The Early History of the Boxer Codex

JOHN N. CROSSLEY

Abstract

In 1950 this journal published Charles Boxer’s description of the Codex that bears his name and is
now in the Lilly Library in Bloomington, Indiana. In this article I shed light on a number of questions
about the volume that he left unanswered. The plan of the essay is as follows. First, I recapitulate the
nature, composition and contents of the Codex, and its associations with Chinese artists. Next, I turn
to evidence that the explorer Quı́ros saw the manuscript in the court in Madrid no later than 1610;
in particular I compare the text of his Summary relation with part of the Boxer Codex. Finally, an
examination of the binding shows the Codex was only bound in Madrid, strongly suggesting how and
when it got to Spain.

Charles Boxer acquired the Boxer Codex at an auction in 1947 and described it in an
article in this Journal in 1950.1 The volume comprises a little over 300 leaves of rice
paper to which Boxer added four folios of other manuscript: an account signed by Luis
Pérez Dasmariñas principally comprising extracts from letters. The greater part of the work,
which I shall refer to as the ‘Culture items’ and on which most interest has focused hitherto
(but which I shall not concentrate on here) comprises descriptions of the culture and
inhabitants of the South East and East regions of Asia, together with drawings and descriptions
of Chinese deities and fabulous animals.2 The remainder, which I shall refer to as the
‘Exploration items’, comprises works from three sources. Leaves 101r–139r contain two texts,
both apparently coming via Bishop João Ribeiro de Gaio of Malacca, concerning Aceh and
Malay states.3 Leaves 139r–149v contain an account of a voyage made by Roxo de Brito, a
Portuguese, in 1581–1582 south and west of New Guinea, which will be a major focus.4

1 Charles R. Boxer, A late sixteenth century Manila MS, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, No. 1/2
(1950), pp. 37–49; Bloomington, Indiana: Library, Boxer MSS. II, PDF available at http://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/
iudl/general/VAB8326
2 See in particular Carlos Quirino and Mauro Garcia, The Manners, Customs and Beliefs of the Philippine
Inhabitants of Long Ago, The Philippine Journal of Science, 87, no. 4, (1958). pp. 325–453.
3 João Ribeiro de Gaio was appointed Bishop of Malacca in 1579 or 1578, and died there in 1601. See p. 111
of Jorge M. dos Santos Alves and Pierre-Yves Manguin, O roteiro das cousas do Achem de D. João Ribeiro Gaio: um
olhar português sobre o norte de Samatra em finais do século XVI, (Lisbon, 1997). (Alves and Manguin, op. cit., p. 111
say he was appointed in 1578.)
4 There is a map on p. 124 of J. H. F. Sollewijn Gelpke, The report of Miguel Roxo de Brito of his voyage in
1581–1582 to the Raja Ampat, the MacCluer Gulf and Seram, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 150

JRAS, Series 3, 24, 1 (2014), pp. 115–124 

C The Royal Asiatic Society 2013

doi:10.1017/S1356186313000552

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 116 John N. Crossley

Leaves 213r–239v have a narrative due to Fr Martı́n de Rada, OSA, on his visit to China in
1575.5
The latest date that can be inferred internally from the Codex is 1590–1591.6 Boxer
believed that either Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas or his son, Luis Peréz Dasmariñas, who were
successive governors of the Philippines at the end of the sixteenth century, was the original
commissioner of the Codex.7 The new governor of the Philippines and his son arrived in
Manila in 1590, only 19 years after the Spanish settlement of Manila. From the advent of
the Spanish until 1617, Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas was praised as the best, perhaps the only
good, governor of the Philippines.8 He was very trusting of the Chinese:
When he left Manila . . . he engaged a galley manned by Chinese, good rowers, which they had
given him, and he paid those from the Parian (the Parian is like the alcaycerı́a where the Chinese
had all kinds of shops and offices), and those he had unshackled, and retaining their weapons,
more as soldiers than oarsmen, very much trusting them.9
This was his undoing, for he was murdered by the Chinese crew on 25 October 1593.10
It is tempting to suggest that Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas’s acquaintance with and trust in
the Chinese corresponded with his commissioning of the Chinese artist to provide the
illustrations in the Culture items of the Codex. There is, however, additional supporting
though circumstantial evidence. Regalado Trota Jose wrote:11 [The] achievements [of the
Chinese] in ivory carving were so developed by 1590 that the first bishop of Manila,
Domingo de Salazar – a Dominican who arrived together with Sedeño and the first Jesuits
– enthusiastically wrote the King:
In the Parian are found all the workers with all the skills and mechanical arts needed for a
Republic, and in such great quantity . . . They have so perfected themselves in this art, that they
have wrought marvelous works both with the chisel and with the brush. Having seen some
ivory images of the Child Jesus it seems to me that nothing more exquisite than these could
be produced; and such is the opinion of those who have seen them. The churches are now
being provided with these images, which they sorely lacked before; with the Sangleys’ ability to
replicate those images from Spain, it should not be long when even those made in Flanders will
not be missed.12

