Scripts of prestige. Handwritten books produced by the colonial elite in Lima and Santa Fe de Bogotá (1700-1750)

This research aims to analyse how letrados in Lima and Santa Fe de Bogotá employed handwritten books to enhance and sustain their social status and prestige between 1700 and 1750. Colonial elites established and maintained their social positions through wealth, nobility, land ownership, marriage and services provided to the Crown. Revealingly, Ángel Rama in his work The Lettered City considered the “ability to manipulate writing” as the main factor enabling the social advancement of lettered people in largely preliterate societies, yet little is known about the role played by handwritten books in shaping colonial hierarchies. Recent studies have revealed the processes involved in the creation of handwritten documents associated with the colonial bureaucracy, but there are few studies of manuscript books produced by members of the elite besides those made for bureaucratic purposes. Letrados negotiated their social status in educational institutions, viceregal palaces, and other places of power through employing the handwritten word. This study examines the material characteristics of a range of manuscript books produced in this process to show how even there was a printing press handwritten books were a tool for promoting the status of members of the colonial elite.