Archbishops and Cathedral Chapters of the Colonial Philippines

“This book constitutes a fundamental contribution to the history of the ecclesiastical Chapter of Manila in the second half of the seventeenth century. Its study, based on a microhistorical starting point, contributes not only to an understanding of its internal evolution but also to the ambivalent ramifications of the Royal Patronage through the episcopates of the archbishops of Manila, Miguel Poblete and Felipe Pardo.”

— Roberto Blanco Andrés, PhD, author of San Francisco de San Miguel: Fraile, Embajador y Mártir en Japón

This volume analyzes the religious history of the early modern Philippines. It examines the unstable authority of its archbishops and the preeminence of the Manila cathedral chapters in the second half of the seventeenth century. In particular, it considers these phenomena during the various convoluted periods of vacant sees, paying special attention to the dynamics of promotions within these collegiate bodies.

Alexandre Coello de la Rosa is Professor of Latin American History and the Philippines at the Department of Humanities of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain. His main lines of research deal with historical anthropology, chronicles of the Indies, and early modern Spanish colonialism, especially focused on ecclesiastical history of the Marianas and the Philippines. He has been a visiting professor at the Universidade Federal do Grande Dourados (UFGD, Brazil), the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM, Mexico) and the Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos (IFEA, Peru). From 2020 to 2024, he was a researcher at Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), Spain.