1.  Introduction

On July 2, 1588, Pope Sixtus V (1585-1590) ushered an obscure fifteenth century Spanish Franciscan named Diego de Alcala (also known as Diego de San Nicolas del Puerto) into that exclusive company of men and women regarded as saints by the Roman Catholic Church. In so doing, Sixtus created the first saint of the Counter-Reformation period.  (The last canonization before Diego's had been that of Antoninus of Florence in 1523, several decades before the Counter-Reformation is generally considered to have begun.)

It was no accident that sainthood came at the hands of this particular pope, himself a member of the Franciscan order, or at the precise historical moment when King Philip II of Spain, the leading figure in the Catholic world, was preparing to unleash the Spanish Armada in a bold, if unrealistic attempt to subdue England, the foremost Protestant state.  Diego de Alcala was one of those saints whose canonization resulted not so much from what he had done in life, but instead from circumstances arising long after his death.

More than a century after the friar had breathed his last, it would be the "politics of saint-making" in late sixteenth century Europe, which would give the Spanish king what he regarded as one of the great achievements of his reign -- the creation of a new Spanish saint and one who had shown special favor to his dynasty.
 

2.  The Project

Diego de Alcala  achieved sainthood during one of the most turbulent periods in Christian history---a  period  known widely as the Counter-Reformation---when the Roman Catholic Church was engaged in a life-and-death struggle to preserve its power, traditions, and doctrine against the inroads of Protestantism.  Using San Diego's canonization as the focus, I am investigating the combination of religious, political, and popular pressures which led to the making of a saint during these critical decades.  It is my goal to produce a scholarly monograph on the subject.

Close examination of Diego's elevation to sainthood may shed important new light on such themes as:

(a)  the way in which politics and religion could combine to produce a saint;

(b)  how the Catholic Church reacted to the Protestant attack on the cult of saints;

(c)  how and to what extent popular pressures entered into the canonization process;

(d)  how (if at all) new rules established by the great Catholic reform Council of Trent (1545-63) affected the process;

(e)  how Protestants reacted to the elevation of a new saint;

(f)  how other Catholic nations reacted to the elevation of a Spanish saint;

(g)  how the claims of religion and science could come into conflict in the canonization process and how such a conflict was likely to be resolved in a period characterized by religious intolerance and dominated by religious strife.
 

3.  Historical Background

Diego de Alcala  (c. 1400-1463) was born in the village of San Nicolas del Puerto near Seville.  At a young age, he entered the Franciscan order as a lay brother.  Thereafter, most of Fray Diego's life was passed relatively uneventfully in various monasteries in southern and central Spain.  There were, in fact, only two significant exceptions:  for the better part of a decade, the future saint served as a missionary in the Canary Islands, after which he briefly visited Rome for the Jubilee Year of 1450.

Late in life, Diego moved to a monastery near Alcala  de Henares, a small city in central Spain, where he lived quietly for his last thirteen years.  Due in part to his piety, in part to the heroic patience with which he faced death, the inhabitants of Alcala  soon began to venerate him as a "local saint."  In short, his career was not particularly distinguished from that of many other Franciscans of the period.

Ultimately, Diego's official canonization by the Roman Catholic Church resulted from events which occurred not during his lifetime, but a century thereafter.  In 1562, his remains were removed from the small chapel where they had long been housed and brought to the sickroom of Don Carlos, son of Philip II, who had suffered a near fatal head injury while residing in Alcala .  When the prince, despite all predictions, survived his injury, Diego was credited by the royal family and the Spanish people with having worked a miracle.

A movement, led by the king, soon began to seek sainthood for the friar.  Despite the tragic death of  Don Carlos six years after his injury, Philip II continued for more than a quarter of a century to cajole and pressure four successive popes (Pius IV, Pius V, Gregory XIII, and Sixtus V) in Diego's behalf.  Finally, in 1588, the canonization took place, in part due to the favor of a Franciscan pope for the cause of a brother; in part to reward the Spanish king for his arduous and extremely costly efforts to reconquer England for Catholicism.
 

4.  An Overview of Research necessary to complete the project:

To produce a successful monograph on the career of Diego de Alcala  and his eventual elevation to sainthood, the following research must accomplished:

* a thorough investigation of what is known of the life of Diego de Alcala .  This would include not only a close examination of all existing secondary literature (most of it hagiographic in nature), but also an attempt to see if any primary sources can be uncovered.

* careful analysis of the Report (proceso) compiled by three Spanish bishops during the 1560s, which contains extensive testimony concerning the life and miracles of Diego de Alcala .  At least a partial copy of this document survives in the royal library at the Escurial.

* a systematic exploration of all surviving diplomatic correspondence between Philip II and his ambassadors at Rome from the years 1562-1589.  This correspondence, which tells of the on-going Spanish struggle to have Diego de Alcala canonized, is collected in approximately 50 legajos at the Archivo General de Simancas.

* determination if any papal correspondence or other documentation survives which might shed light on the canonization.  To make this determination will require a more intensive search into the Vatican's Archivio Segreto.

* a search through governmental and diplomatic papers of other European nations, both Catholic and Protestant, in order to determine their attitudes toward the canonization

* an analysis of the costs of canonization as laid out in a document preserved among the diplomatic papers at Simancas

* an examination of the rules governing canonization in the sixteenth century, including those most recently enacted by the Council of Trent

* a search to discover if there is any other surviving documentation which might throw light upon either the Catholic or the Protestant reaction to the Diego's canonization

Since I have been working on this project for some years, I have already made considerable headway in several of these areas.  Others, at present, remain largely unexplored.  While various of the avenues of research I have listed will be more easily travelled than others, all must be investigated in order to produce a comprehensive treatment of the saint and the meaning of his sainthood.