¹ ‘Tutti gli santi di Spagna volete canonizzare?… por ser tan santo y estar en la corte de España, se había de dar lugar’: Gil Jiménez to Madrid, 18 Oct 1599, AVM, ms 2–285–2 (emphasis mine).

² Anselmi, A., ‘Roma celebra la monarchia spagnola: il teatro per la canonizzazione di Isidoro Agricola, Ignazio di Loyola, Francesco Saverio, Teresa di Gesù e Filippo Neri’, in Colomer, J. (ed.), Arte y diplomacia de la monarquía hispánica en el siglo XVII, Madrid 2003, 221–46Google Scholar; Alberro, S., ‘Las cuatro partes del mundo en las fiestas virreinales peruanas y novohispanas’, in O'Phelan, S. and Salazar-Soler, C. (eds), Passeurs, mediadores culturales y agentes de la primera globalización en el mundo ibérico, siglos XVII-XIX, Lima 2005, 147–61Google Scholar; I. Arellano, ‘Vive le roy! El poder y la gloria en fiestas hagiográficas francesas (canonización de San Ignacio y San Francisco Javier, 1622)’, in I. Arellano, C. Strosetzki and E. Williamson (eds), Autoridad y poder en el siglo de oro, Madrid 2009, 9–34.

³ ‘Oggi il Papa ha canonizzato quattro spagnoli e un santo’: Biblioteca Nacional de España, ms 2232, fo. 81, also cited in Gotor, M., ‘Le canonizzazioni dei santi spagnoli nella Roma barocca’, in Sánchez, C. Hernando (ed.), Roma y España: un crisol de la cultura europea en la edad moderna, ii, Madrid 2007, 639Google Scholar.

⁴ Figures provided by J. Armogathe, ‘La fábrica de los santos: causas españolas y procesos romanos de Urbano viii a Benedicto xiv (siglos xvii–xviii)’, in M. Vitse (ed.), Homenaje a Henri Guerreiro: la hagiografía entre historia y literatura en la España de la edad media y del siglo de oro, Madrid 2005, 149–68. On the canonisation of Spanish saints see also C. Copeland, ‘Spanish saints in Counter-Reformation Italy’, in P. Baker-Bates and M. Pattenden (eds), The Spanish presence in sixteenth-century Italy: images of Iberia, Farnham–Burlington, Vt 2016, 117–38. On the canonisation policies of the Counter-Reformation Church see P. Delooz, Sociologie et canonisations, Liege 1969; Burke, P., ‘How to be a Counter-Reformation saint’, in his The historical anthropology of early modern Italy: essays on perception and communication, Cambridge 1987, 48–62Google Scholar; and Ditchfield, S., ‘How not to be a Counter-Reformation saint: the attempted canonization of Pope Gregory x, 1622–45’, Papers of the British School at Rome lx (1992), 379–422CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵ Gotor, ‘Le canonizzazioni’, 622–3; Levin, M., Agents of empire: Spanish ambassadors in sixteenth-century Italy, Ithaca, NY 2005CrossRefGoogle Scholar; P. Broggio, ‘Rome and the “Spanish theology”: Spanish monarchy, doctrinal controversies and the defence of papal prerogatives from Clement viii to Urban viii’, in Baker-Bates and Pattenden, The Spanish presence, 99–116.

⁶ Cf. Hampe, T., Santidad e identidad criolla: proceso de canonización de Santa Rosa, Cuzco 1998Google Scholar; Rubial, A., La santidad controvertida: hagiografía y conciencia criolla alrededor de los venerables no canonizados de Nueva España, Mexico City 1999Google Scholar; and Sánchez-Concha, R., Santos y santidad en el Perú Virreinal, Lima 2003Google Scholar.

⁷ P. Delooz has offered an explanation on why studying the role of finances in any canonisation cause is challenging: ‘Le Vatican … ne publie pas ses comptes comme les autres États et il faut donc chercher des informations auprès des contribuables, c'est-à-dire, en l'occurence, auprès des postulateurs … Dans plusieurs cas, d'ailleurs, les postulateurs ne savent pas eux-mêmes ce qu'une cause a coûté, notamment lorsqu'elle s’étire sur plusieurs siècles’: Sociologie et canonisation, 435, 437–8.

