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Negotiating Sanctity: Holy Women in Sixteenth-Century Spain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Gillian T. W. Ahlgren
Gillian T. W. Ahlgren
Affiliation:
Assistant professor of theology at Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio
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Extract

The past ten years have seen great strides in our understanding of the many forces at work in Counter-Reformation Spain. Historians and hispanists have demonstrated clearly that the Spanish religious landscape was complex and have elucidated several problems of interpretation. How readily did Spanish monarchs, religious leaders, and laity follow the decrees of the Council of Trent? How influential was the Spanish Inquisition in enforcing religious beliefs and behaviors? In what ways did religious reform involve assumptions about gender and differing religious roles for men and women? Finally, and more to my point, how did men and women respond to such assumptions and roles?

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 64 , Issue 3 , September 1995 , pp. 373 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1995

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References

1. See, for example, Alcalá, Angel et al. , Inquisitión española y mentalidad inquisitorial (Barcelona, Spain, 1984);Google ScholarHaliczer, Stephen, ed., Inquisition and Society in Early Modern Europe (London, 1986);Google Scholarand Kamen, Henry, The Phoenix and the Flame: Catalonia and the Counter Reformation (New Haven, Conn., 1993).Google Scholar

2. See Perry, Mary Elizabeth, Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville (Princeton, N.J., 1990).Google Scholar

3. See Arenal, Electa and Schlau, Stacey, Untold Sisters: Hispanic Nuns in Their Own Works, trans. Powell, Amanda (Albuquerque, N.M., 1989);Google Scholarand Vigil, Marilo, La vida de las mujeres en los siglos XVI y XVII (Madrid, 1986).Google Scholar

4. Recent scholarship on Teresa of Avila which examines her struggle to achieve authority includes Ahlgren, Gillian T. W., Teresa of Avila and the Politics of Sanctity (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, forthcoming);Google ScholarLuti, J. Mary, “Teresa of Avila, ‘maestra espiri tual,’” Ph.D. diss., Boston College, 1988;Google Scholarand Weber, Alison, Teresa of Avila and the Rhetoric of Femininity (Princeton, N.J., 1990).Google ScholarSee also Surtz, Ronald, The Guitar of God: Gender, Power and Authority in the Visionary World of Mother Juana de la Cruz (1481–1534) (Philadelphia, Pa., 1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. This question is discussed in several studies in Cruz, Anne J. and Perry, Mary Elizabeth, Culture and Control in Counter-Reformation Spain (Minneapolis, Minn., 1992).Google Scholar For an overview of the tensions inherent in the control of culture and its effects upon women, see ibid., pp. ix–xxiii.

6. See Burke, Peter, “How To Be a Counter-Reformation Saint,” in Kaspar von Greyerz, Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe 1500–1800 (London, 1984), pp. 45–55. The first saint canonized after the 65-year hiatus was Diego of Alcal´ in 1588.Google Scholar

7. See Delooz, Pierre, Sociologie et canonisations (The Hague, The Netherlands, 1969), p. 237.Google Scholar

8. For a list of these saints, see Burke, pp. 49–50, and Delooz, pp. 445–146, 460.Google Scholar

9. See Burke, , p. 49. Delooz compares the number of Spanish, Italian, and French saints of the Counter Reformation in Sociologie et canonisations, pp. 237–238.Google Scholar

10. Burke, p. 49.Google Scholar

11. See O'Malley, John, The First Jesuits (Cambridge, Mass., 1993).Google Scholar

12. For an analysis of the declining status of the beata, see Perry, Mary Elizabeth, “Beatas and the Inquisition in Early Modern Seville,” in Haliczer, Stephen, ed., Inquisition and Society in Early Modern Europe (London, 1986), pp. 147–168.Google Scholar

13. Thus, for example, the only mystical text published by the formerly humanist press of Juan Brocar at Alcal´ after 1559 was a 1570 edition of John Climacus.Google Scholar

14. This situation distressed Teresa of Avila (1515–1582), who began writing her mystical works primarily to provide women with the spiritual resources they needed to achieve impormystical union. In her Vida she expresses quite clearly her discontent with the Valdes Index: see her Vida, 26:5, in Teresa de Jesús: Obras Completas, ed. Llamas, Enrique et al. (Madrid, 1984). Teresa's works were the only mystical treatises by a woman published in Spain during the second half of the sixteenth century. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted.Google Scholar

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18. A key question in future research is to what extent this difference in language indicates a difference in experience and a differing theological perspective.Google Scholar

19. See Bilinkoff, Jodi, The Avila of Saint Teresa: Religious Reform in a Sixteenth-Century City (Ithaca, N.Y., 1989), pp. 142–143. Male experimentados also encountered opposition. In his early years Ignatius Loyola was called before the Inquisition on three occasions. Juan de Avila, a noted spiritual expert with many female disciples, had his book Audi, filia placed on the 1559 Valdés Index.Google Scholar

