ABSTRACT
In the history of what has come to be known as the “Spiritual Conquest” of Mexico, the Franciscan order was the first and always the most conspicuous protagonist. Recruited from the newly reformed province of San Gabriel de Extremadura, the twelve Franciscans who arrived in Mexico in 1524 were animated by a zealous desire to reproduce the virtues of the early church in the New World, an ambition soon to be reinforced by the way in which thousands of Indians flocked to hear the Christian message and submitted readily to baptism. With the parishes administered by the religious, and with the bishops appointed from the mendicant orders themselves, the new church, unhampered by the burden of wealth and pomp which afflicted its European counterpart, saw itself as a worthy successor of the early church of the Apostles. In the pursuit of this objective the liturgical calendar was exploited to the full: elaborate rounds of processions, dances, feasts, outdoor masses, passion and nativity plays, and penitential sessions, were eagerly devised to replace pagan ceremonies, thus giving the first years of Christian evangelization in the New World an unmatched euphoric quality. 1
