“The evangelical prophecies over Jerusalem have been fulfilled”: Joachim of Fiore, the Jews, Fray Diego de Landa and the Maya

Abstract

Since its rediscovery in the nineteenth century, Fray Diego de Landa's Relación de las cosas de Yucatán (1566?) has been essential reading for specialists in various areas of Mesoamerican or Mayan studies. In this study, however, I focus on Landa himself rather than on Maya society at the time of European contact. Specifically, I argue that Landa's project was informed by the medieval Joachimist tradition and examine the ways this strain of millenarian thought helped to frame Fray Diego's understanding of the importance of the Maya, the way he wrote about them and the way he treated them as leader of the church in Yucatán. Landa stands out from other Franciscan missionaries of his time because of his savage inquisitorial practices. I suggest Landa's approach to converting the Maya is best understood as consistent with Spanish practices well established in the late Middle Ages during the period of intense conversion of the Jews.