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American Society of Church History

Negotiating Sanctity: Holy Women in Sixteenth-Century SpainAuthor(s): Gillian T. W. AhlgrenReviewed work(s):Source: Church History, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Sep., 1995), pp. 373-388Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society of Church HistoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3168945 .

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NegotiatingSanctity:HolyWomennSixteenth-CenturypainGILLIAN T. W. AHLGREN

The past ten years have seen great strides in our understanding of themany forces at work in Counter-Reformation Spain. Historians and hispan-ists have demonstrated clearly that the Spanish religious landscape wascomplex and have elucidated severalproblems of interpretation. How readilydid Spanish monarchs, religious leaders, and laity follow the decrees of theCouncil of Trent? How influential was the Spanish Inquisition in enforcingreligious beliefs and behaviors?1 In what ways did religious reform involveassumptions about gender and differing religious roles for men and women?2Finally, and more to my point, how did men and women respond to suchassumptions and roles?3Of course, these questions are broad and will continue to generate schol-arlydebate. Certainlynot all can be addressed in one article. Yet in this essay,I would like to offer some analysis of the contemporary understanding ofsanctity, since this appears to be a point at which many larger questionsintersect. The focus of my inquiry revolves around women's struggle forreligious authority, a theme which emerges in several recent studies ofwomen in sixteenth-century Spain.4 As the prescriptions for appropriate,gendered behavior became more rigid, in what ways did women use tradi-tional Christianvirtues to establishreligious authority?5How did the Spanish

1. See, for example, Angel Alcala et al., Inquisicidn espanola y mentalidadinquisitorial(Barcelona, Spain, 1984); Stephen Haliczer, ed., Inquisitionand Society n EarlyModemEurope(London, 1986); and Henry Kamen, ThePhoenix and the Flame:Catalonia andtheCounterReformationNew Haven, Conn., 1993).2. See Mary Elizabeth Perry, Genderand Disorder n EarlyModern Seville (Princeton, N.J.,1990).3. See Electa Arenal and Stacey Schlau, Untold Sisters:HispanicNuns in TheirOwn Works,trans. Amanda Powell (Albuquerque,N.M., 1989); and Maril6Vigil, La vida de lasmujeres n lossiglosXVIy XVII (Madrid, 1986).4. Recentscholarship n Teresa of Avilawhichexaminesherstruggleto achieveauthorityincludes Gillian T. W. Ahlgren, Teresaof Avila and the Politics of Sanctity(Ithaca, N.Y.:CornellUniversityPress, orthcoming); . MaryLuti,"TeresaofAvila, maestra spiritual,'" Ph.D. diss., Boston College, 1988; and AlisonWeber,Teresa f Avilaand theRhetoricof Femininity(Princeton, N.J., 1990). See also Ronald Surtz, The Guitarof God:Gender,Power andAuthorityn the VisionaryWorldof MotherJuanade la Cruz(1481-1534)(Philadelphia,Pa.,1990).5. This question s discussed n severalstudies n AnneJ. Cruzand MaryElizabethPerry,Culture and Controlin Counter-Reformationpain (Minneapolis, Minn., 1992). For anoverviewof the tensions inherentin the control of cultureand itseffectsupon women,see ibid., pp. ix-xxiii.

Ms. Ahlgren is assistantprofessor of theologyat Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio.373


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CHURCH HISTORYInquisitionconstruct female virtue, and what were the effects on real women?Finally,why did the church recognize with canonization so few of the womenvenerated by their contemporaries for their holiness?Answeringthese questions involvesexamining the challenges which Catho-lic institutional structures posed to women in sixteenth-century Spain. I willreview specific virtues and behaviors associated with Christian holiness:humility and its handmaiden, obedience; asceticism or penitential practice;and special access to God. I suggest that these categories, while essential toestablishing the credibility of a religious figure, were very ambiguous andcould just as easily be used to generate suspicion about a woman's sanctity.The cases described in this paper testifyboth to the ambiguity of heresy andsanctity in sixteenth-century Spain and to the more stringent standardschurch officials used in recognizing the holiness of women as opposed tomen.

The reasons for the "gender gap" in canonizations are complex, andseveral deserve attention. First, theological definitions of womanhood oftenassociatedwomen with Eve, suggesting that they were unable to make moraldecisions or give spiritualguidance. Theological assumptions about women'snature required holy women to overcome a certain "deficit" n their virtue.Second, women's religious roles and societal expectations of holy womenshifted over the course of the century, making it difficult for them to conformto norms of religious virtue. Pursuing holiness-which also involved surviv-ing scrutiny by the Inquisition when women achieved a public voice throughtheir charismatic experience-hinged upon their willingness to balancebeing faithful to their own religious experience and conforming to estab-lished and evolving interpretations of virtue and special access to God.

1.The crisis of authority in the sixteenth century contributed to the particu-larly propagandistic orientation of the canonization process. After severaldecades during which Protestant theologians called into question the entiretradition of sanctity and Catholic piety, Rome had to consider carefully the

messages it would send by endorsing the holiness of an individual's life. Infact, Peter Burke characterizes the mid-sixteenth century as "a crisis ofcanonization"during which, for sixty-fiveyears, Rome refrained from mak-ing saints.6

6. See Peter Burke, "How To Be a Counter-Reformation Saint," in Kaspar von Greyerz,Religionand Societyn EarlyModernEurope1500-1800 (London, 1984), pp. 45-55. Thefirst saint canonized after the 65-year hiatus was Diego of Alcala in 1588.

