75002X1 University of Oklahoma Press, Norman: 2004. 304 pages. Softcover. Brand new book. Philip II is a fascinating and enigmatic figure in Spanish history, but it was his letrados--professional bureaucrats and ministers trained in law--who made his vast castilian empire possible. In Juan de Ovando, Stafford Poole traces the life and career of a key minister in the king's government to explore the role that letrados played in Spanish society as they sought to displace the higher nobility in the administration through a system based upon merit. Juan de Ovando was an industrious, discerning, and loyal servant, yet, like all letrados, he owed his position to royal favor. Ovando began his career as an ecclesiastical judge and inquisitor in Seville. From there, at the king's order, he undertook the reform of the University of Alcal‡ de Henares, one of his most enduring achievements. Appointed then to the supreme council of the Spanish Inquisition, Ovando was commissioned to investigate the Council of the Indies, over which he eventually presided. In this role, Ovando began codifying laws and collecting information about Spain's overseas possessions through the famed Relaciones geogr‡ficas--wide-ranging surveys of daily life in the New World. He devised long-term and forward-looking colonial policies for New Spain while, also serving as president of the Council of Finance, he sought to bring order to Spain's chaotic financial situation. Poole's biography of Juan de Ovando provides an intimate view of the day-to-day influence letrados wielded over the Spanish colonial machine. Stafford Poole, C.M., an ordained Roman Catholic priest, is the author of Our Lady of Guadalupe: The Origins and Sources of a Mexican National Symbol, 1531-1797 and Juan de Ovando: Governing the Spanish Empire in the Reign of Philip II. "An original synthesis that confirms or challenges other important interpretations. Not only readable but extremely interesting, Poole's Juan de Ovando brings a great deal of scholarship to a lively biography."ÑRalph H. Vigil, author of Alonso de Zorita: Royal Judge and Christian Humanist, 1512-1585 "Poole brings a truly unique perspective to the issues of the period using new material from documented sources that have never been mined before. His scholarship is first-rate."ÑJohn F. Schwaller, coeditor of A Guide to Confession Large and Small in the Mexican Language, 1634 "Clearly written and solidly based on extensive archival research, . . . Poole's study belongs in all college and university libraries. Highly recommended."ÑChoice $24.95USD
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