Guanajuato Revisited Part 9 of 17: The Mercedario Order and the rescue of Christian slaves.

San Pedro Nolasco, founder of the Mercedarios. Nolasco stands over a freed slave, wearing the robe of a Mercedario. The robe's white color, a symbol of purity, was authorized by Bishop Berenguer of Barcelona's Catedral de la Santa Cruz. Barcelona was the capital of the Principality of Catalonia, a part of the Kingdom of Aragon. It was an important port city from which many Christians had been captured and enslaved by Muslim raiders over the centuries. 

In this posting, I will show the interior of the Templo de Merced de Mellado, but also recount the history of the Royal, Celestial, and Military Order of Our Lady of Mercy and the Redemption of Captives, commonly known as the Mercedarios. According to the legend, after San Pedro Nolasco's encounter with Our Lady of Mercy in 1218, he changed his secular organization into a religious order. In this posting, I'll trace the facts of what is known about these intrepid friars. 

The coat-of-arms of King James I of Aragon. In the painting at the top, Nolasco holds the banner of his Order containing the coat-of-arms of the King James I of Aragon, who had authorized its use by the Mercedarios. They wore a small version of it on their chests in the center of their robes. 

The emblem consists of a shield with the crown of Aragon on top. Below the crown is a field of red with the white cross of the Maltese Knights in its center. The lower half of the shield is covered with alternating vertical stripes of red and yellow, the symbol of Catalonia.

The Barbary Coast of North Africa was infested with pirates. In the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries they operated out of the many ports along the coast which had ready markets for Christian slaves and became known as the Barbary Coast. People were captured at sea or in raids on the European coastal cities, such as Barcelona on the northeast coast of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain). The Ottoman Empire, in the Eastern Mediterranean, also had a large market for such slaves. 

This had been going on for centuries, ever since the rapid expansion of the Islamic Caliphates across North Africa in the 7th century. In 711 AD, an Islamic army of North African Berbers called the Moors crossed the Mediterranean and invaded the Iberian Peninsula. They swiftly conquered the Christian Visigoth Kingdom and took over almost the entire Peninsula. However, small Christian kingdoms in the mountainous north of the Peninsula managed to survive.

The struggle of these Christian pockets to survive and expand against the Moors is called La Reconquista (The Re-Conquest). After 781 years, it was finally completed when the last Moorish enclave of Granada fell in 1492. During La Reconquista, a market for war captives as slaves soon developed. The wealthy captives were often ransomed fairly quickly, but the poor faced a lifetime of often brutal servitude, with little hope of freedom. 

White-robed Mercedarios, clutching pouches of money, negotiate for slaves. In the background, the Virgin of Mercy looks on. The two captives are kneeling at the left and one of them is draped with a chain to which his wrists are manacled. The other captive raises his arm to ward off a blow. The two Mercedarios are identified in the caption at the bottom of the woodcut as French. 

So, how did the Mercedarios actually use the ransom money they collected to rescue Christian slaves? Some of the transactions, like the one in the photo above, were fairly straight-forward.  Money was paid for live bodies at a carefully negotiated price. However, interacting with pirates, slave merchants, slave owners, and various levels of officialdom could be tricky and even dangerous, since all of them were Muslim and potentially hostile to Christian friars. 

Mercedarios were sent two at at time on missions they called "redemptions". Sometimes a pair of ransomers could manage to free as many as 200 or more captives at a time, depending upon the resources available. When ransoms were not sufficient or welcomed, the Mercedarios were sometimes able to free the slaves covertly, although this was extremely dangerous and, to the Muslims, amounted to outright theft. 

Nave of the Templo de la Merced de Mellado 

The Mercedario Templo's nave is in the form of a Latin cross. Above each of the four columns supporting the dome over the center of the the nave's cross are triangular paintings of a Mercedario in his white robes. At each end of the cross are capillas (chapels), one devoted to the Virgen de  Guadalupe, the other to San Gonzalo de Amarante. The overall style of the interior and its decorations is Neo-Classic.

 Some examples of the dangers Mercedarios faced include: 

"...in Saracen lands, opposition was everywhere for the first Mercedarios. They were slapped, stoned, beaten, wounded, and dragged through the streets." According to one study, between 1218 and 1490, sixty-eight Mercedarios were killed on ransom missions. An unknown, but probably large, number undoubtedly died during the 15-year period between Pedro Nolasco's first ransom work in 1203 and his alleged encounter with the Virgin of Mercy in 1218.  