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HOLY WOMEN IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY SPAINOver time, however, the Roman church began to realize the pedagogicalvalue of the canonization process.7In 1622 Gregory XV canonized five saints

often understood to be symbolicof Catholic identity in the Counter Reforma-tion: Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Philip Neri, Teresa of Jesus, andIsidore the Worker. There werejust fifteen others canonized between 1622and 1690.8After reviewing the canonizations between 1588 and 1767, PeterBurke described the demographics of canonized sanctity during that period.He concluded, not surprisingly, that men had better chances than women,Italians and Spaniards had better chances than anyone else, nobles hadbetter chances than commoners, and clerics had better chances than laity.9Focusing on the increased recognition of men's holiness-male saintsoutnumbered female saints by nearly four to one in the Counter-Reforma-tion and Baroque periods-leads to the conclusion that ecclesiasticalauthori-ties recognized certain religious roles more readily than others.10 Men hadmany more religious roles than women did and their roles were, generallyspeaking, more public than those of women. Men could be missionaries andeducators (especially in the Society of Jesus),ll but for women the range ofholy behavior narrowed as it was subjectedto more scrutinyand institutionalcontrol. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) encouraged women religious tobe enclosed in monasteries;as this became the religious norm for women, thepublic had little access to any demonstrations of their virtue. Additionally,officials of the Inquisition and local authorities (ecclesiastical and secularalike) indicated concern about the lifestyles of independent holy womenvenerated by their communities. In Spain the tradition ofbeatas,autonomousreligious women who had been very influential throughout the fifteenth andearly sixteenth centuries, threatened to disappear entirely as the Inquisitionconsidered more and more cases against them.12The Spanish Indices ofProhibited Books (Valdes in 1559 and Quiroga in 1583) temporarily haltedthe writingof mysticaltreatises and other spiritual texts.13 Over the course ofthe century, therefore, women could read fewer books which would teachthem prayer techniques and had to depend more upon the spiritual direc-tion of "lettered" men.14Yet even prayer, the only real way for women to

7. See Pierre Delooz, SociologieetcanonisationsThe Hague, The Netherlands, 1969), p. 237.8. For a list of these saints, see Burke, pp. 49-50, and Delooz, pp. 445-446,460.9. See Burke, p. 49. Delooz compares the number of Spanish, Italian, and French saints ofthe Counter Reformation in Sociologieetcanonisations,pp. 237-238.10. Burke, p. 49.11. See John O'Malley, TheFirstJesuits (Cambridge, Mass., 1993).12. For an analysis of the declining status of the beata,see Mary Elizabeth Perry, "Beatasand the Inquisition in Early Modern Seville," in Stephen Haliczer, ed., InquisitionandSocietyn EarlyModernEurope(London, 1986), pp. 147-168.13. Thus, for example, the only mystical text published by the formerly humanist press ofJuan Brocar at Alcala after 1559 was a 1570 edition ofJohn Climacus.14. This situation distressed Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), who began writing her mysticalworks primarily to provide women with the spiritual resources they needed to achieve

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CHURCH HISTORYgain theological credibility within Catholic institutions, was held up for closescrutiny.

Suspicion of mental prayer or contemplation had grown after the discov-ery around 1525 of a group of Catholics meeting in the palace of theMendozas in Guadalajara who gathered periodically for prayer and discus-sion of spiritual classics by such authors as Bernard of Clairvaux, Angela ofFoligno, and Catherine of Siena. Members of this group were accused ofemphasizing the importance of personal prayer at the expense of thesacramental life of the church.15 Claiming an inner illumination, thesealumbrados (or "illuminated ones")-several of whom were women-beganto preach publicly about their spiritual experiences. The group attracted theattention of the Inquisition, and many were tried and condemned for havingbeen "falsely illumined."16 This early encounter between the Inquisition andthe alumbradosexhibited the Inquisitors' growing suspicion toward nearly anyexperience of mental prayer, particularly one which involved signs of directaccess to God. For Inquisitors, at least, mystical experience contained theseeds of dissent within the church. As one historian characterizes it,

The phenomenon [of the alumbrados] ... had a particular importance in the firsthalf of the sixteenth century because ... it monopolized the attention of thetribunals of Valladolid and Toledo between the years 1524 and 1539 andcontinued to carry weight in the minds of Inquisitorsand theologians throughoutthe entire century, leading them to see signs of alumbradismon doctrines andpersonalitieswho had nothing to do with it.17This suspicion of interior religiosity was a particular problem for women intwo ways. First, women lacked theological education. Religious experienceled women to preach and to describe their experiences of God in language

different from that of university-trained theologians.18 While this is also aquestion of differing religious epistemologies-specifically a struggle be-tween letrados, or "learned men," and experimentados,or the "[spiritually]experienced"-women's more limited theological vocabulary and their infre-quent citation of classic theologians led some to conclude that women's wordswere imprecise or even inaccurate. For the most part excluded from impor-

mystical union. In her Vida she expresses quite clearly her discontent with the ValdesIndex: see her Vida26:5, in TeresadeJesus: ObrasCompletas, d. Enrique Llamas et al.(Madrid, 1984). Teresa's works were the only mystical treatises by a woman publishedin Spain during the second half of the sixteenth century. All translations are my ownunless otherwise noted.15. For the text of the Edict of 1525, see Antonio Marquez, Losalumbrados:Origenes filosofia(1525-1559) (Madrid, 1980), pp. 229-238.16. For a more detailed analysis of this group, see Marquez, Los alumbrados.17. Jose Novalin, "La Inquisicion espafiola," in Ricardo Garcia-Villoslada, ed., Historiade laIglesiaen Espana, vol. 3:2: La Iglesiaen la Espanade los siglosXVy XVI (Madrid, 1980),p. 147.18. A key question in future research is to what extent this difference in language indicatesa difference in experience and a differing theological perspective.