(1) 1994, pp.123–145, but see also the maps in Roy Ellen, On the Edge of the Banda Zone: Past and Present in the Social
Organization of a Moluccan Trading Network (Honolulu, 2003), Figures 3.6 and 3.8 on pp. 66 and 69, respectively.
5 See South China in the Sixteenth Century: Being the Narratives of Galeote Pereira, Fr. Gaspar da Cruz, O.P., Fr.
Martin de Rada, O.E.S.A. (1550–1575), (ed). C.R. Boxer (London, 1953).
6 Boxer, A Late Sixteenth Century, p. 48.
7 Boxer, op.cit., p. 47.
8 Hernando de los Rı́os Coronel, Memorial y relacion para su Magestad, del Procurador General delas Filipinas, de lo
que conviene remediar, y de la riqueza que ay en ellas, y en las islas del Maluco (Madrid, 1621) Por la viuda de Fernando
Correa, 1621, translation available at http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/∼jnc/Rios/1621Memorial.pdf , and partly
translated in Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson, The Philippine Islands 1493–1898, translated from
the originals, edited and annotated, 55 vols, Cleveland, 1903–1909, (reprinted in 19 volumes, Mandaluyong, Rizal,
Philippines, 1973), vols XVIII and XIX.
9 Rı́os, op. cit., Part I, Chapter II.
10 See Rı́os, op. cit., Part I, Chapter II.
11 From an earlier draft of Regalado Trota Jose, ‘La veneranda imagen de Nuestra Señora del Rosario de la
Naval’ in, The Saga of la Naval, Triumph of a people’s faith, (ed). Lito B. Zulueta, (Quezon City, Philippines, 2007),
pp. 51–52.
12 Reference to Jesús Gayo Aragon OP and Antonio Dominguez, Doctrina Christiana: Primer Libro Impreso en
Filipinas. Facsı́mile del Ejemplar Existente en la Biblioteca Vaticana, Con un Ensayo Histórico-Bibliográfico por Fr. J. Gayo
Aragón, O.P., y Observaciones Filológicas y Traducción Española de Fr. Antonio Dominguez, O.P. (Manila, 1951), pp. 77–78.

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 The Early History of the Boxer Codex 117

It would therefore appear that both father and son were familiar with the work of the
Chinese artists during the lifetime of the former.13
After he succeeded his father as governor in 1593, or at the latest in 1594, Luis Peréz
Dasmariñas commissioned a Chinese artist to make a very large sculpture of the Virgin
Mary as Nuestra Señora del Rosario, with ivory face, hands and child. The statue stands
139 cm high and is now known as La Naval. The person who oversaw the carving was
Hernando de los Rı́os Coronel.14 On the fatal 1593 expedition the latter was sailing with
Luis Pérez Dasmariñas and asked permission to go ahead of Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas since
an opposing wind was slowing down the galley in which the governor was travelling. The
son may well have felt guilt over the death of his father, and that may have been a major factor
in the commissioning of the statue. It seems unlikely that the younger Dasmariñas, who was
only 25 when he became governor,15 would undertake such a large enterprise as that of
the statue, and so soon after the death of his father, if he had not seen previous work by
Chinese artists. I therefore am inclined to the view that the elder Dasmariñas commissioned
the Codex, the pages subsequently coming to his son.16
Now I turn to the Exploration items. On leaves 139r–149v of the Codex there is an
account of a voyage by Miguel Roxo de Brito in Maluku. Boxer and Pierre-Yves Manguin
noted that the journey was mentioned in the Summary relation written by Pedro Fernández
de Quirós (probably in 1610, see below) and printed by Zaragoza in 1880.17 (Quirós is well
known as a pilot and for his attempt to discover the great south land he called Austrialia

