Doctor Navarro in the Americas: The Circulation and Use of Martín de Azpilcueta's Work in Early-Modern Mexico

This chapter analyses the use and circulation of some theological and canonical ideas from Martín de Azpilcueta’s (1492–1586) opus in New Spain during the first century after the fall of the Nahua capital Mexico-Tenochtitlan in 1521. I aim to assess Azpilcueta’s relevance in creating knowledge in 16th-century Mexico. To do so, I have tracked his main work—Manual de confesores y penitentes, and its Latin translation Enchiridion sive Manuale confessariorum—in Franciscan library inventories and confessional texts produced in Mexico. My emphasis is placed on the 1585 Directorio para confesores and works by late 16th-century Franciscan friars like Fray Juan de la Concepción and Fray Juan Bautista de Viseo. By scrutinising Azpilcueta in these texts, I want to show that Dr. Navarrus, as he was also known, was effectively present in local libraries in colonial Mexico, as well as hypothesise the use of his works by those who prepared their confessional handbooks. Because these confessional texts addressed behavioural conducts within Indigenous and Hispanic peoples, Azpilcueta, even if indirectly, contributed to the constitution of normative orders within the colonial regime. I thus conclude that Dr. Navarrus’ theological and canonical knowledge left a normative imprint in 16th- and early 17th-century New Spain.