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Chocolate and the Aztecs
They killed over chocolate
The fall of the Aztec empire was not the end of the chocolates strong connection to religion. These small brown cacao beans and the chocolate made by them were for instance the cause of a great controversy and turbulence within the Catholic Church in Mexico, a "chocolate crisis" if yo will. The Spanish missionaries had worked hard to eradicate the pagan religions in Mexico and convert the Native Americans to Christianity. Just like in most parts of the world were such attempts were made, the missionaries could never fully eliminate the traces of the old culture, and old customs and belief systems became mixed with Christianity. The Native Americans brought the ceremonial use of the xocoatl drink into the Christian rituals, and by the end of the 17th century the prominent Spanish ladies living in Mexico had become so infatuated with the xocoatl drink that they never attended mass without sipping cup after cup. The bishop of Chiapas disliked this chocolate based custom and declared that drinking chocolate during mass broke the fast laws. The ladies living in Chiapas refused to give up their chocolate drinking habit and claimed that chocolate was as a medication, a necessity to prevent fainting and weakness during the long ceremonies. When the bishop declined to change his mind and didn't allow chocolate during the fast, they decided to change church instead and take their whole entourage with them, rather than to pass up the chocolate. According to Thomas Gage, a Dominican friar from England who was travelling in Mexico during these events, the bishop died of a cup of poisoned chocolate, presumably sent to him by the enraged chocolate lovers. Thomas Gage wrote about the incident in his book, Travels in the New World , and the whole thing became a huge scandal and the origin of the proverb “Beware the chocolate of Chiapa”. According to Thomas Gage, were the chocolate loving women in Chiapas even excommunicated by the bishop because of their persistent refusals to give up the chocolate. Eventually Pope Alexander VII stepped in and solved the chocolate problem. In 1662 he declared that "Liquidum non frangit jejunum" – liquids do not break the fast which meant that chocolate could be consumed during the fast..