13 While Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas was still in Spain, he had a house “with lots of paintings and statues”; see
Juan Donapétry Iribarnégaray, História de Vivero y su Concejo (Vivero, 1953), p. 206.
14 Jose, op. cit., p. 48: “Aduarte’s account of the carving of the La Naval image in his Historia, therefore, could
very well have been obtained from Luis Perez Dasmariñas and Hernando de los Rios Coronel themselves, at least
as early as 1596.” (See chapter XII of Juan Diego Aduarte, OP, Historia de la Provincia del Santo Rosario de la Orden
de Predicatores en Filipinas, Japón y China (Manila, including additions by Domingo Gonçalez, OP, 1640, republished
Zaragoza, 1690); and also by the Consejo superior de investigaciones cientificas, Departamento de Misionologı́a
Española, Madrid, 1962, (ed.) Manuel Ferrero, OP. See also Fernando Zobel de Ayala, Philippine Religious Imagery
(Quezon City, 1963), p. 70, which says the statue was commissioned in 1593 (Jose, op. cit., p. 49, n. 7). However,
Jose also says that clothes and a crown were available for the statue in 1594 (ibid. p. 58), so the statue must have been
carved in 1593–1594. He cites Libro de los Cabildos y Ordenanças de la Cofradia del Sancto Rosario de la Virgen Maria
Nuestra Señora de la Illustre Ciudad de Manila, Sección Cofradı́as, Tomo I, fols. 1–554 [1592–1646], UST Microfilm
Reel 192, at f. 29v.
15 Rı́os, op. cit., Part I, Chapter V.
16 There is no mention of the Codex, nor indeed of any book, in the will of Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas and
the only papers specifically mentioned are those concerning the embassy from Japan in 1592 (cf. Seville, Archivo
General de Indias, ES.41091.AGI/16403.14.13// FILIPINAS,18B,R.2,N.12), but he does mention he has other
papers. See http://www.cronistadebetanzos.com/trabajos/gomezper.pdf , p. 7, transcribed from Archivo del Reino
de Galicia. Real Audiencia. Legajo 26.657–15.
17 Celsus Kelly, OFM, Austrialia del Espı́ritu Santo: the Journal of Fray Martin de Munilla, O.F.M., and Other
Documents Relating to the Voyage of Pedro Fernández de Quirós to the South Sea (1605–1606) and the Franciscan Missionary
Plan (1617–1627); translated [from the Spanish], Volumes 126 and 127 of the second series (Cambridge, 1966)
p. xxxii. The text of Quirós is printed on pp. 294–296 of volume II of Justo Zaragoza, Historia del Descubrimiento de
las Regiones Austriales Hecho por el General Pedro Fernandez de Quirós Publicada por Don Justo Zaragoza. Three volumes
(Madrid, 1880). See also p. 175 of Charles R. Boxer and Pierre-Yves Manguin, ‘Miguel Roxo de Brito’s narrative of
his voyage to the Raja Empat, May 1581–November 1582’, Archipel; Études interdisciplinaires sur le monde insulindien;
Numéro Spécial: Commerces et Navires dans les Mers du Sud, (1979) pp. 175–194. Boxer notes that the account had
another brief mention in 1909 (Boxer, A Late Sixteenth Century, p. 41, n. 2). See also Sir Clements Markham, tr.
and ed., The Voyage of Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, 1595 to 1606, volumes 14 and 15 of second series (London, 1904)
p. xxii.

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 118 John N. Crossley

[sic].)18 Quirós wrote that this Summary relation was made from “information supplied to
Quirós at the Court of Spain by Hernando de los Rı́os”.19 I suggest that Quirós saw either
the Codex itself or an accurate copy of the account of Roxo de Brito’s voyage in the hands
of Hernando de los Rı́os Coronel who met Quirós in Spain sometime between 1607 and
1610.
Hernando de los Rı́os Coronel had arrived in the Philippines from Spain in 1588.20 He
is much less well known than father and son Dasmariñas, but, like Quı́ros, he had trained
as a pilot and, besides serving under Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas and accompanying him on
his last expedition, he accompanied Luis Peréz Dasmariñas on two later expeditions in 1596
and 1598, being second-in-command (almirante) on the latter.21 His role as a pilot would
have made him privy to secret matters about navigation and maps. Throughout his life he
maintained these interests and wrote a number of rutters or sea-logs, in particular of his
voyages to Spain and back in 1605–1606 and 1610–1611.22 As Boxer says: “It is probable
that only a senior government official or a high ranking ecclesiastic would have had access
to such confidential documents as Loarca’s report of 1580, and [Bishop] Ribeiro Gaio’s of
1589, to say nothing of de Brito’s account of his New Guinea voyage.”23 De los Rı́os also
knew of the work of another author of a text in the Codex, Fr Martı́n de Rada. 24 These
various factors suggest that it is not surprising that de los Rı́os should have been in the small
circle of people who knew about the voyage of Roxo de Brito.
Fr Celsus Kelly, OFM, dates the Summary relation of Quirós as “c. Oct.” of 1610, but this
cannot be the date when he met de los Rı́os, because the latter left Cadiz on 29 June 1610 to
return to the Philippines, although it could be the date when Quirós wrote the summary. As
I shall show, however, Quirós seems to have seen the Spanish text of de Brito’s voyage that
is in the Codex.25 Certainly de los Rı́os and Quirós were both in Spain between 1607 and
1610 because de los Rı́os had been sent to Spain as Procurator General – the sole advocate

