{"id":149,"date":"2018-12-06T18:48:48","date_gmt":"2018-12-07T02:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/?p=149"},"modified":"2026-03-31T12:01:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T19:01:15","slug":"the-search-for-the-origin-date-of-the-catala-crucifix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/2018\/12\/06\/the-search-for-the-origin-date-of-the-catala-crucifix\/","title":{"rendered":"The Search for the Origin Date of the Catala Crucifix"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As I sorted through a pile of paperwork that dated back to the 1700s, I couldn\u2019t help but wonder where the single piece of information that I was so diligently searching for could be located. The search was so challenging that I started to think I would only find this information when I was searching for something else entirely; although I have only been working as a A&SC student research assistant since the beginning of fall quarter, I’ve learned that the answer to one research inquiry can sometimes only be answered once one is searching in the vault for materials on a totally different topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My charge was pinpointing the unequivocal date the Mission Church acquired the crucifix that came to be known as the Catal\u00e1 Cucifix<\/a>. A researcher had posed this question to my boss via email, and my boss had then passed the question onto me with the original text of the email. Contained therein, my first clue was a scan from the book Situating Mission Santa Clara de As\u00eds, 1776-1851 : documentary and material evidence of life on the alta California frontier : a timeline<\/em><\/a>, which contained a photo of the crucifix. The footnote under the photo reads, \u201cthe \u2018so called Catal\u00e1 crucifix,\u2019 purchased in 1803.\u201d However, this was complicated by the researcher referencing a sign on SCU\u2019s campus that states that the crucifix was \u201cfrom the year 1802.\u201d With the hopes to determine the exact year in which the cross was obtained, I dove into the Mission Manuscripts Collection<\/a>, and was once again amazed by the vast amount of information on hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first box that I searched through possessed accounts from the \u201cColegio de San Fernando and Alta California Manuscripts,\u201d which contained a detailed inventory list of materials sent to Mission Santa Clara from Mexico. The inventory list was in Colonial Spanish; therefore, I attempted to find keywords such as \u201ccruz\u201d (the Spanish word for cross) to identify the Catala crucifix on the inventory list. This search was unsuccessful.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Spanish
Mission Santa Clara Manuscript Collection Series VIII: Alta California Manuscripts, Box 25: Accounts from Colegio de San Fernando and Alta California Individual Documents, 1805 \u2013 1836.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Next, I searched through box 16 of the Mission Manuscript Collection, which had a list of detailed inventory of the Mission Church from 1777-1823. Luckily, this list had been translated into English in the 1980s. As I read through this inventory, I was especially careful when I got to the years 1802-1803. Still I was not able to identify a mention of the crucifix.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Handwritten
Mission Santa Clara Manuscript Collection, Series IV: Ecclesiastical and Governmental Correspondence, 1782 \u2013 1872. Folder: Mission Santa Clara Reports, 1777 \u2013 1823<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Although unfortunate in that I was not able to deliver an answer, the process by which I conducted this research enriched my knowledge of the archival research methods: attention to detail and precision play a large role in my job as a research assistant. The experience also endowed within me a new appreciation for the detailed accounts of Mission Church inventory, as well as the Mission’s humble beginnings. I find the research process endlessly fascinating when there is a multitude of sources of information to inspect, and I hope to eventually uncover the answer to this question; ironically, this will probably happen while I\u2019m in the vault, searching for the answer to an different research question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I sorted through a pile of paperwork that dated back to the 1700s, I couldn\u2019t help but wonder where the single piece of information that I was so diligently searching for could be located. The search was so challenging that I started to think I would only find this information when I was searching […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2404,"featured_media":158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"qubely_global_settings":"","qubely_interactions":"","kk_blocks_editor_width":"","_kiokenblocks_attr":"","_kiokenblocks_dimensions":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[20,22,21],"class_list":["post-149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-notable-people","tag-catala","tag-catala-crucific","tag-mission-santa-clara","with-image","with-title"],"gutentor_comment":0,"qubely_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/files\/2018\/12\/Untitled-design.jpg",781,780,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/files\/2018\/12\/Untitled-design.jpg",751,750,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/files\/2018\/12\/Untitled-design.jpg",320,320,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/files\/2018\/12\/Untitled-design-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/files\/2018\/12\/Untitled-design-300x300.jpg",300,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/files\/2018\/12\/Untitled-design-768x767.jpg",768,767,true],"large":["https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/files\/2018\/12\/Untitled-design.jpg",781,780,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/files\/2018\/12\/Untitled-design.jpg",781,780,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/files\/2018\/12\/Untitled-design.jpg",781,780,false],"qubely_landscape":["https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/files\/2018\/12\/Untitled-design.jpg",751,750,false],"qubely_portrait":["https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/files\/2018\/12\/Untitled-design.jpg",320,320,false],"qubely_thumbnail":["https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/files\/2018\/12\/Untitled-design.jpg",100,100,false],"single":["https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/files\/2018\/12\/Untitled-design.jpg",781,780,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/files\/2018\/12\/Untitled-design.jpg",781,780,false]},"qubely_author":{"display_name":"Presley","author_link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/author\/pelletson\/"},"qubely_comment":0,"qubely_category":"Notable People<\/a>","qubely_excerpt":"As I sorted through a pile of paperwork that dated back to the 1700s, I couldn\u2019t help but wonder where the single piece of information that I was so diligently searching for could be located. The search was so challenging that I started to think I would only find this information when I was searching…","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2404"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3005,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions\/3005"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/arthursattic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}