Indian Languages Database
Record Details
[The dogmas of the Church and devotional materials in Nahuatl.]
[Mexico City?]: , [after 1572]
Physical Description: 125 leaves; ill.; 15 cm. (16 cm. in case) (8vo)
Call number: Codex / Ind / 7
Accession number: 06395
Notes: Ms. codex. Dogmas of the Catholic Church and catechistic expositions including sections on sin and atonement (leaves [1 recto-31 verso]) -- On the sacraments of Holy Communion in six chapters (leaves [31 verso-48 verso]) -- Exposition of the significance of various major Christian festivals, especially the Nativity and the Assumption of the Virgin (leaves [49 recto-78 verso]) -- A rough drawing, in pen and ink, representing Jesus (leaf [78 verso]) -- Forms of the offices of the Church, including Vespers and Compline, with many prayers in adoration of Jesus Christ or invoking the Virgin (leaves [79 recto-104 recto]) -- Further devotions undifferentiated with apparently historical exposition running from 1520 (leaf [112 recto]) to 1569 (leaf [113 recto]) (leaves [104 verso-125 verso]).
Title supplied by cataloguer.
Author misidentified as Bernadino de Sahagún by Dr. Nicolás León in his Biblioteca mexicana, printed in Mexico City, 1896.
Research by Louise Burkhart, which is included in the JCB bibliographical file, has demonstrated that it is not the work of Sahagún or his pupils, and contains none of his handwriting.
Approximate date of publication can be assumed from the inclusion of text translated by the Franciscan father Alonso de Molina of a 1572 text concerning members of the Confraternity of the Rosary, and some text drawn from Doctrina Christiana en lengua mexicana by Pedro de Gante, first printed in Mexico City, 1553.
Some descriptions of this manuscript have claimed that the last two parts are in the Tarascan language but the manual is uniformly in the Nahuatl language, aside from some brief passages in Latin and some Spanish loan words.
In some parts of the manuscript the leaves are numbered as pages and it is unclear whether this was done at the time of composition; leaves as they are bound in the manuscript may not necessarily be in order.
The manuscript includes some translated extracts of the Bible, counter to official Catholic Church practice following the Council of Trent. It also includes a translation by the Franciscan father Alonso de Molina of a 1572 text concerning members of the Confraternity of the Rosary, and some text drawn from Doctrina Christiana en lengua mexicana by Pedro de Gante, first printed in Mexico City, 1553.
Text written primarily in black ink with some colored rubicated initials.
John Carter Brown Library copy imperfect: text is incomplete and what is numbered as leaf [1] recto begins in mid-sentence; many leaves are stained and brittle on foredges and some leaves are fully detached; it is unclear whether the text is incomplete on leaf [125] verso; some leaves are trimmed and torn with loss of text.
John Carter Brown has a short paper by Louise Burkhart describing this manuscript housed in the JCB bibliographical file.
John Carter Brown Library copy bound in contemporary full limp vellum and housed in a brown cloth slipcase measuring 17 cm. tall.
Digital facsimile copy of book available.
Languages: Nahuatl
Genre: Bible selections / Catechisms and Creeds
Region: Spanish America