San Serapion (1179-1240) was a Mercedario from Scotland who had served as a soldier in the army of Richard the Lion-Heart and later under Alfonso VIII during the Reconquista. During a redemption he volunteered to stay behind so that ransomed captives could be freed. However, while his own ransom was being raised "the Muslims grew impatient and crucified the saint."

San Pedro Nonatus (1204-1240) succeeded Pedro Nolasco as Chief Ransomer. On one mission "he remained as a hostage for several slaves when his money ran out." After he had converted several Muslims, the local governor had him tortured by padlocking his lips together and threatened him with death. Nolasco was finally able to ransom him after 8 months. 

Two Mercedarios, Fra. Teobaldo and Fra. Fernando were sent to Tunis in 1253 to ransom 129 captives. On the way, "one of them was the victim of rapacious locals who tried to trap him into marriage to a Moorish beauty. He endured trial, burning, and eventually death by stoning. His companion was luck to escape with just a beating."

Main altar statue of Nuestra Señora de la Merced. In this version of the Virgin Mary, she is usually shown as she appears above, wearing a white gown and a crown, with her head surrounded by a large golden halo. The Virgin of Mercy also usually holds the Baby Jesus, who also wears a crown.

Very little is known of the early life of Pedro Nolasco. He was born in 1189 but most of the stories about that period of his life were created between the 15th and 17th centuries, so they should be taken with a large grain of salt. Nolasco's first documented appearance was in 1226, as a collector of alms in the French Pyrenees city of Perpignan. The first evidence of his collecting money for ransoms occurred in 1230. A man named Maimó Gombal set aside 100 Papal States scudi to be given to Nolasco for that purpose. 

Some stories about Pedro Nolasco's youth claim he was a soldier who fought the Moors in skirmishes along the borders of Aragon. As such, he would have been aware of the fate of those who were captured. In other stories, he became a merchant-trader, dealing with the Moors during the periodic times of peace. Both versions may (or may not) be true. In either capacity, Nolasco would have come in contact with Christian slaves in the hands of Moors.

Nolasco's motives for rescuing the Christian slaves were complex. A Mercedario website states that "he was cut to the heart by their suffering", but also admits that "the real reason (he) mourned the captives was because of their loss of faith." The risk that a captive would convert to Islam was very real because it might result in better treatment, perhaps even freedom. In other words, a Christian slave's fate in the afterlife ranked higher to Nolasco than the captive's suffering at the moment. 

The Templo's organ sits on a platform to one side of the choir loft. While not as elaborate as some I have seen in various churches, the organ is fully functional and is still used in concerts that are very popular in Guanajuato. It was installed in the mid-1750s after the Templo was built and its use was popular even then. 

According to the legend, during the night in 1218 when Pedro Nolasco was told by the Virgin of Mercy to transform his secular organization into a religious order, she also appeared to two other important figures to give them a similar message. Aragon's King James I and the Dominican friar Raymond of Penyafort (Pedro Nolasco's confessor), both allegedly received visits and subsequently laid claim to some credit for the founding of the Order.

James did give diplomatic protection, economic support and promoted gifts to the Mercedarios. However, the tales about the Virgin's visit to him (or to Fra. Raymond) didn't appear until the reigns of the king's successors, James II and Peter IV. In fact, no documents connect James I to the Mercedarios until the late 1230s or early 1240s. The later kings apparently wanted the political benefit of associating themselves with a miracle allegedly experienced by their predecessor. 

One of the four triangular paintings atop columns supporting the dome. The white-robed figure is clearly a Mercedario, but his first name and the first letter of his last are missing. The name shown at the bottom only reads "...AAVEDRA", which is probably the Spanish name Saavedra. The inscription below the name is illegible, except for a date of 1771. The three other paintings contain similar portraits of the Mercedario friars Pedro de Amo, Geronimo Carmelo, and Pedro Pasquia. 

Nolasco had begun collecting ransom money in 1203, fifteen years prior to his famous encounter with the Virgin of Mercy. Over those years he had assembled a secular organization made up of devoted followers. Constant struggles to raise money and keep his organization together must have been extremely difficult. Nolasco apparently decided in 1230 to strengthen the organization and ensure its survival by re-creating it as a religious order. 

By 1236,  Nolasco had managed to gain the support of Pope  Gregory IX, who formally recognized the Mercedarios as a new religious Order under the monastic rules set by San Agustin (St. Augustine). Another advance for the Mercedarios was a recent series of Christian battlefield successes. This had opened up new land for the kingdoms of both Aragon and Valencia and some of these properties were donated to the Order, enabling its rapid expansion.

