Bernardino de Sahagún

Biography

Bernardino de Sahagún studies with the convent of Salamanque where he pronounces the wishes. In 1529, it is sent to the Mexico. It follows there the first missionary S assigned to this country, where it works until his death more than sixty years later. It is affected with the college Franciscain of Santa Cruz to Tlatelolco, close to Mexico City. It takes part in the work of preaching, conversion, and instruction of the children of the indigenous nobility in Latin and Nahuatl, undertaken by Franciscains, with the support of the viceroy Antonio de Mendoza. By years of thorough study and daily practice it acquires itself the control of the Aztec language .

This precursor of the Ethnographie starts by writing in 1547 a collection of moral speeches nahuatl (“Huehuetlatolli”). Of 1550 with 1555, it works with a history of the Spanish Conquest, while being based on the accounts of the indigenous survivors. In 1558, its work draws the attention of provincial about Franciscains, Franscisco de Toral, which charges it with compiling in Aztec language a summary of elements of Mexican culture, which could appear useful in the work of Christianisation of the Indians. This work, which it achieves with the assistance of its pupils, lasts seven years. Sahagún writes questionnaires, which it submits to “ Informateurs ”, i.e. old men having known the indigenous company before the Spanish conquest, to which the latter provide answers in the form of will pinturas (pictographic manuscripts) and of comments in nahuatl. Of 1558 with 1560, it remains in Tepepulco. From 1561 with 1565, it returns in Tlatelolco, where it continues its investigation. In 1565, Sahagún is transferred to the monastery from Saint-François to Mexico City. It continues to correct its manuscript, which it decides to divide into twelve books.

Following conflicts inside the order of Franciscains, Sahagún runs up against the hostility of its superior. Deprived with assistance and whereas it advances in age, it moreover is afflicted with a tremor of the hand. Its manuscripts are finally confiscated to him. It is only in 1573 that they are returned to him. A new general police chief, Rodrigo de Sequera, draws the attention of Juan de Ovando, president of the Conseil of the Indies, on the work of Sahagún and allows him to make a Spanish translation of it supplements and provides him all the required assistance. As soon as the manuscript of the “general History of the things of News-Spain” is finished, Sequera is made it give.

It is at the same time (1577) that Philippe II makes the decision to prohibit the study of the “pagan” past of the natives. The drafts of Sahagún are also confiscated. It will never re-examine its work. At the end of its life, it will still write some works, of which a study on the art of the divination at the Aztèques and a trilingual dictionary nahuatl-Latin-Spanish.

Ever published of alive sound, its major work knew a strange fortune. One found several manuscripts in Europe of them:

of the preliminary works in nahuatl written between 1558 and 1565, known under the name of “Codices Matritenses”, preserved in the libraries of the Palais Royal and the Royal Academy of History of Madrid: on the one hand those going back to its stay with Tepepulco, known under the name of " Primeros Memoriales" , and in addition those of Tlatelolco, which include/understand “Segundos Memoriales”, “Memoriales in very columnas” and “Memoriales idiot escolios”. These writings were used by Francisco del Paco there Troncoso in 1905
a bilingual manuscript of Sequera discovered by Bandini with the Laurentienne Library of Florence in 1793; it is known under the name of “Codex of Florence”. One is unaware of exactly how it led to Florence. Each page is composed of two columns, the text in nahuatl on the right and let the Spanish text as well as the images on the left. Between 1950 and 1982 two researchers American, Charles E. Diblle and Arthur OJ Anderson, published the text nahuatl with an English translation.
a Spanish text of the manuscript of Sequera discovered in 1730 with the convent of Tolosa in Navarre, transported to Madrid in 1783, published by Lord Kingsborough with London in 1830 and by Carlos Maria Bustamente in Mexico City the same year.

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