Description:
<jats:p>Nowhere, perhaps, is the often-remarked historiographical bias in favour of social/economic studies for the colonial period and political/ institutional studies for the national period more jarring than in treatments of the activities of the Mexican church before and after independence.<jats:sup>1</jats:sup> The position of the church in the colonial economy has been the subject of several specialised works and is widely regarded in broader histories as most significant.<jats:sup>2</jats:sup> But students of independent Mexico have usually focused on the church's role in the political arena, characterising the politics of the period from 1821 to 1856 as, in essence, a battle for supremacy betweenthe church and the state, or in a slightly different formulation, as a struggle between liberalism and conservatism.<jats:sup>3</jats:sup></jats:p>