Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/711

Rh priests, glance at conspicuous peculiarities of life or opinion among the clergy, smile here and there at a so-called miracle, but such details would not interest the general reader. The number of suffragan sees in existence at the opening of the nineteenth century was the same as at the close of the seventeenth. That of Puebla had the same number of dignitaries, canons, and prebendaries as the metropolitan, and all its affairs were conducted with the utmost regularity. Its cathedral is one of the most magnificent buildings in Mexico.

The chapter of the see of Oajaca consisted of a dean, four dignitaries, and eight canons. The rebuilding of the cathedral, founded in 1535, Was begun by the fifteenth bishop. Father Angel Maldonado, in 1702, and completed by Bishop Santiago y Calderon, who took charge in 1730. The building has three naves besides the chapel, and is said to hold an arm of Saint Chrysostom, the skull of Saint Leontius, martyr, and a portion of the famous cross of Huatulco, to which countless miracles have been ascribed.