20. Assumptions of the moral inferiority of women and their need for clear spiritual guidance are found in many sixteenth-century theological treatises including, for example, Sanchez de Vercial, Clemente, Libro de los exemplos por A.B.C., ed. Keller, John Easton (Madrid, 1986), esp. pp. 235–239;Google Scholarde Castañega, Martín, Tratado de las supersticiones y hechicerías (1529; Madrid, 1946);Google Scholarde Horozco y Covarruvias, Juan, Tratado de la verdadera y falsa prophecia (Segovia, 1588);Google Scholarde Rivadeneyra, Pedro, “Tratado de la Tribulation’ in BAE, vol. 60 (Madrid, 1868);Google ScholarNavarro, Pedro, Favores del rey del cielo (Madrid, 1622);Google ScholarMagdalena de San Geronimo, Sor, Razón y forma de la galera, y casa real, que el Rey N.S. manda hazer en estos reinos para castigo de las mugeres vagrantes y ladronas, alcahuetas, hechizeras, y otras semejantes (Salamanca, 1608);Google Scholarand de Sepúlveda, Jerónimo, “Historia de varios sucesos del reino de Felipe II, 1584–1603,’ Ciudad de Dios 115 (1918).Google Scholar

21. There are 148 cases of female witchcraft (of varying types and degrees) from Castile during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries recorded in Meliá, A. Paz y, Papeles de Inquisitión. Catálogoy extractor (Madrid, 1947).Google Scholar

22. de la Puente, Luis, Vida del Padre Baltasar Alvarez (Madrid, 1615).Google Scholar

23. This occurred on 27 May 1588, when the Invincible Armada assembled on the coast outside the convent. See Robres, Ramon and Ortola, Jose Ramon, La monja de Lisboa: Epistolano inédito entre Fr. Luis de Granada y el Patriarca Ribera (Castellón de la Plana, Spain, 1947), p. 19.Google ScholarSee also Brown, Horatio, Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts Relating to English Affairs (London, 1894) 8:794–795.Google Scholar

24. See Perry, , “Beatas and the Inquisition in Early Modern Seville,’ pp. 147–148.Google Scholar

25. For an accessible, popularly-written view of the canonization process, see Woodward, Kenneth, Making Saints, esp. pp. 50–86.Google Scholar

26. See Kieckhefer, Richard, “Imitators of Christ: Sainthood in the Christian Tradition,’ in Kieckhefer, Richard and Bond, George D., eds., Sainthood: Its Manifestations in World Religions (Berkeley, Calif., 1988), pp. 1–42. For his comments on asceticism, see pp. 12–15.Google Scholar

27. See discussion in Weinstein, Donald and Bell, Rudolph M., Saints and Society: The Two Worlds of Western Christendom, 1100–1700 (Chicago, 1982), pp. 141–164.Google Scholar

28. In fact, through charity coupled with asceticism saints were thought to learn empathy for the poor and thus true humility. See Kieckhefer, p. 19.Google Scholar

29. See Burke, , p. 45.Google Scholar

30. See discussion in Kemp, Eric Waldram, Canonization and Authority in the Western Church (Oxford, 1948), pp. 141–150.Google Scholar

31. Urban VIII instituted the beatification procedure and introduced a fifty-year pause between the death of the candidate and the beginning of the canonization procedure. See Burke, pp. 46–47.Google Scholar

32. Burke, , p. 47.Google Scholar

33. See Woodward, , pp. 80–81.Google Scholar

34. Examples of sixteenth-century religious figures investigated by the Spanish Inquisition include: Bartolomé de Carranza, Luis de León, Ignatius Loyola, Teresa of Avila, and most of the women discussed in this paper.Google Scholar

35. For a review of Teresa's troubles with the Inquisition see Ahlgren, , Teresa of Avila;Google Scholarand Martinez, Enrique Llamas, Santa Teresa de Jesús y la Inquisitión española (Madrid, 1972).Google Scholar

36. Testimonials on behalf ofTeresa were gathered as early as 1591, while the Inquisition's tribunal received criticisms of Teresa's mystical doctrine through 1593.Google Scholar

37. de Castanega, Martin, Tratado de las supersticiones y hechicerías (Madrid, 1946), pp. 37, 147–148.Google Scholar

38. See Miles, Margaret, Carnal Knowing: Female Nakedness and Religious Meaning in the Christian West (New York, 1989), p. 66: “transcending gender effectively meant that both sexuality and socialization were simultaneously rejected.’Google Scholar

39. The “manly’ woman is an established ideal within early Christianity, but there is not much literature on its manifestations in sixteenth-century Spain. One resource is McKendrick, Melveena, Theatre in Spain: 1490–1700 (Cambridge, U.K., 1989), pp. 84–131.Google ScholarFor more on the evolution of the type see Aspegren, Kerstin, The Male Woman: A Feminine Ideal in the Early Church, ed. Kieffer, Rene (Uppsala, Sweden, 1990) and Miles, Carnal Knowing, pp. 53–80.Google ScholarSee also Newman, Barbara, From Virile Woman to WomanChrist: Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature (Philadelphia, Pa., 1995).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40. Teresa de Jesús, Camino de perfection (Valladolid edition) 7.8: “No querrfa yo, hijas mías, lo fueseis en nada ni lo parecieseis, sino varones fuertes; que si ellas hacen lo que es en si, el Senor las hara tan varoniles que espanten a los hombres.’ In the El Escorial version, Teresa had written the entire passage in the third person. When she rewrote the Camino, placing much of it in the second and first person, she seems to have neglected to change the second part of the sentence.Google Scholar