⁸ The authors who have offered a detailed analysis on the canonisations of Isidore Agricola and Ferdinand iii are M. Río Barredo and A. Wunder. However, both dismiss the financial support of the Americas and in their analysis consider these devotions of only local interests: A. Wunder, ‘Search for sanctity in Baroque Seville: the canonization of San Fernando and the making of Golden-Age culture, 1624–1729’, unpubl. PhD diss. Princeton 2002, and Baroque Seville: sacred art in a century of crisis, Philadelphia 2017; M. Río Barredo, ‘San Isidro y la crónica de una capital incierta (1590–1620)’, in Madrid, urbs regia: la capital ceremonial de la monarquía católica, Madrid 2000, 93–118.

⁹ P. Geary, Living with the dead in the Middle Ages, Ithaca, NY–London 1994, 21–2. In the case of Isidore, only recently have authors started to favour the analysis of diplomatic correspondence. The early results of such studies accentuate the struggles of the cult: Barredo, M. Río, ‘Canonizar a un santo medieval en la Roma de la Contrarreforma: Isidro Labrador, patrón de Madrid’, Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia xxix (2020), 127–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ M. Fernández Montes argues that the earliest preserved vita of Isidore Agricola has evidence of tradition exchanges between Muslim and Christian communities in the wider context of La Reconquista. This signals to the popularity of his cult among conversos or suggests, as C. Segura Graíño affirms, that Isidore had converso or even morisco origins himself. Although Segura Graíño has not elaborated on the argument, in other works she indicates that a majority of the agricultural population of Madrid at this time was of Muslim or converso origin. See Montes, Fernández, ‘San Isidro, de labrador medieval a patrón renacentista y barroco en la Villa y Corte’, Disparidades lvi/1 (2001), 41–95Google Scholar, esp. p. 20; C. Segura Graíño, ‘El origen islámico de Madrid y las relaciones con los reinos cristianos’, in A. Turina Gómez, A. Pérez Navarro and S. Quero Castro (eds), Testimonios del Madrid medieval: el Madrid musulmán, Madrid 2004, 19–41; interview with C. Segura Graíño by R. Fraguas, ‘Historiadores medievales indagan sobre el origen musulmán de San Isidro’, El País, 19 May 2008, at <https://elpais.com/diario/2008/05/19/madrid/1211196267_850215.html>, accessed 12 Sept. 2019; and L. Montes, Zozaya, ‘Construcciones para una canonización: reflexiones sobre los lugares de memoria y de culto en honor a San Isidro Labrador’, Tiempos Modernos vii/22 (2011), 2–25Google Scholar, esp. p. 6. The legend of Isidore Agricola was not exclusive to Madrid but shared across the region of New Castille. Yet questions regarding his unknown origin in the sixteenth century forced authors such as Lope de Vega to provide him with an invented Christian genealogy, one that could also clarify the problematic origin of his name. Vega suggested that the name Isidore was an homage to St Isidore of Seville and served as proof that his parents were not conversos but Old Christians, a requisite for canonisation. See J. Portús, ‘La intervención de Lope de Vega y de Gómez de Mora en las fiestas de canonización de San Isidro’, Villa de Madrid xxvi/95 (1988), 30–41, and R. Saez, ‘El culto a San Isidro Labrador o la invención y triunfo de una amplia operación político-religiosa (1580–1622)’, in Homenaje a Henri Guerreiro, 1033–45. It should be noted that according to C. Segura Graíño the name Isidore (Isidro), which in sources varies between Ysidre and Esidre, must have originated from the Arabic name Driss and later adapted to Castilian, for which reason he is rarely called Isidorus in medieval sources. My argument here, however, is not whether he was of Old Christian or converso origin but that his cult and life story had to be reinvented in the early modern era to adjust to the changes of the Counter-Reformation.

¹¹ Burke, ‘How to be a Counter-Reformation saint’, 55–6.

