Presence and Use of Pragmatic Legal Literature in Habsburg Peru (16th–17th Centuries)

Abstract

Around 1642, the priest and chronicler Fernando de Montesinos (d. 1652) wrote regretfully how the Curia Philipica had been widely used by mestizos and Andeans in litigation.1 For the author of Anales, the consultation and social usage of this procedural manual had rocketed the lawsuits in the Limeño Audiencia. His pessimistic view on how “subaltern” groups had mischievously used prácticas was a common perspective among other Habsburg colonial authors. Thus, in 1561, the notable jurist Licentiate Polo Ondegardo (1517/ 1520– 1575) condemned acrimoniously how the Andean subjects had appropriated the Castilian law.2 This phenomenon, he argued, had perverted the sense of justice especially among the natives. As an example, he cited endless opportunities in which Cuzqueño people offered their testimonies for economic returns. His experience as magistrate in the former Inca capital convinced him to propose judicial reforms. Polo’s view was not an isolated one. In 1588, Father Bartolomé Alvarez, also in Cuzco, accused the Andean ladinos of using irresponsible litigation manuals like Gabriel de Monterroso’s Practica civil y criminal (of 1563) for