553. The royal brotherhood of the Santa Misericordia of the city of Manila is composed of the members of the most prominent families of Manila. They have their overseer, twelve deputies, and a secretary, who form their executive board, besides other officers for their necessary transaction of business. They were established in imitation of the one which was erected in Lisboa, in the year 1498, by the most serene queen of Portugal--Dona Leonor, at that time the widow of Don Juan the Second, who had died in the year 1495 as appears in all the Portuguese histories. Their founder was a Trinitarian religious of praiseworthy life, one Fray Miguel de Contreras. The Misericordia of Manila is due to the pious and fervent efforts of that venerable servant of God. Father Juan Fernandez de Leon, a secular priest, a native of Gibra-Leon, in the county of Niebla in Andalucia, at the time when this archbishopric was governed by the very reverend father Fray Christoval de Salvatierra, [59] of the Order of Preachers, and the Philipinas Islands by Don Luis Gomez [_sic_: error for _Perez_] Dasmarinas. This holy brotherhood was established April 16, 1594, with the liberal alms of all the nobility of Manila, and the above-named governor was appointed its first overseer. The three who cooperated for its establishment and the formation of its constitution, were Father Pereyra, of the holy Society of Jesus, father Fray Marcos de Lisboa, a Franciscan, and Don Christoval Giral, all three of them Portuguese. In the church of the Society of Jesus at Manila met the most reverend father Fray Christoval de Salvatierra, the venerable dean Don Diego Basquez de Mercado, and the said venerable Juan Fernandez de Leon; the venerable fathers Antonio Sedeno and Raymundo de Prado, of the holy Society of Jesus; the venerable fathers Fray Agustin de Tordesillas, Fray Marcos de Lisboa, Fray Alonso Munoz, and Fray Juan Bautista, of this seraphic [_i.e._, Franciscan] province; together with the magistrates, regidors, and superior officers of the army of the city, and other persons of education and talents, both ecclesiastics and laymen. 554. Thus erected, and in accordance with its erection, the Santa Misericordia remained with the temporal management, and our province with the spiritual management, of the hospital, which from that time began to be called the Misericordia [_i.e._, "House of Mercy"] of the Franciscan fathers--which before had been cared for by the venerable Leon and our venerable Fray Juan Clemente; and the erection of the said hospital in proper shape was considered.