Intimate Indulgences: Salvation and Local Religion in Eighteenth-Century Santiago de Guatemala

Abstract

Most studies of pious foundations in colonial Spanish America examine an elite spiritual economy that was headed primarily by noble patriarchs whose substantial endowments sponsored the ecclesiastical careers of descendants and reinforced ties between elite families and the clergy. This analysis takes a different approach and examines modest perpetual mass foundations funded by a broader array of benefactors. These perpetual mass foundations illuminate an alternative spiritual economy in eighteenth-century Santiago de Guatemala marked by the active participation of sacred images and spaces, priests and monastic communities, and single and widowed laywomen. This analysis offers a new lens onto local religion in a colonial Spanish American urban center and reveals the complex web of relationships that framed death and salvation.