18 See Markham, op. cit., and Kelly, Austrialia del Espı́ritu Santo.
19 Celsus Kelly, OFM, Austrialia del Espı́ritu Santo: the Journal of Fray Martin de Munilla, O.F.M., and Other
Documents Relating to the Voyage of Pedro Fernández de Quirós to the South Sea (1605–1606) and the Franciscan Missionary
Plan (1617–1627); translated [from the Spanish], Volumes 126 and 127 of the second series (Cambridge, 1966)
p. xxxii. The text of Quirós is printed on pp. 294–6 of volume II of Justo Zaragoza, Historia del Descubrimiento de
las Regiones Austriales Hecho por el General Pedro Fernandez de Quirós Publicada por Don Justo Zaragoza. Three volumes
(Madrid, 1880). See also p. 175 of Charles R. Boxer and Pierre-Yves Manguin, ‘Miguel Roxo de Brito’s narrative of
his voyage to the Raja Empat, May 1581–November 1582’, Archipel; Études interdisciplinaires sur le monde insulindien;
Numéro Spécial: Commerces et Navires dans les Mers du Sud, (1979) pp. 175–194. Boxer notes that the account had
another brief mention in 1909 (Boxer, A Late Sixteenth Century, p. 41, n. 2). See also Sir Clements Markham, tr.
and ed., The Voyage of Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, 1595 to 1606, volumes 14 and 15 of second series (London, 1904)
p. xxii.
20 For a biography see Crossley, op. cit., and for his arrival in the Philippines, ibid., p. 58.
21 Crossley, op. cit., p. 52.
22 See Crossley, op. cit., Chapters 5 and 6 and for translations of them, see http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/∼
jnc/Rios.
23 Boxer, A Late Sixteenth Century, p. 48.
24 Boxer, ibid., p. 43, says that leaves 213–239 comprise an early copy of a narrative composed by Martı́n de
Rada of his visit to Fukien province from 5 July to 1 September 1575 and adds, “Rada’s original manuscript cannot
now be traced”. Re Rada, see also Crossley, op. cit., p. 32.
25 Kelly, Austrialia del Espı́ritu Santo, p. 278.

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 The Early History of the Boxer Codex 119

at the Spanish court for the inhabitants of the Philippines – and he was there from 1606 to
1610.26
In his role as Procurator General de los Rı́os put to the king many requests on behalf of
the Philippines, while Quirós “dedicated himself from [1607] onwards to sending multiple
petitions [indeed more than 50] to the king, Philip III, seeking sponsorship for a further
voyage to the South Pacific”.27 It was not until 1608 that Quirós printed his Eighth Memorial,28
which may have been the first time that de los Rı́os became aware of the voyage of Quirós –
though that seems unlikely – but which may explain why it may have been as late as 1610 that
they discussed the voyage of Roxo de Brito.29 Given that Quirós wrote so many memorials,
Kelly’s date of 1610, which is based on the dating of many writings of Quirós and others,
seems quite plausible.30
There is remarkable similarity between the texts of Roxo de Brito and Quirós. Below
is the full text of the report by Quirós as recorded by Zaragoza in the left column with
corresponding excerpts from the Boxer Codex version on the right.31
Relacion sumaria que saqué de la que me dió en esta corte el licenciado hernando
de los rios, procurador de filipinas.