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HOLY WOMEN IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY SPAINtant contemporary theological debates, women's writings suffered a markeddecline in theological authority.19Second, contemporaries feared that womenwere morally weaker and more easily deluded by the devil.20Indeed, theInquisition tried many women not just as alumbrados ut also as ilusas,thosewho pretended to be holy; as demoniacas,hose who had been either deludedor possessed by the devil; or as actual conjurers.21 Such accusations ofwitchcraft or alumbradismouggest that Inquisitors believed women wereunable to negotiate their own spiritual paths, whether because they wereignorant, deceived, or truly malicious.Despite such misogynistic assumptions, holy women gathered large follow-ings. In Avila, the Jesuit Baltasar Alvarez often invoked the example of thebeataMari Diaz in sermons.22Philip II asked for the blessing of the stigmaticMaria de la Visitacion before the SpanishArmada left the port of Lisbon.23 nSeville, Catalinade Jesuiswas called madre,and followers who met her on thestreet knelt to kiss her hand.24 Evidence of this sort suggests that, withincertain limits, holy women could serve as living witnesses-and, in fact,mediators-of God's presence on earth.Sixteenth-century Spanish women faced numerous obstacles in their pur-suit of holiness, especially the lack of mystical texts in the vernacular, thegrowing emphasis on doctrinal theology, doubts about women's ability todiscern spirits,and a general decline in their religious authority. Faced with a

19. See Jodi Bilinkoff, The Avila of Saint Teresa:ReligiousReform n a Sixteenth-CenturyCity(Ithaca, N.Y., 1989), pp. 142-143. Male experimentadoslso encountered opposition. Inhis 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 Valdes Index.20. Assumptions of the moral inferiority of women and their need for clear spiritualguidance are found in many sixteenth-century theological treatises including, forexample, Clemente Sanchez de Vercial, Librode losexemplos orA.B.C., ed. John EastonKeller (Madrid, 1986), esp. pp. 235-239; Martin de Castafiega, Tratado de las supersti-cionesy hechicerias 1529; Madrid, 1946); Juan de Horozco y Covarruvias, Tratadode laverdaderay falsa prophecia (Segovia, 1588); Pedro de Rivadeneyra, "Tratado de laTribulaci6n" in BAE, vol. 60 (Madrid, 1868); Pedro Navarro, Favoresdel reydel cielo(Madrid, 1622); Sor Magdalena de San Ger6nimo, Razony formade la galera,y casareal,queel ReyN.S. manda hazeren estos reinospara castigode las mugeresvagrantesy ladronas,alcahuetas,hechizeras, otrassemejantesSalamanca, 1608); and Jer6nimo de Sepulveda,"Historia de varios sucesos del reino de Felipe II, 1584-1603," Ciudad de Dios 115(1918).21. There are 148 cases of female witchcraft (of varying types and degrees) from Castileduring the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries recorded in A. Paz y Melia, PapelesdeInquisicion.Catdlogoy extractosMadrid, 1947).22. Luis de la Puente, Vidadel Padre Baltasar Alvarez(Madrid, 1615).23. This occurred on 27 May 1588, when the Invincible Armada assembled on the coastoutside the convent. See Ram6n Robres and Jose Ram6n Ortola, La monjade Lisboa:Epistolario nedito entre Fr. Luis de Granaday el Patriarca Ribera (Castello6nde la Plana,Spain, 1947), p. 19. See also Horatio Brown, Calendarof StatePapersand ManuscriptsRelatingtoEnglishAffairs(London, 1894) 8:794-795.24. See Perry, "Beatas and the Inquisition in Early Modern Seville," pp. 147-148.

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CHURCH HISTORYshrinking number of paths of religious expression and deepening institu-tional scrutiny as they walked those paths, women found a growing bifurca-tion between their private religious experiences and their public expressionof them. They struggled to maintain some spiritual autonomy while appear-ing to conform to growing institutional strictures.Manyof theircontemporar-ies admired their struggles and perceived them as holy, yet the institutionalchurch was reluctant to give them any formal recognition as role models.

2.Recognizing sanctity,a many-stagedprocess, consisted chiefly of two parts:a community venerated a woman for her holiness, and the church canonized

her as a saint.25Traditionally, this process included an assessment of heroicvirtue and a determination that the person had found favor with God. AsRichard Kieckhefer explains, Christian saintliness consisted of moral ele-ments (asceticism,contemplation, and action) and extraordinary manifesta-tions of power (miraclesand visions).26Kieckhefer'sreview of saintlyqualitiesparallels in many ways the research of Donald Weinstein and Rudolph Bell,who identified the following categories as critical in demonstrating sanctity:(1) evidence of special access to God (miracles, ecstasy and supernaturalexperiences of prayer, or prophecy); (2) devotion to asceticism (rigorousfasting, sleep deprivation, withdrawal from society, patience through seriousillness, the use of ascetic devices like hairshirts or the discipline [self-flagellation]);(3) humility (expressed through obedience, self-discipline,andlack of regard for one's self);and (4) acts of charity.27These saintly qualitiesare intertwined. For example, asceticdiscipline was thought to bear fruit in aricherprayerlife;humilityand charityworked together when saintsacceptedhumble service.28

