Codex Mendoza
Also known as: Códice Mendoza, Mendoza Codex, Códice de Mendoza
A mid-sixteenth-century pictorial chronicle of Mexica history, tribute, and lifeways, produced by indigenous painters with Spanish annotations for colonial authorities.
Description
The Codex Mendoza assembles three coordinated sections: a dynastic-conquest history of the Mexica from the founding of Tenochtitlan through the last rulers; an extensive provincial tribute register itemizing goods owed to the empire; and a compendium of social practices, including education, marriage, punishments, and household economy. Executed in the indigenous pictorial tradition with alphabetic glosses in Spanish, it translates imperial memory into a form legible to New Spain’s administrators while preserving pre-conquest visual conventions—year signs, place glyphs, name glyphs, and conquest markers. Though documentary in aim, it embeds foundational episodes such as the migration from Aztlan and the omen of the eagle on the cactus, linking statecraft and sacred sanction.
Historiography
Commissioned by Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, the codex was shipped toward Spain c.1542, seized by French privateers, and passed through European collections (including André Thévet) before entering the Bodleian Library via the Selden bequest in the seventeenth century. Scholars analyze it alongside related pictorials to reconstruct imperial administration, calendrics, and to compare tribute data with archaeological finds. Its hybrid format—indigenous pictography with colonial gloss—makes it a crucial witness to transitional knowledge practices and early colonial mediation of Mexica history.
Date Notes
Painted in Mexico City for Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza shortly after the conquest; intended for Charles V; single extant manuscript.
Major Characters
- Itzcoatl
- Moctezuma I
- Axayacatl
- Tizoc
- Ahuitzotl
- Moctezuma II
Myths
- Founding of Tenochtitlan
- Conquests and Tribute Lists
- Life-Cycle Rites and Education
Facts
- Painted c. 1541–1542 in Mexico City by indigenous artists for Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza.
- Combines pictorial glyphs with contemporary Spanish annotations.
- Organized in three parts: dynastic history, tribute register, and social customs.
- Lists dozens of provinces with quantified tribute items such as textiles, cacao, and shields.
- Records year signs and conquest glyphs that track imperial expansion.
- Preserves foundational episodes like the migration and founding omen of Tenochtitlan.
- Manuscript was seized by French privateers en route to Spain and later entered English collections.
- Now housed in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, as part of the Selden collection.
- A key primary source for understanding Mexica administration shortly after the conquest.
- Its hybrid indigenous-colonial format is central to studies of early New Spanish historiography.