¹² During the reinvention of the cult of Isidore in the sixteenth century, the legend of his miracles, shared across the region of New Castille, was linked to a Madrilenian genealogy of newcomers who tried to create a pious lineage for themselves and their families during the establishment of the royal court in their town: Fernández Montes, ‘San Isidro’, 41–95; Montes, L. Zozaya, ‘Pesquisas documentales para narrar la historia de San Isidro: gestiones para una canonización iniciada en 1562’, Prisma Social iv (2010), 1–35Google Scholar.

¹³ Alonso de Villegas, ‘Vida de Isidro Labrador (1592)’, ed. Leahy, C., Lemir xix (2015), 897–930Google Scholar; de Vega, Lope, Isidro: poema castellano, Madrid 1599Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Barredo, M. Río, ‘Fray Domingo de Mendoza, artífice de fiestas religiosas en el Madrid de la Contrarreforma’, Chronica Nova xxxix (2013), 47–73Google Scholar. He was also crucial in the construction of the cult of Isidro's wife, María de la Cabeza: Cobo, M. Argulló y, ‘Declaraciones de escritores del siglo xvii en el proceso de beatificación de Santa María de la Cabeza’, Revista de Literatura xiii/25 (1958), 173–87Google Scholar.

¹⁵ AVM, ms 2–285–1. The amount of alms received for the purpose of gathering historical information for his three ordinary processes was 1,260 reales and the money spent accounted for 1,734 reales. According to Mendoza, he had to cover for the difference (474 reales), for which reason he filed this report to the council of Madrid.

¹⁶ ‘Ya amada Madrid mía / de tu caída veo señales’: E. Salazar, ‘Llanto sobre la muy noble, muy leal, lustrosa, cortesana e insigne villa de Madrid en la mudança de la corte real’, in A. Ezquerra, Los tras lados de corte de 1601 y 1606, Madrid 2006, 215–19.

¹⁷ C. Vincent-Cassy notes that the sponsors of the cult of Elizabeth of Portugal also used this rhetorical argument to advance her cause at the court of the Spanish king, who at the time was king of Portugal as well. G. Fatás and S. Muneroni argue that Ermenegildo incarnated one of the first stories of Spanish saint-kings and protomartyrs in the late sixteenth century. However, in contrast to Ermenegildo, Ferdinand iii was seen by contemporaries as a direct ancestor of the Spanish king and thus the first who could symbolically stand against other consolidated saint-kings, for example, Louis of France: Vincent-Cassy, C., ‘Quand les Reines étaient saintes: la canonisation de sainte Élisabeth de Portugal (1271–1336) et la monarchie espagnole au xviie siècle’, Faces de Eva vii (2002), 127–44Google Scholar, and ‘“Sangre real, raríssima hermosura …”: la santidad coronada en la España de los Austrias menores’, in Homenaje a Henri Guerreiro, 1127–50; G. Fatás, ‘La santidad y sus antecedentes: santos antiguos y santos anómalos’, Revista de historia Jerónimo Zurita lxxxv (2010), 13–38; S. Muneroni, Hermenegildo and the Jesuits: staging sainthood in the early modern period, Cham 2017.

¹⁸ A. Álvarez-Ossorio, ‘Santo y rey: la corte de Felipe iv y la canonización de Fernando iii’, in Homenaje a Henri Guerreiro, 243–60; Gómez, J. Calvo, ‘La creación intelectual de la monarquía católica: la canonización equipolente de Fernando iii (1201– 1252) y la investigación eclesiástica sobre su culto inmemorial en el siglo xvii’, Anuario de Derecho Canónico vii (2018), 109–59Google Scholar.

¹⁹ ACS, Fondo Capitular, ms VIII–33–10735, fos 235, 236; Biblioteca Capitular de Sevilla, ms 58–5–39, fos 101–2.

²⁰ G. Papa, Le cause di canonizzazione nel primo periodo della Congregazione dei riti: 1588-1634, Rome 2001, 5; S. Ditchfield, ‘Tridentine worship and the cult of saints’, in R. Po-Chia Hsia (ed.), The Cambridge history of Christianity, VI: Reform and expansion, 1500–1660, Cambridge 2007, 201–24, esp. pp. 213–16.

²¹ This was a measure specifically designed to contain the proliferation of the so-called ‘new blessed’ (‘beati moderni’). See Wunder, ‘Search for sanctity in Baroque Seville’, 22–3, and C. Copeland, Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi: the making of a Counter-Reformation saint, Oxford–New York 2016, 69.

