Material Wealth of the Parish Church

MATERIAL WEALTH OF THE PARISH CHURCH An analysis of these inventories allows us, therefore, to make a list of the set of images, silver objects, ornaments, shoulder cloths and veils, corporals and corporal bags, albs and other pieces of clothing, altars, books, bouquets and hangings, rugs, mirrors, candlesticks, bells, wafers, tools, objects and wooden furniture. They are described with all kinds of details and paint the image of a parish well supplied with both the necessary elements for worship and images and clothing intended for use by priests. For example, with regard to the images, in 1661 four were found: the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and also a Saint Christ,14 an image of Saint Michael and one of Saint Peter, to which an altarpiece was added. of Santa Ana made on canvas. In the inventory of 1673, a canvas of San Sebastian and another of Santa Ana, a canvas of San Cayetano, one of San Francisco de Paula and a golden image of San Marcial have been added. Silver objects are also abundant in the parish: crowns, vessels for the tabernacle, oil vessels, reliquaries, chalices, cruets, lamps, chrismeras, a large and a small cross, a censer, a monstrance, a diadem. Numerous objects are listed in 1661 and reiterated and expanded in 1673. None of them mention their origin, so we cannot gauge the importance of the donations made by the faithful.15 The list is especially extensive with regard to the priestly clothing intended for worship. Capes, suits, and especially chasubles, up to twenty, in several cases adorned with silver and gold braids, which are complemented by veils and shoulder cloths, albs, stoles, sinngulos, manipulas, soulmas of taffeta, silk and satin... The clothing of the beneficiaries appears, therefore, in the list of property belonging to the church and is used by the different clerics and their successors over the years, as manifested in the different references to the poor condition due to extensive use. of some of the garments.16 The description continues of the garments with damask, damasquillo, chanelote, taffeta, satin, cotton fronts; of tablecloths; capes of satin, damask, taffeta; hand cloths; crea surplices; purifiers of Rouen and Holland; body bags and bags for them. Different silk, taffeta, and holland veils are also described to cover the tabernacle and lectern; bouquets of flowers, curtains and taffeta hangings for ornamental use. In general, the impression is obtained that the church of Teguise was, at the time in question, well served and provided with everything necessary to dress the objects of worship and its protagonists. This documentation also shows that the Church and its servants became the main protagonists of the important commercial traffic that Lanzarote established with the European continent during this century. In the inventory of goods a long reference is made to the bells and other metal objects of the Church. In 1673, the parish had, apart from two smaller ones in the sacristy, two bells in the bell tower to ring mass, one large and one small. Two are also mentioned in the report of 1661, where it is added to the margin in a later annotation that the large one was dismantled in 1667 to make a larger one.18 The church also contained different objects made of saffron (brass), which were used in services. : bells, candelabras, vials, wafers, lanterns to take to the field. They also had iron and copper lanterns as well as commonly used iron tools: hammers, scissors... As for objects made of wood, there were in the parish of Teguise, among others, and apart from the choir and the pulpit, two tabernacles, a transept, five lecterns, a mirror, several benches, chests and drawers, candles, a ladder, chairs, stools and two platforms for the main altar.19 Finally, with respect to the books existing in the parish, in 1684 The visitor details the books made and kept in the parish factory until that year. It begins with the existence of baptism books, indicating the year of their beginning and the year of their completion, from 1596 to 1678. As for the confirmed books, it notes the loss of the one made by Don Cristóbal de la Cámara, and the existence of the book of Bishop Fray Juan de Toledo, from 1661, which includes those confirmed by Don Bartolomé García Jiménez. Marriage books also appear since 1619. The details of the buried appear in loose files, the oldest being from 1658. As for the book in which the taxes and assets of the factory appear, this one dated from Bishop Martínez de Ceniceros, and the visitor makes note “that it is the most important book that all parishes have in their own way.” There was also a quadrant of beneficiaries (where what was collected is collected). the factory pays to the profit), several books of protocols, a book of mandates of episcopal visits, and it was also ordered to keep along with these the books of the hermitages and the account books, the first being preserved from 1549. Unfortunately The fire of 1909 seems to have taken this documentary wealth away from the researcher. With respect to the books related to the liturgy, this is perhaps the aspect in which the parish church seems to be poorest: four missals, one of them already old, two breviaries, one also old, and two reformed manuals, which were adding until 1683 four missals, a breviary, three notebooks and a requiem mass booklet, and a manual. This poverty of “catechetical” means in a parish that appears abundantly endowed with material goods is striking; This information seems to transport us to a time when the splendor in the liturgy far surpassed the content in importance.