Sanctitywas not defined solely by clergy, theologians, or church officials.While Christian tradition established patterns of holy behavior and dissemi-nated them through sermons, the ever-popular Flos sanctorum,and otherhagiographical collections, ordinary people had firm and clear opinionsabout what made people holy and why they considered some women to bereligious models. In some cases veneration by the community bore fruit in an

25. For an accessible, popularly-written view of the canonization process, see KennethWoodward, MakingSaints,esp. pp. 50-86.26. See Richard Kieckhefer, "Imitators of Christ: Sainthood in the Christian Tradition," inRichard Kieckhefer and George D. Bond, eds., Sainthood:Its Manifestations n WorldReligions (Berkeley, Calif., 1988), pp. 1-42. For his comments on asceticism, seepp. 12-15.27. See discussion in Donald Weinstein and Rudolph M. Bell, Saints and Society:The TwoWorldsof WesternChristendom, 100-1700 (Chicago, 1982), pp. 141-164.28. In fact, through charity coupled with asceticism saints were thought to learn empathyfor the poor and thus true humility. See Kieckhefer, p. 19.

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HOLY WOMEN IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY SPAINorganized effort to have a candidate canonized. Many of these procedures,even when popular, never went farther institutionally than the collection oftestimonials on behalf of the person in question. Eventually a two-tieredsystememerged of formallyand informally recognized saints,existing side byside.29While it was helpful for a saint's cause to have the support of a religiousorder, royal patronage, episcopal approval, or widespread attention beyondthe local level, in the post-Tridentine church papal and curial endorsementwas all the more critical to the success of a canonization procedure. Thecreation of the Congregation of Rites under Sixtus V in 1588 establishedclear papal control over the entire canonization procedure.30Under UrbanVIII saint-makingprocedures were made increasinglystrict and formal.31The revival of saint-making, begun in 1588, reflected a new orientation inthe tradition of canonization. As Peter Burke characterizedit, "There was . . .an increase in the central control of the sacred, at the expense of local,unofficial, or 'wildcat' devotions. A papal monopoly of saint-making hadeffectively been declared. At a time of centralizing monarchies, the nextworld was remade in the image of this one."32 Institutional concerns aboutauthority in the sixteenth century had clear and precise effects on thecanonization process. For her case to succeed, the candidate had to embodyTridentine principles, maintain an apparent attitude of obedience towardreligious superiors, and reflect the catecheticalorthodoxy that emerged afterTrent. Canonization was a stamp of approval on the embodiment of areligious ideal which the hierarchical church wanted to promulgate; itestablished religious credibilityand authority.On the other hand, a person's religious authority could be discredited byaccusationsof heresy. Indeed, in the official canonization process, one of theearly steps in establishing sanctity was a determination of orthodoxy byRoman officials.33In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain, however,suchjudgments of orthodoxy or heterodoxy did not have to wait for Rome toinvestigate a case fiftyyears after the candidate's death. Manypeople of holyrepute were investigated by the Spanish Inquisition during their lifetime.34For Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), the only successful case of a canonized

29. See Burke, p. 45.30. See discussion in Eric Waldram Kemp, Canonizationand Authorityn the WesternChurch(Oxford, 1948), pp. 141-150.31. Urban VIII instituted the beatification procedure and introduced a fifty-year pausebetween the death of the candidate and the beginning of the canonization procedure.See Burke, pp. 46-47.32. Burke, p. 47.33. See Woodward, pp. 80-81.34. Examples of sixteenth-century religious figures investigated by the Spanish Inquisitioninclude: Bartolome de Carranza, Luis de Le6n, Ignatius Loyola, Teresa of Avila, andmost of the women discussed in this paper.

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CHURCH HISTORYsixteenth-century Spanish woman, canonized in 1622, the road to canoniza-tion was fraught with difficulties. The Inquisition opened cases againstTeresa at least five times, each one initiated because someone was suspiciousof her orthodoxy and religious behavior.35Indeed, when supporters beganto gather testimony for her canonization procedure, theological consultantsfor the Inquisition were still disputing the orthodoxy of her mystical doc-trine.36Several theologians argued forcefully that Teresa had been deceivedby the devil and that her mysticaldoctrine should not be allowed to circulate.Her canonization succeeded, nonetheless, for three reasons. The Spanishcrown and several nobles waged a dogged campaign on her behalf. Hersupporters successfully represented her as a female role model who embod-ied most of the virtues associatedwithfemininityand overcame the character-istics associated with womanhood. And the Roman Catholic Church eventu-allyendorsed the mystical way as an important part of Counter-ReformationCatholicidentity.Opposition to holy women's desire for autonomy and spiritual perfectionbecame an ecclesiastical norm in sixteenth-century Spain. Libraries andarchives in Spain are full of unpublished spiritualtreatiseswrittenby womendemonstrating that, despite the fact that Teresa achieved canonization, thelives and writings of many spiritual women were forgotten as early as ageneration after their death. Teresa's case shows that no woman-not eventhe one chosen by the institutional church as theCounter-Reformation femalerole model-could gain credibilitywith the authorities without tremendousstruggle.