²² C. Chamberlin, ‘“Unless the pen writes as it should”: the proto-cult of Saint Fernando iii in Seville in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries’, in M. González Jiménez (ed.), Sevilla 1248: Congreso internacional conmemorativo del 750 aniversario de la conquista de la ciudad de Sevilla por Fernando III, rey de Castilla y León, Seville 2000, 389–417.

²³ Ditchfield, ‘Introduction’ to The Spanish presence, 15; Gómez, J. A. Calvo, ‘El proceso remisorial apostólico para la canonización de Fernando iii, el Santo (1201–1252)’, Anuario de Derecho Canónico x (2021), 138Google Scholar.

²⁴ Although it is undeniable that in the seventeenth century diseases and natural catastrophes severely decimated important population centres, the general trend suggested by economic historians paints an overall favourable picture for the American continent: C. Assadourian, El sistema de la economía colonial: mercado interno, regiones y espacio económico, Lima 1982; R. Romano, Coyunturas opuestas: la crisis del siglo XVII en Europa e Hispanoamérica, Mexico City 1993.

²⁵ ‘Si llegan a conocer su poder y que el de esta monarquía depende del suyo, y que podrían dar leyes en lugar de recibirlas’: B. Álamos de Barrientos, Discurso político al rey Felipe III al comienzo de su reinado (1598), ed. M. Santos, Barcelona 1990, 14.

²⁶ Y. Celaya Nández, Alcabalas y situados: puebla en el sistema fiscal imperial, 1638 –1742, Mexico City 2010, 112–13; C. Marichal and J. Grafenstein (eds), El secreto del imperio español: los situados coloniales en el siglo XVIII, Mexico City 2012.

²⁷ In both decrees, Philip ii and Philip iii addressed how these pious enterprises stood as a symbol of ‘good and Christian governance’ of the monarchy. This can also be identified in the multiple letters written to the pope to support both canonisations: Archivo General de Indias, Indiferente, 427, l. 30, fos 477v–478r.

²⁸ R. Valladares, Católico yugo: la idea de obediencia en la España de los Austrias, 1500–1700, Madrid 2021, 54–7.

²⁹ Actas de cabildo de la ciudad de México, viii, Mexico City 1893, 427–8.

³⁰ The first demands of Puebla for a possible designation as seat of the viceroyalty of New Spain, which would ultimately settle in Mexico City in 1535, took place in 1534. The privileges that the city was claiming went far beyond those of a typical Spanish settlement: J. Hirschberg, ‘La fundación de Puebla de los Ángeles: mito y realidad’, Historia Mexicana xxviii/2 (1978), 185–223; G. Albi Romero, ‘La sociedad de Puebla de los Ángeles en el siglo xvi’, Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas vii (1970), 76–145. The strong competition that Puebla offered to Mexico City was visible also in the control of a royal tax on trade, the ‘alcabala’, which later became crucial to finance the imperial defence system of the multiple territories of the monarchy: Celaya Nández, Alcabalas y situados, 67. The primary motivation behind the early support of the city was the participation of Diego de Salas, who had proved to be very effective as representative of Mexico City's interests inside the royal court. Still, it is likely that the council of Puebla had offered its city as a viable alternative during the heated debate over the transfer of Mexico City, or at least its central viceregal institutions, to another area, following the terrible flood of 1629: A. Musset, Ciudades nómadas del Nuevo Mundo, trans. José María Ímaz, Mexico City 2011, 284–92.

³¹ P. Ragon, ‘Sebastián de Aparicio: un santo mediterráneo en el altiplano mexicano’, Estudios de Historia Novohispana xxiii (2009), 17–45; N. Durán, ‘La construcción de la subjetividad en las hagiografías: un caso: Sebastián de Aparicio’, in M. Ramos Medina (ed.), Camino a la santidad: siglos XVI–XX, Mexico City 2003, 165–96.