Miguel Roxo de Brito, de nacion portugués,

salió del Maluco, y llevó en su compañı́a al
Rey de Bayseo32 con gente, en 12 de sus
embarcaciones,
y de isla en isla fué á dar en una que estava tomamos una ysla que se llama Garan,34 la qual
despoblada, á causa de una serpiente que se hallamos35 despoblada por causa de una
comia los naturales:33 cerpiente que en ella anda, la qual a comido la
mayor parte de los naturales que alli vivian.
[f. 142r]

26 For his return to Spain in 1605 Governor Pedro Bravo de Acuña commended de los Rı́os and the Franciscan
provincial Fr Pedro de Matı́as to the king. I do not know of any other senior people accompanying them. See
Crossley, op. cit., p. 75. De los Rı́os arrived soon after 29 October 1606 (see BN Madrid, MS 3212, f. 83r, or
Crossley, op. cit., p. 71) and Quirós on 9 October 1607 (see p. xxx of vol. 14 of Markham, op. cit.).
27 See Crossley, op. cit., Chapter 5 and Mercedes Maroto Camino, Exploring the Explorers: Spaniards in Oceania,
1519–1794 (Manchester, 2008), p. 100 and Mercedes Maroto Camino, Producing the Pacific: Maps and Narratives of
Spanish Exploration (1567—1606) (Amsterdam, 2005), p. 38.
28 See Hordern House, The Great South Land: Searching for the Antipodes from Classical Scholars to Quiros & Dampier
(sale catalogue), Potts Point, NSW, Australia: Hordern House, 2011, item 103.
29 Printed in Zaragoza, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 294–296.
30 In her recent book, Secret science: Spanish Cosmography and the New World (Chicago, 2009), pp. 265–266, Marı́a
M. Portuondo suggests that in 1610 the Council of the Indies was concerned about Quirós disseminating too much
knowledge about his 1605–1606 voyage and Philip III wrote “on the margin of the memorandum that Quirós
should be asked to collect these papers [relevant to the voyage] himself and give them ‘with secrecy’ to the Council
of the Indies, so that ‘these things do not cross many hands’ ”. See also, Hordern House, The Great South Land:
“Circulation of all . . . was restricted and when, in 1610, it was learned that he was printing various memorials
and distributing them beyond the court, Quı́ros was ordered by the king to retrieve them and forbidden to print
others without royal permission.” (See also Kelly, Calendar, items 682, 689, pp. 280, 284 respectively.)
31 In this transcription the spelling has not been modernised.
32 Variously transcribed as Bayseo, Baisco but believed to be Waigeo Island; see Boxer and Manguin, op. cit.,
p. 178, n. 10. It is spelt Baygeo on f. 139v of the Codex.
33 See Sollewijn Gelpke, op. cit., p. 134, n. 38.
34 I read this as ‘Garan’. Boxer and Manguin, op. cit., suggest this might mean Gam, an island south of Waigeo.
35 Mispelt hallmoas in Boxer and Manguin, op. cit., p. 185.

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 120 John N. Crossley

y por remate fué á la Nueva Guinea, á la qual

sus moradores llaman Botan,36 que quiere decir
tierra firme.
Dice que los naturales son negros, y tienen oro La gente de esta provinçia son todos negros
que traen en las orejas, y al cuello, que son como los de Guinea, y son todos mercaderes,
mercaderes, y hacen una gran feria en un porque van a un rreyno que esta debajo de la
pueblo de una provincia que se llama Segat,37 á equinoçial el qual se llama Segat, donde ay un
donde se compran muchos esclavos, que se pueblo que ay en el una gran feria y rescate de
llevan á vender á una isla rica, que se dice negros que estos de One compran aqui y
Cerdeña, lleban a vender a Serdenha; [f. 142v]
y que ay persona allı́ que tiene 1U38 esclavos. y es cierto que ay yndio sedenho que tiene mill
esclavos negros, [f. 142v]

