By adding some Christian elements to an embellished Aztec legend, Cortés claimed that the Aztec emperor Montezuma—described by the expedition’s chronicler Bernal Díaz del Castillo as “of good height, well proportioned, spare and slight, and not very dark”—“donated” his empire to Charles V because the Aztecs believed Cortés to be the prophesied “Great Lord” who would one day come from the east. This invented “donation” deliberately echoed another fictitious Old World tale the Spanish used to justify their politics, both past and present: the Donation of Constantine. As the story