³² To avoid confusion all amounts are shown in reales of silver, even though not all sums were collected in this currency. For example, the collection of alms in Puebla was recorded in pesos (1 peso = 8 reales of silver). As is clear from their Actas de cabildo, Puebla gathered over 651 pesos and 5 reales, of which they sent 513 pesos between 1600 and 1603, hence the amount of 4,104 reales. By contrast, the second amount is taken from the account books of the Casa de la Contratación, which registered all the different incomes in maravedís, a currency employed mostly for accounting purposes. According to the testimony of the royal collector, Diego Vergara Gaviria, excluding import fees and the alms coming from Puebla (registered as 130,092 maravedís, or roughly 3,826 reales after discounting taxes and import fees), 3,301,892 maravedís were received between 1603 and 1611 coming from different cities of the viceroyalty of Peru (1 real = 34 maravedís), thus the amount of over 97,114 reales. A separate record shows that Guatemala, which was part of the viceroyalty of New Spain, also participated in the collection of alms but their collection of over 1,411 pesos, equivalent to 11,295 reales, sent to the Iberian Peninsula in 1613, was not considered by the royal collector until 1617, which was fully handed to Madrid's collectors by 1622. See E. Angel Cruz, ‘Santidad imperial: empresas de canonización, agentes mediadores y limosnas en la Monarquía Católica, 1599–1622’, in B. Bravo Rubio and A. Miranda Guardiola (eds), Cinco siglos de la Iglesia Católica en México: reflexiones en torno a la conquista, evangelización e independencia de México, 1521–2021, Mexico City 2021, 325–49.

³³ Archivo Histórico Municipal de Puebla, actas de cabildo, vol. 17, fos 169–70.

³⁴ L. Cabrera Valdés, Documentos primitivos del cabildo, Arequipa 1924, 142; B. Lavallé, Miedos terrenales, angustias escatológicas y pánicos en Arequipa a comienzos del siglo XVII, Arequipa 2012, 8–13; M. Meza Bazán and V. Condori, Historia mínima de Arequipa: desde los primeros pobladores hasta el presente, Lima 2018, 77.

³⁵ ACS, fondo capitular, ms VII–37–10739, sig. 8, unnumbered. As is clear from this letter, the total amount sent to Spain by the bishop of Arequipa was 1,570 pesos. Pedro de Villagómez offered 1,000 pesos or 8,000 reales, then he convinced members of his ecclesiastical chapter and other local authorities and benefactors to collaborate, thus collecting another 570 pesos or 4,560 reales of silver.

³⁶ On 13 April 1636 he affirmed that if he had been appointed archbishop of Lima, and not bishop of the poor diocese of Arequipa, he would have offered much more money for the canonisation of Ferdinand iii: ‘si como me hallo retirado en esta ciudad asistiera en la de Lima pudiera ser de más importancia mi diligencia’: ibid.

³⁷ Mogrovejo's work as archbishop of Lima was instrumental because he tried to limit the powers of the religious orders, especially those of St Dominic, St Francis and St Augustine, in order to consolidate the fragile jurisdiction of the secular clergy in Peru: Sánchez-Concha, R., ‘La santa contemporaneidad: Toribio Alfonso de Mogrovejo y los santos y bienaventurados del Perú virreinal’, in Toribio de Mogrovejo: misionero, santo y pastor: actas del Congreso académico internacional realizado en Lima del 24 al 28 de abril de 2006, Lima 2007, 170–80Google Scholar; López, C. Lamerain, ‘Toribio de Mogrovejo, Roma y la creación de un esquema de gobierno diocesano en Sudamérica’, Allpanchis xlviii/87 (2021), 117–53Google Scholar.

³⁸ After the conquest, the different indigenous populations of Spanish America were declared exempt from tithes. As they were considered direct vassals of the king of Spain, they only had to pay an annual contribution, ‘tribute’, either in kind, labour or cash. In turn, the king would finance the doctrines, and only those that directly or indirectly conducted mercantile operations with ‘Spanish products’ would pay tithes. Although in theory the cathedrals were hierarchically superior to the religious orders, the latter held a greater de facto power in part because the Spanish population was smaller, making the income of the former disproportionately scarcer. Hence, the religious orders refused to pay tithes to the cathedrals using methods such as commuting indigenous labour and buying land, claiming it necessary for the conversion of Indians and thus exempt from tithes. This legal dispute lasted for more than a century: Ó. Mazín, Gestores de la Real Justicia: procuradores y agentes de las catedrales hispanas nuevas en la corte de Madrid, I: El ciclo de México: 1568–1640; II: El ciclo de las Indias: 1632–1666, Mexico City 2007, 2017.