Dice de otra provincia que se llama Hugar, con y junto a este estan dos rreynos muy poderosos
fama de mucho oro, [f. 143r] de gente en una provinçia que llaman
Ugar en que ay muncho e fino oro, . . . y que
todo este rreyno de Ugar es nombrado por
rico de oro. [f. 143r]
y de otra que se llama Sufia con negros, esta en otra provinçia que queda entre Ugar y
One que se llama Sufia, que ay en ella mas de
40 U. hombres son todos negros como los de
Guinea [f. 143r]
y gente mulata;
que le dixeron que en algunas islas de aquella donde dizen que en algunas yslas ay gente
comarca ay gente blanca, y pecosa con cavellos blanca y de la cavellos rubios e sardos. [f. 143v]
rubios.39
Dice de otra provincia que se llama Apaa;40 sus todos andan desnudos en cueros, salvo algunos
naturales andan desnudos, y algunos principales principales que traen algunas mantas coloradas
cubiertos con mantas negras, y coloradas, y negras [f.144v]
y que estos no hacen caso del oro, y dan por No vi a estos oro ni plata ni hazen caudal dello,
raçon que es mejor el hierro, por mayor y más por lo qual me parece no lo pasen. [f. 144v] . . .
provechoso. y que estos de Gele traen muncho oro como el
que yo les ensene quando les pregunte si tenian
de aquello, y que ellos no lo querian porque
muncho mejor era el hierro, lo uno por ser
mayor y lo otro porque es serviçio de munchas
cosas y el oro no les servia de nada. [f. 144v]
Dice que en toda la costa ay muchos rios, y Tienen estos en su tierra munchas palmas,
que la tierra es muy templada, sana, y fertil, gallinas, puercos. Hazen sus sementeras de
con mucho arroz, landa,41 cocos, miel, arroz ; [f. 145r] quando andan enbarcados traen
puercos,42 cabras, bufálos, gallinas, por su vastimento landa.

36 ‘Botan’ means mainland; see Sollewijn Gelpke, op. cit., p. 130.

37 Boxer and Manguin, op. cit., p. 186, n. 42, say: “Presumably some place near Ogar [see below] on the south
coast of the Maccluer [sic] Gulf.”
38 ‘U’ is the standard old Spanish notation for 1,000.
39 Sollewijn Gelpke, op. cit., p. 136, n. 49, notes that there are many albinos in the MacCluer Gulf area.
40 Boxer and Manguin, op. cit., p. 188, n. 49, do not identify this but suggest it may be the south coast of New
Guinea to the north of the MacCluer Gulf. This view is also taken up by Ellen, Figure 3.8, p. 69.
41 A kind of bread “made from powdered buri palm starch”; see J. V. Wolff, A Dictionary of Cebuano-Visayan
(Ithaca, 1972), quoted in Sollewijn Gelpke, op. cit., p. 130, n. 21.
42 Probably New Guinea native pigs, which look like European boar; see Sollewijn Gelpke, op. cit., p. 133,
n. 35. The original Spanish has puercos de monte; see Boxer and Manguin, op. cit., p. 184.

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 The Early History of the Boxer Codex 121

y que vió muchas conchas de nacar, la concha en que nase el aljofar en muncha
cantidad [f. 143v]
sandalo, ciertas campanas, y muchas
embarcaciones,
y gente que tiene por armos dardos y flechas y no ay por todo esta tierra otra arma sino son
sin yerva,43 flechas y dardos y sin yerva ninguna. [f. 142v]
y se usan embijar;
que les dieron noticia de tres españoles44 que Estos de Apaa me dieron nuevas de tres
estavan casados en aquella tierra que dicen hombres blancos que estavan en esta tierra
firme, y que eran más y se murieron; firme de la Nueva Guinea y que eran munchos
mas mas [sic] que murieron y agora que no avia
mas que tres. [f. 145r]
y que de aquı́ se volvieron á una isla que se y de aqui corriendo una cordillera tomamos la
llama Noton, de Noton [f. 145v]
a donde supo, como en ciertas islas del y le pregunte que con que se alumbravan, y el
Nordeste, y cerca de la isla de Jeue, los me respondio que avia en aquella ysla donde
naturales dellas se alumbran de noche con unas estos vivian unos animales que era de grandura
piedras que tienen en la frente unos animales de gatos grandes y que estos de noche venian a
como gatos;45 comer y que en la frente tienen una piedra, la
qual traen acuerta con un capillo, y quando
vienen de noche a buscar de comer la
descubren con la claridad della lo buscan y
sienten algo cubren la con el capillo y asi
quedan ascuras [sic], y que los de estas yslas los
espian y con sus arcos y flechas los matan y
quitan la piedra que les sirve de lumbre.
[f. 146r]
y que los de Baisco,
tienen por dioses á sus pasados, y quando Tienen a sus antepasados por dioses y ansi les
navegan llevan los huesos dellos en unas casas, guardan los huesos. [f. 147r]
y unos palos para desviar el viento contrario, Tanbien traen uno palo consigo para si
ó furioso.46 encontraren vientos lo desviaran con el.
[f. 147v]

The similarity of the content is obvious; more than 80 per cent of the Quirós text has
the same semantics, though the syntax is often somewhat different.47 More dramatic is the
sequencing of the items and their location in the Codex version. With the exception of the
mention of weapons and a very short one of pearls, the order of topics is exactly the same as
in the text of Roxo de Brito in the Boxer Codex. Further, the Summary relation only treats of
material on folios 142r–147v: the central 12 of the 22 pages of the original and, in Chapter

