with Water Symbol, Mexico, ca. 1520. 3.13. Contributions of the Huexotzinca People , Huejotzingo Codex, Mexico, 1531. 3.14. Mass of Saint Gregory, Mexico, 1539. 3.15. Tools and Techniques of the Amanteca, Florentine Codex, Mexico, compiled 1545–1590. 3.16. Miter and Infulae with Tree of Life (front) and Tree of Jesse (back), Mexico, ca. 1550. 3.17. Miter and Infulae with Tree of Jesse (front) and Tree of Life (back), Mexico, ca. 1550. 3.18. Miter and Infulae with the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary , Mexico, ca. 1550. 3.19. Miter and Infulae with the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary , Mexico, ca. 1550. 3.20. Lucifer hummingbirds ( Calothorax lucifer ). 3.21. The Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, France, ca. 1490–1500. 3.22. Detail of fig. 3.19, Miter with the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary . 3.23. Miter with Infulae in Green Set, Mexico, eighteenth century. 3.24. Burse in Green Set, Mexico, eighteenth century. 3.25. Chasuble in Yellow Set (front and back), Mexico, eighteenth century. 3.26. Embroidered Chalice Veil, first half of eighteenth century. 3.27. White Chasuble (back), cloth from Europe or China, eighteenth century. 4.1. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala. The Eleventh Inca, Huayna Capac , in Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno, Peru, ca. 1615. 4.2. Tunic with Toqapu Motifs, Peru, ca. 1500. 4.3. Checkerboard (Qolqapata) Tunic, Peru, ca. 1500. 4.4. Captive vicuña ( Vicugna vicugna ) in Peru. 4.5. Herd of alpacas ( Vicugna pacos ) in Ecuador. 4.6. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala. The Chosen Virgins, or Aqllakuna , in Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno, Peru, ca. 1615. 4.7. Bowl Painted with Weaving Scene , Peru, 300–700 CE. 4.8. Hanging with Coat of Arms and Vair Pattern, Peru, ca. 1550. 4.9. Miniature Cape with Stepped Diamond Design, Peru, ca. 1550. 4.10. Fragment of Altar Frontal Depicting the Adoration of the Kings, Flanders (possibly Brussels), ca. 1475–1500. 4.11. Hanging with Butterflies and a Cross , Peru, ca. 1560. 4.12. Detail of fig. 4.11, Hanging with Butterfli