Angels, Demons and the New World

Depicts the intricate cultural, religious and intellectual kaleidoscope of interactions between angels, demons and the heterogeneous populations of Spanish America.

Fernando Cervantes (Edited by), Andrew Redden (Edited by)

9780521764582, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 February 2013

330 pages, 22 b/w illus. 1 map
23.5 x 16 x 2.4 cm, 0.62 kg

'This is a major addition to the scholarship of diabolism and the less often addressed matters of angelology as well as an important area of connection between Europeans and the New World.' Leonard R. N. Ashley, Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance

When European notions about angels and demons were exported to the New World, they underwent remarkable adaptations. Angels and demons came to form an integral part of the Spanish American cosmology, leading to the emergence of colonial urban and rural landscapes set within a strikingly theological framework. Belief in celestial and demonic spirits soon regulated and affected the daily lives of Spanish, Indigenous and Mestizo peoples, while missionary networks circulated these practices to create a widespread and generally accepted system of belief that flourished in seventeenth-century Baroque culture and spirituality. This study of angels and demons opens a particularly illuminating window onto intellectual and cultural developments in the centuries that followed the European encounter with America. The volume will be of interest to scholars and students of religious studies, anthropology of religion, history of ideas, Latin American colonial history and church history.

Introduction Fernando Cervantes and Andrew Redden
Part I. From the Old World to the New: 1. The devil in the old world: anti-superstition literature, medical humanism and preternatural philosophy in early modern Spain Andrew Keitt
2. Demonios within and without: Hieronymites and the devil in the early modern Hispanic world Kenneth Mills
3. How to see angels: the resilience of Mendicant spirituality in Spanish America Fernando Cervantes
Part II. Indigenous and Afro-American Responses: 4. Satan is my nickname: demonic and angelic interventions in colonial Nahuatl theatre Louise Burkhart
5. Vipers under the altar cloth: Satanic and angelic forms in seventeenth-century New Granada Andrew Redden
6. Where did all the angels go? An interpretation of the Nahua supernatural world Caterina Pizzigoni
Part III. The World of the Baroque: 7. Angels and demons in the conquest of Peru Ramón Mujica Pinilla
8. Winged and imagined Indians Jaime Cuadriello
9. Psychomachia Indiana: angels, devils and holy images in New Spain David Brading.

Subject Areas: Church history [HRCC2], Religion: general [HRA]