The so-Called ‘III Mexican Provincial Council’ and the ‘Statutes of the Holy Church of Mexico’ or the ‘Customary Rules of Mexico’s Cathedral’

Abstract

The studies about the Concilium Mexicanum Provinciale III (1585), momentum of which has been renovated with the publishing of its manuscripts in the first decade of this century, have not considered one of its documents, The Statutes of the Holy Church of Mexico, which resulted from this Meeting, as well as its decrees, received both the Pontifical (1589) and the Royal approval. This article addresses these Statutes that are nothing but the customary rule of the Concilium Mexicanum Provinciale III, that is, the regulatory laws on the different cultural aspects of the cathedrals and about the rights and obligations of the Ecclesiastical Council. This article studies the sources, structure and content of the Mexican customary rules, and finally it considers the importance of this kind of regulations in the fabric of sources in the Canon law of the Indies.