43 In Zaragoza, op. cit., vol. II, p. 295, dardos y flechas sin yerva, but yerba is literally ‘grass’.
44 Roxo de Brito identifies them as mutineers from the San Gerónimo. This was the ship that was sent to aid
Legazpi; see, for example, Oskar Hermann Khristian Spate, The Spanish Lake, volume I of The Pacific since Magellan
(Canberra, 1979), p. 105 (Electronic edition: ANU EPress, 2000 and Andrew Sharp, Adventurous Armada: the Story
of Legazpi’s Expedition (Christchurch, 1961), pp. 113–145. (Spate, op. cit., p. 315, n. 55, describes this as a “juvenile
book, but thoroughly based on the original documents”.) Boxer and Manguin, op. cit., cite pp. 277–279 of William
Lytle Schurz, Jr, The Manila Galleon (New York, 1939).
45 Identified in Sollewijn Gelpke, op. cit., p. 139, n. 64, as “kuskus, a common marsupial” i.e. cuscus, probably
the Gebe Cuscus (Phalanger alexandrae), which, like all such, has very large eyes.
46 Sollewijn Gelpke, op. cit., p. 141, identifies these as “black bangles made of a marine plant, in Malay called
akar bahar, which are still widely used today, even in Europe, to ward off illness, in particular rheumatism”.
47 It is somewhat surprising that the names are spelt differently in Quirós and in the Codex – for example,
Hugar as opposed to Ugar.

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 122 John N. Crossley

XXXIX of his famous account of his search for Australia, Quirós said that he would include
“a chapter of [Roxo de Brito’s] relation at the end of this discourse”, though he did not in
fact include the ‘chapter’ there but put it separately as the Summary relation.48 It would be
hard to keep in mind all that is in Roxo de Brito’s account, and since de los Rı́os had many
other matters of concern in Madrid, in particular presenting his list of many items requiring
attention in the Philippines, it is unlikely that de los Rı́os simply told Quirós the details.49
These factors strongly suggest that de los Rı́os had, at the very least, a version of Roxo de
Brito’s text with him in Madrid, and also that he had (or had had) access to the original
Codex.50
Now I would like to turn to another aspect of the Codex, concerning its binding. Boxer
felt that the Codex could have been taken by the British when they invaded the Philippines
in 1762, but he also says “it might have been sent to Spain at any date after 1590”.51 The
physical condition of the Codex is remarkably good, in contrast with that of the more
than 400 books of the same vintage in the library of the University of Santo Tomas in
the Philippines, many of which arrived in the Philippines before 1620.52 Boxer also said
that he could not tell whether the book had been rebound.53 The leather used to bind
books is highly subject to deterioration in the tropical climate and I have seen nothing
in the Philippines from that period to match the elaborately tooled quality of the Boxer
Codex binding. Further, the Codex has a sheep binding. Since there were no sheep in the
Philippines, it is most unlikely to have been made there.
As Boxer noted, on most pages three sides of a rectangle have a blue ruling surrounding
the text. Curiously the rectangle is often not aligned between recto and verso. However,
one can determine that the margins have remained unchanged, showing that the pages
have not been recut. The binding is therefore the original. Boxer also noted that the
binding “is of a familiar late sixteenth/early seventeenth century Iberian type”.54 The filler
under the pastedown inside the front cover could not have come from the Philippines
because it is set in movable type, and the books printed in Manila at that time were all
xylographed. In fact, the cover is from a sheet of paper that contains parts of pages 226
and 231 of a book by Pablo de Mera published in 1614.55 Similarly, the filler inside the

