Archivo Histórico Dominicano Provincia de Hispania in Salamanca

The Provincial Chapter of the Dominicans Province of Spain, held in La Virgen del Camino (León) between December 1974 and January 1975, ordered the creation of the Dominican Historical Institute of San Esteban in Salamanca. The main task of this Institute was the conservation, organisation and cataloguing of the documentation existing in the Provincial Curia and in the convents which wished to deposit their archives in this organisation. Thus was born the Dominican Historical Archive of the Province of Spain (AHDOPE).

The first steps were taken with bequests from Father Justo Cuervo and Father Vicente Beltrán de Heredia and from the convent of San Esteban of Salamanca. Later, the contribution of the archives of the Provincial Curia and of some convents, such as San Juan Bautista de Corias, Santo Domingo de la Coruña and San Pablo de Valladolid increased the quantity and quality of the documentation in this Archive. Today, the evident reduction in the number of friars, which has forced a reduction in the number of convents, has favoured, and favours, the dispersed documentation being grouped together and preserved in this provincial archive.

Since 2016 it has functioned as the Archive of the Province of Hispania.

The Catalogue that can be consulted offers a wide range of documentation of the life of the Provincial Curia and its projection in the American missions and vicariates, of a good part of the convents and of religious who, through their lives and cultural activities, have left historical information of interest. We would all like the Old Collection to be more abundant than it is.

Historical circumstances - the War of Independence, the secularisation of 1835 and the Civil War - have meant that the religious orders have lost most of their documentary heritage, which they had preserved and cared for centuries. It will always be necessary to go to the National Historical Archive in Madrid to research the documentation of the various convents. However, we must say that there is more documentation, prior to the exclaustration, than we expected to find. The catalogue we present here refers primarily to manuscript documentation, with some printed works of a documentary nature. There is still much material to be catalogued.

The catalog of the Archive of the Province of Hispania is available on the following page: Catalog of the Archive of the Province of Hispania in Salamanca.