³⁹ This is especially the case since he had already worked very closely with the Mexican archdiocese to solidify the jurisdiction of the secular clergy. In 1658 Villagómez financially supported the trial led by Íñigo de Fuentes, archdeacon of Mexico City, against the religious orders for the tithes of the cathedrals: Archivo Histórico de la Catedral Metropolitana de Lima, libro de cédulas reales y otros papeles, no. 2, fo. 102r–v.

⁴⁰ ‘Ellos son santos, y se ayudarán’: Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado de Lima, papeles importantes, ms 11–41. In this case, the agent in Rome was referring to the canonisation trials of Toribio de Mogrovejo and Francis Solano.

⁴¹ Gotor, ‘Le canonizzazioni’, 627; A. Borromeo, ‘Crown and Church under Philip ii and Philip iii’, and T. Dandelet, ‘Paying for the new St Peter's: contributions to the construction of the new basilica from Spanish lands, 1506–1620’, in T. Dandelet and J. Marino (eds), Spain in Italy: politics, society, and religion, 1500-1700, Leiden 2007, 517–54, 181–95.

⁴² ‘Muchas veces me acuerdo y me río de que Vuestras Mercedes decían: “enviemos el proceso por el correo mayor”, como si fuera negocio acabado … Mas sepan y entiendan Vuestras Mercedes, como dicen, … que acá [en Roma] … por el escudo se hace algo’: AVM, ms 2–285–2. This document is also cited in Río Barredo, ‘Canonizar un santo medieval’, 145–6, although she does not mention this part of the reference.

⁴³ Cited by Vincent-Cassy, C., ‘Luchar por su santo: rivalidades entre las órdenes religiosas en torno a las canonizaciones en el siglo xvii’, in Moya, J. Beltrán, Hernández, B. and Moreno, D. (eds), Identidades y fronteras culturales en el mundo ibérico en la edad moderna, Bellaterra 2016, 180Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ ‘Los forasteros que aquí residen están a la mira de lo que Sevilla hace en causa tan suya y de su honor; no quisiera que nos afrentasen con nuestros descuidos’: Pedro de Arteaga to the dean and ecclesiastical chapter of Seville, 26 Jan. 1634, ACS, fondo capitular, ms VIII–35–10737, unnumbered.

⁴⁵ According to the account of alms of Diego de Barrionuevo, 780,054 reales de vellón were spent for the beatification and canonisation of Isidore Agricola between 1615 and 1623. A real de vellón was equivalent to 2.5 reales of silver, hence the amount 312,021. As is clear from the account book of the royal collector Diego de Vergara Gaviria, a total of 3,341,984 maravedís of alms from New Spain and Peru for the canonisation of Isidore Agricola were handed to Madrid's collector between 1600 and 1611. Later, Guatemala sent 1,411 pesos and 7 reales of silver, or 384,030 maravedís, of which 360,990 maravedís (deducting 23,040 maravedís of import fees) were handed to Madrid's collector separately, on 2 September 1617. In total, the money received from New Spain, Peru and Guatemala was 3,702,974 maravedís, or 108,911 reales of silver: AVM, ms 2–2–4, unnumbered; Archivo General de Indias, Contaduría, ms 54-1-19, fo. 136.

⁴⁶ Diego de Barrionuevo offered a list of incomes and expenses to Madrid's town council which unfortunately does not offer a clear chronology, only mentioning the type of income or expenditure conducted. Thus, I have grouped the costs considered typical for the negotiation of other canonisation trials (i.e. ‘presents’, ‘paintings’, ‘Christmas bonuses’, ‘legal and translation fees’ and so on) and those of celebratory or compensatory nature (i.e. ‘triumphal arc’, ‘tips’, ‘cost aids’ and so forth) to determine the negotiation and celebration phases. The first group amounted to roughly 48,970 reales, while the second totalled 263,050 reales. The money returned to Madrid was 26,306 reales. Thus, the total expenses for the canonisation of Isidore (1615–23) were 265,715 reales, which means that the 108,911 reales from the Americas was equivalent to 38.1% of the total expenses: AVM, ms 2–2–4, unnumbered. These figures however must be compared and discussed since they do not consider the previous donations made in Madrid and Castille in the sixteenth century.

