Clothing the New World Church

How churches were adorned and their priests were clothed played important roles in Catholic evangelization in the New World. In this book Maya Stanfield-Mazzi examines the cloth that adorned churches and the vestments worn by the clergy. While this might seem a narrow topic of interest to specialists in textile history, it provides a window into many aspects of Spanish American colonial cultural and social history.To exalt God and attract adherents, churches and patrons sought high-quality materials and skills to manufacture liturgical textiles. To reflect this, the book is structured by the hierarchy of fibers and products used, with the first chapter on silk, the most esteemed textile, followed by chapters on embroidery, featherwork, tapestry, painted cotton, and cotton lace. Each chapter treats a particular fiber or product and examines its origins, how artisans were trained, and how production was organized. Stanfield-Mazzi also analyzes the designs, techniques, and imagery associated with each textile type, focusing on the region where skills were most highly developed. Although each chapter focuses on a single type, the analysis reveals hybridity in both the use of materials and ideas.The first two chapters, on silk and embroidery respectively, examine the nature of both industries in Spain. Initially, bolts of plain silk fabrics and damask with small-scale floral patterns were exported to Spanish America, where they were made into clothing and other products. The silk and silk textile industry that later developed in Mexico mirrored the industry's organizational structure in Spain, but Stanfield-Mazzi shows how Indigenous Mexicans and Africans were often trained and worked in textile workshops, despite legislation banning this. Stanfield-Mazzi also shows how silk fabrics might incorporate Chinese motifs and French designs as well as silver and gold thread and ribbons that became available locally as silver mining developed. The book includes a full discussion of different types of embroidery, which constitutes a good introduction for those wishing to learn more about the art without being totally overwhelmed by detail. Perhaps a little more could have been said about the nature and adoption of Chinese silk textiles and designs, which became common from the end of the sixteenth century.The production of church textiles, particularly featherwork and tapestry, depended on Indigenous materials and skills. Featherwork was not used for liturgical purposes in the Old World, although birds and feathers might be depicted in designs. However, drawing extensively on Mexican codices, Stanfield-Mazzi shows how featherwork was highly developed in pre-Columbian times, with Mexica warrior elites wearing feather headdresses and costumes. Dazzled by this exquisite work, the Franciscans and Augustinians continued the tradition, and the church incorporated featherwork as symbolizing evangelization's success. Following the Indigenous practice of using feather headdresses to symbolize the highest priestly authority, feathers were commonly used in miters worn by those highest in the Catholic Church hierarchy. Understandably the book focuses on featherwork's use in Mexico, but an account of pre-Columbian featherwork in the Andes and a fuller exploration of why it was not adopted for liturgical purposes there would have been useful. After all, feathers equally symbolized high status among the Incas.While the Spanish did not adopt featherwork in the Andes, they did embrace Indigenous tapestry there. The Incas wove fine q'umpi (cumbi) cloth made of native camelid wool and cotton, worn by royal elites and used as wrappings for mummies. The Spanish employed it to cover altars, walls, and floors. Stanfield-Mazzi shows how at first locally produced altar frontals often combined Inca death imagery, notably skulls, with Christ's stigmata. Later, however, the structure of q'umpi cloth production by specialist artisans broke down under Spanish conquest and as Christian attempts to root out idolatry in the Andes discouraged the liturgical use of Indigenous materials and imagery. Q'umpi altar tapestries also declined with the increased availability of Chinese silk and Andean silver, which were higher-status products.The study analyzes textile from an impressive range of museums, private collections, and individual churches scattered in Mexico and the Andes as well as Europe and the United States. A sample of some 200 textiles are illustrated in color in the book. The study is also enriched by documentary sources from archives in Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Finally, the book includes simple diagrams of how different textiles and stitches are produced and a helpful glossary of liturgical and textile terms. Therefore, as well as being a scholarly volume of value to art historians, the book is an excellent introduction to textile production in Spanish America for the nonspecialist.The book's scope is already broad, so it is perhaps unreasonable to suggest that more could have been said about other regions of Spanish America beyond Mexico and part of the Andes. Even if textiles were not made locally, they might have reached even distant churches by trade or commission. This quibble aside, this is a beautifully produced book of value to nonspecialist colonial historians and textile scholars, who will learn much about the social and cultural context in which church textiles were produced

Archaeology · Art · Clothing · Colonialism · Factory (object-oriented programming) · Hierarchy · Hybridity · Literature · Political science · Product (mathematics) · Sociology · Textile · Visual arts · Historical Studies in Latin America · History · Latin American history and culture · Law