Magistrates of the Sacred by William B Taylor

Magistrates of the Sacred by William B Taylor

This work is an extraordinarily rich account of the social, political, cultural, and religious relationships between parish priests and their parishioners in colonial Mexico. It explores a wide range of issues - the competing interpretations of religious dogma and beliefs, questions of practical ethics and daily behaviour, the texture of social relations in rural communities and the relationship to authority and the state. Parish priests, as agents of the state religion and as intermediaries both between parishioners and higher authorities and between the sacred and the profane, performed a pivotal role in colonial society. This book provides a social history of parish priests at work and examines the wider religious and political culture of their parishes. The book concludes by moving a step beyond the conventional termination of colonial history in 1810 to consider the famed role of parish priests as fighters and leaders in the struggle for Mexican independence.

'In this impressive and meticulously researched book, William Taylor attempts an exhaustive study of parish priests and their parishioners in late colonial MexicoOf particular interest is the author's insistence that priests ought to be placed in the context of a remarkable governmental system which survived for almost three centuries despite great inequalities, little social mobility, and the absence of a standing army; for it is clear that is such a context parish priests were a key element of the local practice of legitimacy and authority in Spanish America.'Journal of Ecclesiastical History

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780804736596
ISBN 10	0804736596
Title	Magistrates of the Sacred
Author	William B Taylor
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Stanford University Press
Year published	1999-01-01
Number of pages	886
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.