Into the Archive: Paleography, Diplomatics and the Practice of Writing in Colonial Spanish America 

Orientation

Typically, courses in Spanish paleography taught in American universities take the form of loosely structured seminars that focus on step-by-step transcriptions of archival material collected by instructors. While helpful and flexible, this format tends to limit the range of documents to which students gain exposure and leaves little room for discussion of either the institutional contexts in which documents are produced or their practical effects on social life. This experimental graduate workshop attempts a different approach. While the primary aim – to advance participants' ability to transcribe and interpret early modern written documents – remains the same, we will use this forum to consider some of the deeper implications of the study of early modern writing, particularly in colonial contexts. To this effect, our weekly agenda follows two intertwined areas of study: 1) diplomatics - the study of the creation, form, and transmission of records, particularly their institutional contexts and their relationship to the facts presented in them; 2) textual semiotics and pragmatics – theories of what writing means, as well as what it does.

It is expected that participants will possess varying levels of experience in early modern Spanish Paleography and diplomatics and diverse research interests. The topics and exercises laid out below are open for discussion, and the agenda at our first meeting will be to lay out our collective research interests and alter the list of readings and exercises to best suit them. It is expected that case material will derive primarily from Spanish colonial South America and Mesoamerica, but the reading list is flexible, and interests in Iberia, Spanish North America, the Spanish Caribbean and/or the Philippines can be accommodated, so long as they fall within the 16^th-18^th centuries.

Reference Text

Carlin, Roberta. 2009. A Paleographic Guide to Spanish Abbreviations, 1500-1700.

Course Outline (starred readings indicate key readings for discussion)

1. Paleography 101

* Thoroughly read all pages in “Getting Started” and “Types of Records” Areas of the Spanish Section on the Script Tutorials Website, which can be found at http://script.byu.edu/

PALEOGRAPHIC EXERCISE: Transcribe short sections of 19^th, 18^th, 17^th, and 16^th century documents (the same text, if available)

2. The Structure of Spanish Colonial Administration

* Lynch, John. 1992. “The Institutional Framework of Colonial Spanish America.” Journal of Latin America Studies 24. Quincentenary Supplement: The Colonial and Post Colonial Experience. Five Centuries of Spanish and Portuguese America. Pp. 69-81.

* Cook, Noble David. 2008. “Visitas, Censuses, and Other Sources of Population Information,” in Pillsbury, Joanne, ed. Guide to Documentary Sources for Andean Studies, 1530-1900. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Pp. 129-144.

* Macleod, Murdo. 1998. “Self Promotion: the Relaciones de Meritos y Servicios and their Historical and Political Interpretation.” Colonial Latin American Historical Review. 76(1): 25-42.

Cespedes del Castillo, Guillermo. 1946. “La Visita Como Institucion Indiana.” Anuario de Estudios Americanos 3: 984-1025.

PALEOGRAPHIC EXCERCISE: Visita from Chachapoyas, Peru

3. Economics and Accounting

* TePaske, John Jay. 2008. “Economic Texts,” in Pillsbury, Joanne, ed.. Guide to Documentary Sources for Andean Studies, 1530-1900. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Pp. 120-129.

* Urton, Gary. 2009. “Sin, Confession, and the Arts of Book- and Cord-Keeping: An Intercontinental and Transcultural Exploration of Accounting and Governmentality.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 51(4): 801-831.

PALEOGRAPHIC EXCERCISE: Numbers, Weights, and Measures

4. Jurisprudence

* Andrien, Kenneth. 2008. “Legal and Administrative Documents.” in Pillsbury, Joanne, ed. Guide to Documentary Sources for Andean Studies, 1530-1900. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.

* Cunningham, Charles. 1917. “The Residencia in the Spanish Colonies.” Southwestern Historical Review 21(3): 253-178.

PALEOGRAPHIC EXCERCISE: Selection from Residencia of Gregorio Gonzalez de Cuenca

5. The Church and Ecclesiastical Archives

* Deeds, Eric. 2008. “Church History: Institutions and Archives.”  in Pillsbury, Joanne, ed. Guide to Documentary Sources for Andean Studies, 1530-1900. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. 166-183.

* Hernandez Palermo, Jose. 2008  “Jesuit Annual Letters from Peru.” in Pillsbury, Joanne, ed. Guide to Documentary Sources for Andean Studies, 1530-1900. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. 276-280.

* Mills, Kenneth. 2008. “Provincial Councils: Overview and Commentary.” in Pillsbury, Joanne, ed. Guide to Documentary Sources for Andean Studies, 1530-1900. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. 189-196.

PALEOGRAPHIC EXCERCISE: Breviary from Magdalena de Cao

6. Notaries

* Burns, Kathryn. 2009. Into the Archive: Writing and Power in Colonial Peru. Durham, NC: Duke University Press (PART I).

* Lockhart, James. 1968. “Bibliography,” in Spanish Peru, 1532-1560: A Social History. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Pp. 302-314.

