Bernardino de Sahagún

Spanish historian

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July 13, 2026

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Bernardino de Sahagún was a Franciscan priest who arrived in Mexico in 1529. He learned the Nahuatl language and dedicated his life to creating an encyclopedic work titled the Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (General History of the Things of New Spain). This comprehensive work covers nearly all aspects of Aztec culture, with particularly detailed accounts of religion, ethnobotany, folk medicine, and economics. Sahagún's research involved gathering information from Aztec noblemen and priests, and his work is valuable because it exists in both Nahuatl and Spanish. One of the most complete versions of his work, written in Nahuatl, is known as the Florentine Codex.1

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…the 16th-century Spanish Franciscan Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, who spent much of his life in missionary work in Mexico. Sahagún was ordered to write in Nahuatl the information needed by his colleagues for the conversion of the indigenous peoples of the region. The result, the Historia general de las cosas…
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…the 16th-century Spanish Franciscan Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, who spent much of his life in missionary work in Mexico. Sahagún was ordered to write in Nahuatl the information needed by his colleagues for the conversion of the indigenous peoples of the region. The result, the Historia general de las cosas…
Read More

pre-Columbian civilizations
Postconquest ethnographic accounts written in Spanish and Nahuatl
…of them was written by Bernardino de Sahagún. Sahagún was a Franciscan priest who arrived in Mexico very early (1529), learned the Nahuatl tongue, and spent his life building a wonderful monument, a real encyclopaedia called the Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (“General History of the Things…
Read More
…of them was written by Bernardino de Sahagún. Sahagún was a Franciscan priest who arrived in Mexico very early (1529), learned the Nahuatl tongue, and spent his life building a wonderful monument, a real encyclopaedia called the Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (“General History of the Things…
Read More