3.Before we can examine specific religious virtues in the lives of women, weneed to consider briefly whether women, because of their sex, could beconsidered virtuous at all. Theorist Martinde Castafiega represented manyof the pejorativeattitudesabout the nature of women when, trying to explain

"whyamong these diabolicalministers there are more women than men," hesuggested that women "are cowards and weaker at heart . .. more subjecttotheir passions, weaker under temptation."37Thus holy women often provedtheir heroic virtue at the expense of their gender. In other words, thosewomen who were accepted as holy by confessors, members of their religiousorders, and the larger Christiancommunity were understood to have "over-

35. For a review of Teresa's troubles with the Inquisition see Ahlgren, Teresaof Avila; andEnrique Llamas Martinez, Santa TeresadeJesis y la Inquisicidn spanola(Madrid, 1972).36. Testimonials on behalf of Teresa were gathered as early as 1591, while the Inquisition'stribunal received criticisms of Teresa's mystical doctrine through 1593.37. Martin de Castafiega, Tratado de las supersticiones hechicerias Madrid, 1946), pp. 37,147-148.

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HOLY WOMEN IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY SPAINcome their womanhood": they had escaped the tendency toward deceptionwhich women had inherited from Eve and therefore had achieved a status ofrespect and religious authority.38Free to pursue virtue on a heroic level, suchwomen were "manly."39The "manly" woman appears to be a construction both of women'scontemporaries and of some women themselves. On several occasions, Ter-esa of Avila, for instance, urges her nuns to be "strong" and "manly" inpursuing the discipline of the monastic rule with vigor. In her Caminodeperfeccionhe writes: "I would not want you, my daughters, to be womanly inany way nor to seem so, but [to be] strong men; for if you do what is in you,the Lord will make you so manly that men will be shocked."40Many ofTeresa's contemporaries judged her to have become as authoritative as anyman. In the canonization procedure, for example, one of Teresa's confessorsrecalls a conversation with another of her confessors. In response to thequestion "What do you think of Teresa of Jesus?" one confessor answered,"Oh, you fooled me by saying that she was a woman; by faith she isn't, butrather a masculine man and of the most manly [bearded]."41Other women were also described as "masculine." The early visionaryJuana de la Cruz (died 1534), in the Life written by Antonio Daza, wasdescribed as having been conceived male, God having intervened in thewomb to make her a woman. A sign of this miraculous event was Juana'sprominent Adam's apple, "the emblem of a divinely determined an-drogyny."42 Mari Diaz, a beata in Avila and Teresa's contemporary, wasdescribed as "manlike"by male contemporaries.43Calling these women "manly"was an attempt by their followers to addressthe issue of women's lack of religious authority. Theological convictions38. See Margaret Miles, Carnal Knowing: Female Nakedness and Religious Meaning in theChristian West(New York, 1989), p. 66: "transcending gender effectively meant thatbothsexualityandsocializationweresimultaneously ejected."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 isMelveena McKendrick, Theatre in Spain: 1490-1700 (Cambridge, U.K., 1989),pp. 84-131. For more on the evolution of the type see Kerstin Aspegren, The MaleWoman:A Feminine Ideal in theEarlyChurch,ed. Rene Kieffer (Uppsala, Sweden, 1990)and Miles, CarnalKnowing,pp. 53-80. See also Barbara Newman, FromVirile Woman oWomanChrist: tudies n MedievalReligionand Literature Philadelphia, Pa., 1995).40. Teresa de Jesuis,Caminodeperfeccion Valladolid edition) 7.8: "No querria yo, hijas mias,lo fueseis en nada ni lo parecieseis, sino varones fuertes; que si ellas hacen lo que es ensi, el Sefior las hara tan varoniles que espanten a los hombres." In the El Escorialversion, Teresa had written the entire passage in the third person. When she rewrotethe Camino, placing much of it in the second and first person, she seems to haveneglected to change the second part of the sentence.41. The confessor in question wasJuan de Salinas, provincial of the Dominican order. Seetestimony of Domingo Banfiez,Procesode Salamanca(1591), in P. Silverio, ed. BibliotecaMisticaCarmelitanaBMC)35 vols. (Burgos, Spain, 1934-1949) 18:9.42. See Surtz, TheGuitarof God,pp. 6-7.43. See Bilinkoff, TheAvila of Saint Teresa,p. 100.

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CHURCH HISTORYabout women's inferiority could not be applied to them since they hadovercome the negative aspects of "womanhood." The demonstration of"heroic virtue"or a "manly"determination to overcome vice and to advancespiritually was critical in proving a woman's sanctity. Ambivalent feelingsabout masculinityand femininity in the lives of holy women are most likelyrelated to severalattitudes toward the female body: (1) that it was the locus ofsexual activity and therefore sexual temptation, which had to be deniedwithin the context of celibacy;(2) that it was of no positive use when it did notprovide the social function of reproduction and childraising; and (3) that itwas more vulnerable to seduction by the devil than the male body.44Provinga woman's virtue entailed demonstrating that she had separated from herbody or from her will, or conversely, that God possessed her body in ecstasy.