This may be one of the famous Michoacan corn paste statues. In the 16th century, native craftsmen in Michoacan began creating statues of Jesus on the cross. Made from corn pith beaten in to paste from stalks, they were startlingly realistic in their portrayal of the structure of the human body. In addition, the statues were so light of weight that they were easy to carry in religious processions. They became so popular that they were shipped to churches all over Nueva España. 

Upon the Order's formal creation, Pedro Nolasco became its Superior, the Commander-General, and its Ransomer. Even so, he was never ordained as a priest. After 40 years of ransoming slaves, Nolasco retired in 1243 and died in 1256. During his lifetime, his organization (secular and later religious) rescued over 2,700 captives. Over their total history, the Mercedarios freed over 70,000. It took 400 years but, in 1628, Pope Urban VIII finally canonized him as San Pedro Nolasco.

After Nolasco's retirement, he was succeeded Guillaume Le Bas. The new Commander-General rapidly launched the Order into the territories brought under Christian control during this stage of the Reconquista. However, it had the effect of creating internal organizational turmoil. The observance of the Rule of San Agustin weakened as the number of new convents increased. In 1271, Nolasco's 3rd successor,  Bernard de Saint-Romaine, codified the rules into the Constitution of 1272. 

The 1272 Constitution explicitly set forth a requirement for the Mercedarios espoused by Pedro Nolasco, but which had never previously been codified. The requirement is that, in order to avoid a Christian slave's loss of faith, a Mercedario must be willing to take the slave's place, or even die if necessary. 

This unidentified statue is probably John the Baptist. The man whom the New Testament says baptized Jesus is usually shown dressed in humble clothing and fully or partially bare-chested.

During the exuberant Renaissance era (14th-15th centuries) the observance of Church rules and customs such as poverty and chastity were weakened. This loose enforcement of rules and sometimes outright corruption spread through many of the religious orders and Church organizations.  Some convents within the Mercedarios were affected. 

When the Protestant Reformation began at the start of the 16th century, the Catholic Church responded with its Counter-Reformation. The Mercedarios followed suit by refocusing on the Augustinian rules that governed their Order. This was one of several great changes that occurred within the Mercedario Order at the turn of the 16th century.

Capilla de la Virgen de Guadalupe 

One of the two side chapels of the Templo is devoted to the Virgen de Guadalupe. Legend has it that this dark-skinned, Nahuatl-speaking version of the Virgin Mary was encountered in 1531 in the ruins of a former pagan temple outside Mexico City by Juan Diego, a recently-converted Aztec man. The story of her apparition helped to firmly establish Catholicism among the poor and native people of Mexico and she has become the nation's Patron Saint.   

Three other events that were historically significant (and verifiable) involved the Mercedarios at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries. First, in 1492, King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabela of Castille united their kingdoms and conquered Granada, the last Islamic stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula. This ended any need for Mercedarios to ransom Christian slaves taken within the new Kingdom of Spain. The focus would now become North Africa.

Second, shortly after their victory, Ferdinand and Isabela famously dispatched Christopher Columbus on his 1492 voyage, during which he discovered the New World. Although Columbus had no religious figures with him on his first trip, Fra. Jorge de Sevilla  sailed with him on his second voyage in 1493, becoming the first Mercedario to reach the New World. However, the Mercedarios did not establish their first convent in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) until 1514. 

Third, in 1519 Hernán Cortéz set off for his Conquest of Mexico. His personal chaplain was the Mercedario Fra. Bartolomé de Olmedo. In 1527, after Cortéz' victories in Mexico and Central America, the Order established a Nicaraguan convent. Similarly, Fra. Vincent de Valverde accompanied Francisco Pizarro in 1531 on his conquest of Peru and the Order's convents in Lima in Cuzco were started between 1532-35. However, the Mercedarios didn't build a convent in Mexico until 1594 and didn't establish one in Guanajuato until 1752.

This completes Part 9 of my Guanajuato Revisited series. In my next posting we will look at the chapel devoted to San Gonzalo de Amarante, built in the late 17th century, and I will also talk about the history of the Mercedarios in Latin America and Mexico. I hope you have enjoyed this posting. If so, please leave any questions or thoughts in the Comments section below or email me directly.  Also, please remember to include your email address if you leave a question.

Hasta luego, Jim