Fray Bernardo de Lizana’s Book and the Litigation over Franciscan Doctrines in Seventeenth-Century Yucatán

Abstract

This article proposes that the book Devocionario de Nuestra Señora de Izamal, by Fray Bernardo de Lizana, was more than just a text promoting Marian devotion; it served as an instrument of defense for the Seraphic Order in the first process of doctrinal secularization that took place in Yucatán (1580–1680). Fray Bernardo compiled both written and oral memory and constructed a literary work in which he sought to demonstrate to the Spanish Crown, through the friar Commissioner General of the Indies, the falsehood of the Franciscan tarnish, the thaumaturgic power of the Virgin, the blessed lives of the members of its organization, and the events that happened to the martyrs of Petén Itzá, a discourse that implicitly entails the need to maintain the Franciscans in missions of spiritual conquest. All the above was written with the notorious intention of defending against the attacks suffered by the pioneering religious corporation, a process that this study traces and demonstrates.