"Becoming male" was a theological construct which enabled women toovercome their specificburden in the Fall,yet their pursuit of virtue was stillgendered. Women who exhibited the key attributes of holiness-humility,penitential practice, and special access to God-continued to face narrowcircumscriptionsin their pursuit of religious perfection. I will now examineeach of these virtues to see how women werejudged to have achieved thesevirtues to a heroic degree, if recognized as saints, or, as in so many othercases, were determined to have failed in achieving them.As a religious virtue, humility is sometimes difficult to demonstrate.Evidence of developed humility in mystical texts involves one's dissociationfrom one's own will, a gradual stripping away of one's sense of being"special,"and a sincere presentation of one's naked self to God. Humilitywasdifficult to measure, however, unless proven by obedience, which becomes ayardstickfor the rejectionof one's own will. A woman's obedience was a test ofhow genuine her humility was. Obedience to church officials demonstratedallegiance to correct Catholic beliefs and practices. Obedience to confessorsmeant that women did not allow personal religious experience to lead themaway from Roman Catholic doctrine or practice. Obedient women did notvalue their own experience more than the advice and counsel of churchofficials.45

Humility established a woman's good intentions, which was importantbecause of the common accusations of fraudulent spiritual experiences. Animportant example of a woman accused of "deceit" was Magdalena de la

44. Miles documents the development of some of these attitudes in CarnalKnowing;see, forexample, p. 77.45. Or it seemed to mean such things to officials of the Inquisition. Obedience was asomewhat pliable virtue; depending on their relationships with their confessors, astutewomen could make confessors order them to do things they actually wanted to do. SeeJodi Bilinkoff, "Confessors, Penitents, and the Construction of Identities in EarlyModern Avila," in Barbara Diefendorf and Carla Hesse, eds., Cultureand Identity nEarlyModernEurope(1500-1800) (AnnArbor, Mich., 1993) pp. 83-100.

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HOLY WOMEN IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY SPAINCruz, who was tried by the inquisitorial tribunal of Cordoba in 1546 formaking a pact with demons. Magdalena was the abbess at Santa IsabelFranciscain Cordoba. She was a model of sanctity for many in her commu-nity because of her ascetical practices and her extraordinary experiences ofprayer:"Shewould go without eating or drinking for many days;she slept onthe floor on a hard mat; ... she wore a perpetual cilicio;she was observedlevitating in prayer; she bilocated from time to time; she knew who came tosee her and where they were from."46Magdalena's religious community tookthese signs of holiness in good faith,and they were shocked by her confessionduring an inquisitorial investigation that she had "entered into a pact withthe devil at the age of twelve, and that he had promised to sustain her for along time with great honors, and this devil brought her a naked black manwho invited her to carnal sins."47After she confessed to having faked herreligious experiences, Magdalena was sentenced to reclusion in her conventas the lowest-ranking member of her religious community. Magdalena'slackof humility was punished by forcing her into humbler circumstances.ForJohn of the Cross, humility was the key to religious credibility. In onecase, when asked to evaluate the religious experience of a Carmelite nun, hewrote: "She has too much confidence and too little caution about erringinternally.... She seems to want to persuade people to believe that what shehas [experienced] is good and abundant; but that is not the sign of a goodspirit, since, on the contrary, it wants people to make little of it and to belittleit."48Because of the nun's lack of humility, John of the Crossdetermined thather mystical experience was not genuine. He prescribed that the nun behumbled by her confessor and community in order to stimulate true virtue:"WhatI would suggest is that they do not order or even allow her to writeanything about this, nor should her confessor give her any sign of wanting tohear about it, but rather should belittle it and put it down; and they shouldtest her harshlyin the exercise of virtues, primarilyin self-contempt,humilityand obedience ... and the tests must be good ones, since there is no devilwho, for the sake of his honor, will not suffer anything."49In Teresa's case, recent scholarship demonstrates that a politically astuteuse of the virtue of obedience was in order. The key to Teresa's survival andsuccess as a writer and religious reformer of the Carmelite order was to

46. See the testimony of Luis de Zapata in Jesus Imirizaldu, Monjas y Beatas Embaucadores(Madrid, 1977), p. 33. Because cilicio can refer both to hairshirts or metal penitentialdevices 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."47. Imirizaldu, p. 47. According to Imirizaldu, this description was written by anothermember of the religious community at Isabel Francisca in January of 1544.48. John of the Cross, "Censura y parecer que dio el beato Padre sobre el espiritu y modode proceder en la oraci6n de una religiosa de nuestra Orden, y es como sigue" inJuande la Cruz:Obrascompletas, d. Jucinio Ruano de la Iglesia (Madrid, 1982), p. 896.49. Ibid.

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CHURCH HISTORYdemonstrate her obedience on two levels: not only obedience to her confes-sors, to theologians, and to representatives of the hierarchical church, butalso obedience to God (claiming divine revelation), which could justify suchactivities as theological writing and reform activitiestraditionallyunderstoodas male prerogatives. Teresa's claim of obedience to God allowed her greaterindependence in the church.Related to Teresa's institutional allegiance was the role of humility in herself-representation.Teresa's humilitywas a rhetoricalstrategyfor presentingherself in a non-threatening way to institutional officials. Alison Webersuggests that "Teresa's rhetoric of feminine subordination-all the para-doxes, the self-deprecation, the feigned ignorance and incompetence, thedeliberate obfuscation and ironic humor-produced the desired perlocution-ary effect."50 For some readers humility underscored Teresa's sincerity.Convincing her readers of her sinceritywas important for Teresa because itseparated her from the alumbrados ho deceived others and were themselvesdeceived. Other inquisitorial calificadores onsidered Teresa arrogant fortaking on a teaching role. Although not all her readers were taken in byTeresa's rhetoric of humility, her style certainlycontributed to her exonera-tion by the Inquisition.51The test of obedience, applied to women to measure whether they weretruly humble, should be seen as the conflict of different types of authority.The faith of women like Magdalena in their inner spiritual experiences wasset against their allegiance to the verdict (often negative) of representativesofthe institutional church. Thus for women the dilemma was often whether oneacknowledged the authority of experience or the authority of institutionalfigures.Another concrete way to pursue holiness was through asceticism and theeremitical tradition.The practiceof penance among sixteenth-centurywomenis poorly documented.52Most women do not describe their own penitentialactivity,although they will describe in glowing terms the penitential practiceof other women whom they considered holy. Teresa of Avila, for instance,rarelymentions penance, but in her canonization process others testified that"she so loved penitence that nothing gave her more pleasure than themartyrdom of her body for God. Early in her life she practiced greatpenitence, disciplining herself until the blood ran, wearing harsh silicios[sic],