⁴⁷ ACS, fondo capitular, ms VIII–37–10739, no. 11. Here, Seville's accountants distinguished not between pesos, reales and other currencies (i.e., ‘tomines’, ‘grains of gold’), but simplified all accounts to maravedís of silver and maravedís of vellón, while maintaining the same equivalence (1=2.5). Furthermore, they also offered an invaluable chronology of incomes and expenses which allows us to distinguish clearly between stages of his canonisation trials. I situate the negotiation phase (1635–60) from the rejection of Ferdinand's cause and until he obtained an exception to Urban viii's prohibitions in 1655 and the instructions to gather a new dossier in 1657, which due to several diseases that struck Seville could not be opened until 1659. As can be seen in other documents, it became clearer after 1660 that Ferdinand iii would be able to advance his canonisation through a per viam cultus trial and the compilation of a super virtutibus et miraculis in specie dossier, for which reason the second phase is defined as from 1660 to 1688. Thus, according to the book of alms, 7,522,024 maravedís of silver and 4,017,340 maravedís of vellón were collected throughout Ferdinand's process. After conversion, this means a total of 22,822,400 accounting maravedís, or roughly 671,247 reales (34 accounting maravedís = 1 real of silver). Alms coming from the Americas totalled 12,862,178 accounting maravedís, or around 378,299 reales, giving us an estimate of 56.35% of the total income. Alms destined for the most crucial phase (1635–60), totalled 9,450,725 accounting maravedís, or roughly 277,963 reales. By contrast, the American alms received during these years were 5,863,045 accounting maravedís, or around 173,442 reales, giving us an estimate of 56.41% of the income.

⁴⁸ It should be noted that he was never universally canonised, only recognised as an ‘immemorial’ cult or ‘equipollent’ saint. ‘Equipollent canonisations’ were obtained following a special apostolic trial, the ab immemoriabili, later referred also as per viam cultus. They were designed to approve the cults of medieval saints that were not included in the Roman martyrology yet whose devotions were tacitly or explicitly approved by previous popes. See Vincent-Cassy, C., ‘El rey Fernando iii el “santo” no fue canonizado’, Andalucía en la historia xxxiv (2011), 50–2Google Scholar; Ditchfield, ‘Tridentine worship’, 206, 214; Calvo Gómez, ‘El proceso remisorial apostólico’, 139; Armogathe, ‘La fábrica de los santos’, 153; and Sardón, U. Pacho, ‘Singularidad del proceso de canonización de Fernando iii El Santo’, Isidorianum xxiv/47 (2015), 227–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. pp. 232–3.

⁴⁹ Toribio's canonisation also required an enormous amount of alms to ensure its success in the Congregation of Rites. According to contemporary testimonies, the costs of his beatification were excessive, if not abusive, given that the money had been collected for charitable purposes, not to offer expensive gifts to the Roman cardinals: ‘no se hallará causa de canonización hecha hasta ahora que haya consumido tanto dinero … no se comprende cómo por el solo santo Toribio se ha triplicado el dispendio. El dinero juntado para esta causa fue recogido de limosnas de fieles y destinado para la gloria del santo, la cual en nada se ha aumentado con gastarse de su patrimonio una suma tan considerable’: Archivo General de Indias, patronato ms 249-17-3, also cited in García, F. Quiles, Santidad barroca: Roma, Sevilla y América hispana, Seville 2018, 82Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ The role of this pious global network for the Mexican archbishopric cannot easily be over-estimated. It could also have allowed the consecration of the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe: Conover, C., ‘Reassessing the rise of Mexico's Virgin of Guadalupe, 1650s–1780s’, Mexican Studies xxvii/2 (2011), 251–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In a recent monograph, Conover examines the cult of Felipe de Jesús and argues that the worship of saints was a cultural linchpin of the Spanish empire in its overseas kingdoms: Pious imperialism: Spanish rule and the cult of saints in Mexico City, Albuquerque 2021, 4–7. Although I agree with the premise, the author overestimates the role of Spanish kings in choosing Catholicism as their ‘personal belief’ (p. 4) to unite the kingdoms, instead of tracing the continuities and changes between Castilian kingship and the medieval doctrine cuius regio eius religio, as highlighted by A. Rucquoi, while also contrasting it with the religious agency of monarchs individually, especially Charles v (1516–56) who, as Geoffrey Parker has shown, was indeed presented with the option of backing Protestantism: A. Rucquoi, ‘Tierra y gobierno en la Península Ibérica medieval’, in Ó. Mazín and J. Ruiz Ibáñez (eds), Las Indias occidentales: procesos de incorporación territorial a las Monarquías Ibéricas, Mexico 2012, 43–67, esp. pp. 54–6; G. Parker, Emperor: a new life of Charles V, New Haven 2019.

