Ecclesiastical wealth in Mexico became the subject of bitter controversy within a few years of the declaration of independence in 1821. Although both contemporary and recent historians have tried to estimate the total value of clerical holdings of property and capital, and have written much about the effects of so much wealth being owned by one institution, nevertheless, to my knowledge, no detailed study has been made of the way in which the ecclesiastical corporations were able to accumulate their wealth, nor what they did with it once it had reached the coffers of the Church. It is well known, for example, that the Church acted as a type of lending bank, but almost no accurate information has been published concerning the terms of the loan contracts, or the organization responsible for lending the money. Similarly, it is known that the Church gathered tithes, but little is known of the exact way in which the tithe collection system was operated in the nineteenth century. Again, it is agreed that the regular clergy owned much of the urban property in the country, but no details are available of the rental contracts and terms demanded by the Church. Finally, many writers on clerical affairs have mentioned the loans which the Church gave to various independent governments, but no one has examined the way in which such loans were organized, nor made an accurate evaluation of the frequent protestations of the Church that it could not afford to meet the enormous financial demands made upon it by the State.