50. Weber, TeresaofAvila and theRhetoricof Femininity,p. 159.51. See Ahlgren, Teresaof Avila, chapter 5. On the effects of Teresa's rhetoric of humility,see Weber, pp. 4-5, 164-165.52. But see Alain Saint-Saens's study of the reappropriation of early penitential models(especially Mary Magdalene and Jerome) in sixteenth-century Spain: La nostalgiedudesert:L'idealeremitique n Castilleau Siecled'Or(San Francisco, Calif., 1993).

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HOLY WOMEN IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY SPAINfasting, and many other types of penances . . . and [she did] this throughouther life insofar as her health permitted."53Teresa observed with what was perhaps a mixture of respect and horrorthe penances of her contemporaries Pedro de Alcantara and Catalina deCardona (died 1577).54Teresa described Catalina in her Bookof theFounda-tions as a woman of "terrible"penances, writing: "She said that she spenteight years in that cave, and many days eating nothing but herbs and rootsfrom the countryside. ... She disciplined herself with a great chain, andmany times they lasted an hour and a half or two hours. And her cilicioswereso severe that a woman told me that returning from a pilgrimage she spentthe night with her, and having lain down to sleep, she saw [Catalina]take offthe ciliciosfull of blood and clean them off."55Although Catalina's severepenitential practice was impressive, it was also considered suspect because itwas not contained within the convent but was pursued independently as ahermit. Pressured to align herself with a religious order, she finallyassumeda Carmelite lay habit, but she would not submit to claustration. Catalinawasnot opposed to living in community-her cave became the meeting place fora small school of spiritual disciples-but she objected to cutting off regularcontact with outsiders.The growing need to control female religiosity led the Spanish Inquisitionto try Catalina on at least one occasion. Catalina was probably consideredprideful because she would not become a fully professed nun and appearedoverly committed to her disciplines. Catalina'spenitential practice and theeremitical lifestyle were consistent with a long tradition of Spanish beatas,yether independence and autonomy disturbed Inquisitors and local churchofficialstrying to enforce Tridentine decrees on women and the religious life.

53. Testimony of Ana de la Trinidad, Proceso de Salamanca(1591) in BMC 18:44. In herpenitential practice Teresa took seriously the example of Mary Magdalene, describingher experience before a statue of Christ as taking over the Magdalene's place at the footof 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." See Teresa,TheWayof Perfection,trans. and ed. by E. Allison Peers (New York, 1991), p. 112. I tendto agree with Alain Saint-Saens's assessment in La nostalgie, p. 174. Although Teresaherself may well have been less severe about her penitential practices over the course ofher life, the fact remains that many eyewitnesses could testify to her rigorous asceticdiscipline, considered more than what the "average" nun would practice. Because allwitnesses were asked about Teresa's penitential practice as part of the series ofquestions designed to solicit testimony about her, such information is perhaps skewedby the process itself and the ideals of sanctity already in circulation.54. Teresa probably represented the esteem of many when she claimed to have seen indivinely-inspired visions both Pedro and Catalina ascend to heaven after their deaths.See Vida38:32 and Librode lasfundaciones28:21, in ObrasCompletas.For more on Pedrode Alcantara see Vida27:16-20.55. Teresa de Jesuis,Librode lasfundaciones28:27.

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CHURCH HISTORYAlthough Catalina's vita was written and testimonials about her life weregathered, a formal investigation of Catalina'ssanctitynever materialized.56The third component in determining sanctity was a demonstration ofspecial access to God. For women the primary and most obvious way ofshowing this access wasthrough prayer (especiallywhen that prayer involvedecstasy) and prophecy.57 Ecstaticprayer underscored the divine source ofwomen's spiritual teachings, justifying public circulation of their doctrine. Italso promoted an image of female sanctity in which women served asinstruments or vehicles of divine power. According to this model, any poweror authority which women embodied was not theirs but God's, and itovercame or supplemented their own natural weakness. Women could thusassert religious authority while conforming to contemporary standards ofhumility.At the same time, when women's claimsto authorityrested solely onprophecy they were vulnerable to attackif any of their prophetic utterancesfailed to materialize. Further, the instrumental model of authority allowedsome male contemporaries to view holy women as exceptions to the generalrule that women should not be allowed authority to teach (see 1 Timothy2:12-14).During the earlier part of the sixteenth century ecclesiastical officialsappeared to be more sympathetic to ecstatic experience. Juana de la Cruz(died 1534) was accorded special license to preach in the diocese of Toledowhile in a state of ecstasy. She was revered as God's messenger, a truepreacher of God's word, because God spoke through her inert body. By the1570s, however, reports of alumbradasecame more frequent and Inquisitorsheld suspect most forms of embodied prayer. The religious inspiration ofwomen was increasingly subjected to scrutiny and repression. This wasparticularlytrue when women's prayerwasphysicalor ecstatic,a characteris-tic which earlier in the century had enabled people like Juana de la Cruzaccess to the pulpit and the role of public preaching.Ecstasywas not alwaysthought to be a reliable measure of sanctitybecausewomen were considered particularlysusceptible to deception and so had toprove that their revelation and ecstatic experience proceeded from God.Teresa'semphasis on being "manly" s relevant here; by encouraging "manli-ness," Teresa hoped to dissociate herself and her nuns from the suspicionthat the devil would deceive them. A "manly" woman would not be asvulnerable to being deceived.Contemporary prejudice against women's prayer is exemplified by Ter-esa's confessor, Domingo Bafiez. When he reviewed Teresa's Life for the56. Information on Catalina de Cardona, including Tomas de Jesus's vita, is available in

BN ms. 3537.57. Few men displayed ecstatic behavior; in sixteenth-century Spain this category wasnearly exclusively confined to women because of their need to establish charismaticauthority.

