Publisher's Synopsis
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.