41. The confessor in question was Juan de Salinas, provincial of the Dominican order. See testimony of Báñiez, Domingo, Proceso de Salamanca (1591), in Silverio, P., ed. Biblioteca Mistica Carmelitana (BMC) 35 vols. (Burgos, Spain, 1934–1949) 18:9.Google Scholar

42. See Surtz, , The Guitar of God, pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

43. See Bilinkoff, , The Avila of Saint Teresa, p. 100.Google Scholar

44. Miles documents the development of some of these attitudes in Carnal Knowing; see, for example, p. 77.Google Scholar

45. Or it seemed to mean such things to officials of the Inquisition. Obedience was a somewhat pliable virtue; depending on their relationships with their confessors, astute women could make confessors order them to do things they actually wanted to do. See Bilinkoff, Jodi, “Confessors, Penitents, and the Construction of Identities in Early Modern Avila,’ in Diefendorf, Barbara and Hesse, Carla, eds., Culture and Identity in Early Modern Europe (1500–1800) (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1993) pp. 83–100.Google Scholar

46. See the testimony of de Zapata, Luis in Jesús Imirizaldu, Monjas y Bealas Embaucadores (Madrid, 1977), p. 33. Because cilicio can refer both to hairshirts or metal penitential devices worn as belts or bracelets, I leave the term in its original Spanish. In this case, however, it is probably safe to translate the term as “hairshirt.’Google Scholar

47. Imirizaldu, , p. 47. According to Imirizaldu, this description was written by another member of the religious community at Isabel Francisca in January of 1544.Google Scholar

48. John of the Cross, “Censura y parecer que dio el beato Padre sobre el espiritu y modo de proceder en la oracion de una religiosa de nuestra Orden, y es como sigue’ in Juan de la Cruz: Obras completas, ed. Ruano de la Iglesia, Jucinio (Madrid, 1982), p. 896.Google Scholar

49. Ibid.

50. Weber, , Teresa of Avila and the Rhetoric of Femininity, p. 159.Google Scholar

51. See Ahlgren, , Teresa of Avila, chapter 5. On the effects of Teresa's rhetoric of humility, see Weber, pp. 4–5, 164–165.Google Scholar

52. But see Saint-Saens's, Alain study of the reappropriation of early penitential models (especially Mary Magdalene and Jerome) in sixteenth-century Spain: La nostalgie du désert: L'ideal érémitique en Castille au Siecle d'Or (San Francisco, Calif., 1993).Google Scholar

53. Testimony of de la Trinidad, Ana, Proceso de Salamanca (1591) in BMC 18:44. In her penitential practice Teresa took seriously the example of Mary Magdalene, describing her experience before a statue of Christ as taking over the Magdalene's place at the foot of the cross; see her Vida 9:2. Interpreting Teresa's penitential practices is difficult. Some would argue that Teresa was, in fact, quite moderate about penitential practice, citing, for example, Teresa' s comment, “As you know, I deprecate [other severe and] excessive penances, which, if practised indiscreetly, may injure the health.’Google ScholarSee Teresa, The Way of Perfection, trans, and ed. by Peers, E. Allison (New York, 1991), p. 112. I tend to agree with Alain Saint-Saens's assessment in La nostalgie, p. 174. Although Teresa herself may well have been less severe about her penitential practices over the course of her life, the fact remains that many eyewitnesses could testify to her rigorous ascetic discipline, considered more than what the “average’ nun would practice. Because all witnesses were asked about Teresa's penitential practice as part of the series of questions designed to solicit testimony about her, such information is perhaps skewed by the process itself and the ideals of sanctity already in circulation.Google Scholar

54. Teresa probably represented the esteem of many when she claimed to have seen in divinely-inspired visions both Pedro and Catalina ascend to heaven after their deaths. See Vida 38:32 and Libro de las fundaciones 28:21, in Obras Completas. For more on Pedro de Alcántara see Vida 27:16–20.Google Scholar

55. Teresa de Jesús, Libro de las fundaciones 28:27.Google Scholar

56. Information on Catalina de Cardona, including Tomás de Jesús's vita, is available in BN ms. 3537.Google Scholar

57. Few men displayed ecstatic behavior; in sixteenth-century Spain this category was nearly exclusively confined to women because of their need to establish charismatic authority.Google Scholar

58. “Censura del P. Báñez” in de Jesús, Teresa, Obras completas (Madrid, 1984), p. 306.Google Scholar

59. Kleinberg, Aviad M., Prophets in Their Own Country: Living Saints and the Making of Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages (Chicago, 1992), p. 4.Google Scholar

60. Miles, , Carnal Knowing, p. 77.Google Scholar