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HOLY WOMEN IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY SPAINInquisition, Banfiezadmitted he found "nothing which in my judgment isunsound doctrine," but he said he was troubled by the book's "manyrevelations and visions, which should alwaysbe feared, especially in women,who are more likely to believe that they are from God and to view them as [asign of] holiness.... However, they should be viewed as troublesome bythose who wish to arrive at perfection, because Satan often transformshimself into an angel of light to fool curious souls who lack humility, as wehave seen in our times."58 ronically,Teresa's experience of prayer was whatmost people found the most impressive aspect of her sanctity, yet it alsoemerged in inquisitorial proceedings as a source of suspicion about herorthodoxy. Because of the problems with the alumbrados nd the generalsuspicion of mysticism, the Inquisition accepted a woman's ecstatic experi-ence as an indicator of intense religiosityonly with reluctance.

4.In his study of late medieval sanctity,Aviad Kleinbergastutelynoted: "Thestatus of saint was conferred upon a person in a gradual process that involveddisagreement and negotiation, as well as collaboration and even collusion."59While many women had negotiated positions of influence and authoritywithin the social structures of sixteenth-century Spain, the increasinglyclericalizedreligious structures made it nearly impossiblefor them to "collabo-rate and collude" with letrados, nquisitors, bishops, or papal representatives.What MargaretMiles has written about women in early Christianityseems asappropriate in the Counter-Reformationperiod: "The absence of the condi-tions essential for effective self-definition-access to the public sphere andthe construction of a collective voice-suggests that [women's] alternativeswere more circumscribed than those of male Christians."60Women struggled with prevailing theological convictions that they lackedvirtue and the ability to develop spiritually on their own. Additionally, theyhad to find ways to develop religious virtues under increasingly controlled

circumstances. There were many difficulties to negotiate. Because women'sbodies were considered their point of weakness, they had to demonstratesome kind of special relationship to their bodies. One strategy was to showthat God had overcome their bodies in "special"states of levitation, stigmati-zation, or ecstasy. Women who made these claims, however, were universallysubject to some kind of inquisitorial inquiry about their experience. Thesecond strategy was to control their bodies, subduing them by means ofphysical penance and self-denial. Yet penitential practice could be overdone

58. "Censura del P. Banfiez"n Teresa de Jesus, ObrascompletasMadrid, 1984), p. 306.59. Aviad M. Kleinberg, Prophetsin Their Own Country: Living Saints and the Making ofSainthoodn theLaterMiddleAges (Chicago, 1992), p. 4.60. Miles, CarnalKnowing, p. 77.

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CHURCH HISTORYand did not in itself guarantee a woman's canonization: Teresa's esteem ofher contemporary Catalina de Cardona did not bear fruit in any officialrecognition of Catalina'ssanctity.The shifting standards for female holiness made it more likely that theInquisition would try to control religious practices. In fact, the SpanishInquisition enforced a gendered orthopraxy, establishing and maintainingboundaries for the pursuit of female virtue.This control, in turn, had a directinfluence on the number of sixteenth-century Spanish women who suc-ceeded as public religious figures and eventually were canonized. Thegathered testimonials on such holy women as Mari Diaz, Catalina de Car-dona, and others prove that, although they acquired significant charismaticauthority during their lifetimes, on official levels religious women were notunderstood to have a significantrole in the Counter-Reformationagenda.Tighter papal control over the canonization process meant that formal (orinstitutional)determinations of sanctitywere made by people who had neverknown the candidate. Such procedures could evaluate only the waysin whicha woman had influenced her contemporaries and the ways in which theyremembered and reconstructed her life. In their lifetimes women had toconform-superficially at least-to social and theological expressions ofgender roles, obedience to the commands of their confessors, and fidelity totheir own experience of God in prayer-although these demands often cameinto conflict with one another. After their death, if their lives could not bereconstructed by others to make them useful role models for Roman defini-tions of Catholicpiety, the tightrope they had walked during their lives led toeventual anonymity. Negotiating sanctityon these two levels worked for onlyone woman in sixteenth-century Spain: Teresa's canonization was possiblebecause she had achieved widespread popular support without undulychallenging sixteenth-century gender ideologies and ecclesiasticalstructures.The experience of holy women in sixteenth-century Spain suggests that,even though many survived inquisitorialscrutiny and achieved influence atthe popular level, Rome was reluctant to recognize officiallytheir contribu-tions to the church. The greater separation between popular perceptions ofholiness and institutional recognition of the voxpopuli, reinforced by post-Tridentine popes and patrolled in Spain by the Inquisition, worked inparticularagainst holy women, many of whom, while able to avoid condem-nation by the Inquisition, were not considered holy enough to be recognizedfor their spiritualaccomplishments.

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