PALEOGRAPHIC EXERCISE: Notarial ledgers

7. What is An Archive?

* Burns, Kathryn. 2009. Into the Archive: Writing and Power in Colonial Peru. Durham, NC: Duke University Press (PART II).

PALEOGRAPHIC EXERCISE: TBD

8. Bookmaking, Printing, Paper-Making

* Edwards, Howell G.M. et al. 2001. “Application of FT-Raman spectroscopy to the characterisation of parchment and vellum, I; novel information for paleographic and historiated manuscript studies.” Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy 57(6): 1223-1234.

* Hunter, Dard. 1978 [1943]. Papermaking: the History and Technique of an Ancient Craft. Mineola, NY: Dover. (Chapters IV, V, VI, VIII, XI, XVII)

* Woodbridge, Hensley C. and Lawrence S. Thompson. 1976. Printing in Colonial Spanish America. Troy, NY: Whitston Publishing Company. (selection)

Fryer, Celia A. 2000. "Spanish and Italian Watermarks in Colonial Guatemalan Books," Daniel W. Mosser, Michael Saffle, and Ernest W. Sullivan II, eds., Puzzles in Paper: Concepts in Historical Watermarks. Pp. 37-55

Torre Revello, Jose. 1940. Origenes de la Imprenta en España y su Desarrollo en América Española. Buenos Aires: Editorial Araujo.

PALEOGRAPHIC EXERCISE: Type from 15^th-19^th centuries; identification of similar faces, presses

9. Graphic Pluralism

* Boone, Elizabeth H. 1994. “Introduction: Writing and Recording Knowledge,” in Boone, Elizabeth H. and Walter Mignolo, eds., Writing Without Words: Alternative Literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Pp. 3-27.

* Salomon, Frank and Sabine Hyland. 2010. “Guest Editor’s Introduction: Graphic Pluralism.” Ethnohistory 57(1): 1-9.

PALEOGRAPHIC EXERCISE: Transcription of Quechua passage; Exploratory analysis of Khipu data

Optional

Bender, Margaret. 2010. “Reflections on What Writing Means, Beyond What it ‘Says:’ The Economy and Semiotics of Graphic Pluralism in the Americas.” Ethnohistory 57(1): 175-182.

Boone, Elizabeth H. 1992. “Pictorial Documents and Visual Thinking in Postconquest Mexico,” in Boone, Elizabeth H. and Tom Cummins, eds., Native Traditions in the Postconquest World. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks. Pp. 149-199.

Brokaw, Galen. 2010. “Indigenous American Polygraphy and the Dialogic Model of Media.” Ethnohistory 57(1): 117-133.

Chuchiak, John F. 2010. “Writing as Resistance: Maya Graphic Pluralism and Indigenous Elite Strategies for Survival in Colonial Yucatán, 1550-1750.” Ethnohistory  57(1): 87-116.

Hyland, Sabine. “Sodomy, Sin and String Writing: The Moral Origins of Andean Khipu.” 165-173.

Urton, Gary. 2010. “Numerical Graphic Pluralism in the Colonial Andes.” Ethnohistory 57(1): 135-164.

10. Textual Semiotics

* McLuhan, Marshall. 2002. Understanding Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (Selections.)

* Chabrol, Claude, ed. 1978. Semiotics and Language: An Analytical Dictionary. Trans, Crist, L. and D. Patte. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. (Selections)

* Stewart, Susan. 1993. On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. (Selections.)

PALEOGRAPHIC EXERCISE: TBD

11. Textual Pragmatics

* Goody, Jack. 1986. The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

* Rama, Angel. 1996. The Lettered City. Chasten, John Charles, trans. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

[Weeks 12-13 – Optional Topics Chosen from Below]

Week 14: Presentations

*No Reading or Paleographic Exercises*

-------------

Suggested Optional topics

Historiography

Salomon, Frank. 2002. “Unethnic Ethnohistory: On Peruvian Peasant Historiography and Ideas of Autochthony.” Ethnohistory 49(3): 475-506.

Historicity and History-Making

Urton, Gary. 1991. The History of a Myth: Pacariqtambo and the Origins of the Inkas. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Translation

Durston, Alan. 2007. Pastoral Quechua: The History of Christian Translation in Colonial Peru, 1550-1650. South Bend, IN: Notre Dame University Press.

Quantitative Approaches

Wernke, Steven A. 2007.  “Negotiating Community and Landscape in the Peruvian Andes: A Transconquest View.” American Anthropologist 109 (1):130-152.

Print Capitalism and the Transformation of the Scriptural Economy

Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined Communities. Third Edition. London: Verso.

Hampe Martinez, Teodoro. 2008. “Periodicals, Newspapers, and Pamphlets,” in Pillsbury, Joanne, ed. Guide to Documentary Sources for Andean Studies, 1530-1900. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.  383-387.

Cartography

Padrón, Ricardo.  2004. The Spacious Word: Cartography, Literature, and Empire in Early Modern Spain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.