48 Zaragoza, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 187–188, “porque Miguel Rojo de Brito, natural de Lisboa, fué del Maluco
á la Nueva Guinea, y dice estar muy cerca, como se verá en un capı́tulo de una relacion suya que irá al pié deste
discurso”. Emphasis added.
49 See Crossley, op. cit., Chapter 5.
50 In the succeeding document in Zaragoza, op. cit., Vol. II, p.296, Quirós says: “El original tengo en mi poder”,
but he does not say this about the Summary relation.
51 Boxer, A Late Sixteenth Century, p. 49.
52 Cf. Angel Aparicio, OP, ed., Catalogue of Rare Books, University of Santo Tomas Library (Manila, 2001). The
Heritage Library in the University of Santo Tomas has the only known large collection of sixteenth-century books
in the Philippines.
53 Boxer, A Late Sixteenth Century, p. 37.
54 Ibid.
55 The text starts at line 4 of page 226 and continues to the catchword, with the corresponding part of page 231
and its catchword. Tratado del computo general de los tiempos conforme a la nueua reformacion, necessario para los eclesiasticos,
y seglares: con cien tablas centesimas, y la restauracion del aureo numero, con otras tablas, y cuentas curiosas á ello tocantes
Dirigido á D. Francisco de Sandoval y Rojas, duque de Lerma y Cea, marqués de Denia y Villavizar, comendador mayor de
Castilla, conde de Ampudia, y del Cõsejo de Estado, Cauallerizo mayor, y Sumiller de Corpus del Rey don Felipe III. y
Mayordomo mayor del Principe don Felipe IIII. deste nombre. Impreso en Madrid por los de la Compañı́a [de Impresores
y Libreros del Reino] 1614. Although de Mera says on folio 1r that the text is “nuevamente enmendado”, I have

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 The Early History of the Boxer Codex 123

back cover is of an even-numbered page from the same book.56 Since the pages under
the front pastedown are not separated, this indicates it was from a sheet that was not
bound, and therefore surely came from the printer. This also means that the Codex was
bound in the printing house, la Compañı́a de Impresores y Libreros del Reino [the Royal
Company of Printers and Booksellers], that produced Pablo de Mera’s book. All of the
above seem to provide conclusive evidence that the book was bound in Spain, in 1614 at the
earliest.
The pages too are in remarkably good condition and much better than those of virtually
all the books from that period that I have seen in the Philippines. The latter tend to have
many wormholes, but there are only a few holes in the Boxer Codex, and these are in the
leaves at the end of the book. Moreover, they do not penetrate the binding. This again
suggests that the Codex left the Philippines early; I therefore next turn to the question of
when it arrived in Spain.
As I noted above, the elder Dasmariñas was murdered by his Chinese crew in 1593, and
his son died in the Sangley uprising in 1603,57 both deaths taking place while de los Rı́os
was still in the Philippines. De los Rı́os was a pilot, indeed the only pilot I know by name in
the Philippines at that time,58 and he had been close to both father and son. Consequently,
he was in the perfect position to have access to the Codex. In 1605 he was sent to Spain by
the citizens of Manila as Procurator General. The timing suggests that the Codex was taken
by de los Rı́os to Spain, two years after the death of the son. Moreover, since it seems clear
that the book was bound by the Royal Company of Printers and Booksellers, it appears that
the book remained in the court. This also suggests that de los Rı́os did not own the book but
seemingly was the person who took it to Spain with the express aim of showing, or giving,
it to the king. The book’s presence in the court would certainly explain why Quirós, who
was in the court, was able to make such an accurate and order-preserving précis of part of
the voyage of Roxo de Brito. I therefore conclude that de los Rı́os took the unbound pages
to Spain when he went there in 1605 and that they were subsequently bound in Spain no
earlier than 1614, four years after de los Rı́os returned to the Philippines.59 There remains
the question of the subsequent history of the Codex, in particular why the manuscript left
the court, but this appears to be unknown until it appears in the library of Lord Ilchester in
Holland House.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Ian Cox of the Collection Preservation and Access Division and Des
Cowley from Rare Books, both of the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne; the Celsus
Kelly Collection of St Paschal Library, Melbourne and its librarians Thea Roche and

found no record of an earlier edition, even though it was work of de Mera that led Pope Gregory XII to introduce
what we now call the Gregorian calendar.
56 It has not been possible to read more than the running heading [COM]PUTO DE – although there are parts
of other words visible – because two sheets of rice paper pasted down obscure the text, rather than just one as at
the front.
57 Crossley, op. cit., p.62. The Sangleys are the descendants of Chinese who had settled in Manila.
58 On pilots in the Philippines at that time, see Crossley, op. cit., pp. 32 ff.
59 Crossley, op. cit., p. 67.

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 124 John N. Crossley

Miranda Welch; at Monash University Library: Marı́a-Teresa Keightley, for help with Spanish
translation, and Denis Kishere for identifying Boxer’s Japanese seal; at the University of Santo
Tomas, Manila: Archivist Regalado Trota Jose, and at the Lilly Library, Bloomington, Indiana:
Becky Cape, and especially Jim Canary for technical assistance and, finally, in Oxford, Tom
Earle and, as ever, Clive Griffin. [email protected]

John N. Crossley
Monash University

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