BCCCAP00000000000000000001719

MESOAMERICA AND FRANCISCAN MISSION 261 New World. The interplay of these factors capacitated these confraternal in– stitutions to adapt themselves to the varying situations and to evolve "into a complex network of institutions that by the end of the colonial period bore little resemblance to their early antecedents and certainly broadened the origi– nal character of their Spanish and European sources" (37). Barry D. Sell qualifies the Confraternity Rules of 1552 by Alonso de Molina as the oldest extant Nahua cojradia statutes in Nahuatl or Spanish (41). This becomes intelligible when one considers the fact that the process of evangelisation had not kept pace with the conquest and the consequent an– nexation of territories. The formation of natives literate in Nahuatl, Latin and Spanish, the production of Nahuatl texts, the creation of new social struc– tures, the opening of the Colegio de Santa Cruz in Santiago Tlatelolco near Mexico City, and the constitution of the cefradfa represent "more of promising beginnings than completed accomplishments". Sell provides a key to the un– derstanding of the emergence of "Molina 1552", when he observes that it "is a clear sign that the steady growth of cofradias in numbers and locations since the late 1530s had prompted the need for more consistency in their organiza– tion and policies. This is most immediately tied to an increase in the number of Christianized Nahuas (especially those who were bilingual) who were more aware of the ways and requirements of the Spanish-speaking world" (45£). The ravaging epidemic of 1545-1548 following on the heels of the diffusion of diseases from Europe too occasioned the promotion of hospital-cefradias. And the Observant friars felt the need to standardise their several initiatives with Molina 1552. Apart from its humanitarian and evangelical significance, the Ordinances of Fr Molina rightly merits the qualification "a monument to Franciscan scholarship" (51). The critical edition in Nahuatl and English (81- 141) as well as its two variants in Nahuatl are intended to be a spur for fur– ther researches. "Its ultimate value lies precisely in challenging students of early modern central Mexico to use native and intrusive sources to study Na– huas and Spaniards, both on their own terms and in their complex and fasci– nating interaction. This critical edition is a step in that direction" (62£). 3. The third volume of the "Franciscan Publications in Nahuatl Se– ries"3 is the fruit of a symposium held on 15-16 October 1999 at the Newberry 3 Sahagun at 500: Essqys on the Quincentenary of the Bitth of Fr. Bernardino de Sahagun. Ed. John Frederick Schwaller. (Publications of the Academy of American Franciscan History. Franciscan Publications in Nahuatl Series, 3). USA - CA 94709-1208 Berkeley [1712 Euclid