⁵¹ J. Israel, Razas, clases sociales y vida política en el México colonial, 1610–1670, trans. R. Gómez Ciriza, Mexico City 1999, 98; A. Ávila, ‘La crisis del patriotismo criollo: el discurso eclesiástico de José Mariano Beristáin’, in A. Mayer and E. Torre Villar (eds), Religión, poder y autoridad en la Nueva España, Mexico City 2004, 205–20.

⁵² Eire, C., From Madrid to purgatory: the art and craft of dying in sixteenth-century Spain, Cambridge 1995, 508Google Scholar.

⁵³ J. Ruiz Ibáñez and G. Sabatini (eds), La Inmaculada Concepción y la monarquía hispánica, Madrid 2019, 16. This has been a recurrent theme in scholarship. The formation of a pious rhetoric of identity in the Americas in the seventeenth century, often linked to the political consolidation of the creole population, indeed found echoes in the early cults of American saints throughout the century: R. Morgan, Spanish American saints and the rhetoric of identity, 1600–1810, Tucson, Az 2002; A. Greer and J. Bilinkoff (eds), Colonial saints: discovering the holy in the Americas, 1500–1800, New York 2003. However, these studies tend to focus their arguments mainly on the formation of a singular creole ethos, which has been historically linked to the emergence of an early desire for autonomy of the Spanish empire, as shown by the temporal delimitation of most of these studies, that always conclude with the first calls for independence of the American kingdoms. By contrast, I assign a more prominent role in the invention of American saints in the seventeenth century to the creation of a renewed religious identity across the Catholic monarchy, which only started to acquire a separatist tone in the late eighteenth century.

⁵⁴ Valladares, Católico yugo, 17.

⁵⁵ Gruzinski, S., Las cuatro partes del mundo: historia de una mundialización, Mexico City 2010, 35, 47Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ ‘Un vasallo canonizado en el nuevo orbe entre las nuevas plantas de los indios, y en el cielo una presea de un santo que ante Dios pida aumento del imperio’: the city of Puebla to Philip iv 30 May 1640, Archivo General de Indias, México, l. 340, unnumbered.

⁵⁷ Archivo Histórico de la Municipalidad de Lima, libro de cédulas y provisiones, 3C, fos 54v–55v.

⁵⁸ J. Cuadriello, ‘Del escudo de armas al estandarte mexicano’, in Los pinceles de la historia: de la patria criolla a la nación mexicana, 1750–1860, Mexico City 2000, 39.

⁵⁹ Or, as a dichotomic tension between a community and the official approval or rejection of its cult, from which general trends have been identified: Delooz, Sociologie et canonisations; Burke, ‘How to be a Counter-Reformation saint’. Other examples are A. Vauchez, La Sainteté en occident aux derniers siècles du moyen âge: d'après les procès de canonisation et les documents hagiographiques, Rome 1981; Weinstein, D. and Bell, R., Saints and society: the two worlds of Western Christendom, 1000–1700, Chicago 1982; and the studies contained in S. Wilson (ed.), Saints and their cults: studies in religious sociology, folklore and history, New York 1983Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ Labarga, F., ‘1622 o la canonización de la Reforma Católica’, Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia xxix (2020), 73–126CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vincent-Cassy, ‘Luchar por su santo’.