Between Exaltation and Infamy: Female Mystics in the Golden Age of Spain

356 Pages·2002·1.81 MB·English

by  Stephen Haliczer

Between Exaltation
and Infamy:
Female Mystics in the
Golden Age of Spain
STEPHEN HALICZER
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
   
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©
Between Exaltation
and Infamy
Female Mystics in the
Golden Age of Spain
 
1
2002
3
Oxford New York
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and an associated company in Berlin
Copyright © 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.,
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
www.oup.com
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Haliczer, Stephen, 1942–
Between exaltation and infamy : female mystics in the golden age of Spain / Stephen Haliczer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-514851-7; ISBN 0-19-514863-0 (pbk.)
1. Mysticism—Spain—History—16th century. 2. Women mystics—Spain—History—16th
century. 3. Spain—Church history—16th century. 4. Mysticism—Spain—History—17th
century. 5. Women mystics—Spain—History—17th century. 6. Spain—Church
history—17th century. I. Title.
BV5077.S7 H35 2002
248 .2'2'0820946—dc21 2001037314
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Pnnted in the United States of Amenca
on acid-free paper
Contents
Introduction, 3
1. Spain and the Golden Age of Mysticism, 9
2. Women and the Saintly Ideal, 28
3. Women Mystics in a Male-Dominated Culture, 48
4. The Officially Approved Woman Mystic
and Her Supporters, 80
5. Sainthood Denied, 105
6. An Uncertain Sword: The Spanish Inquisition
and the Repression of Feigned Sanctity, 125
7. A Counter-Reformation Childhood, 146
8. Adolescence and the Struggle for Self-Assertion, 161
9. Adulthood, 181
10. Religious Life and Devotions, 213
11. Between Power and Impotence: Social Role
and Social Fantasies, 241
vi CONTENTS
12. The Perception of Sanctity: Reputation, Cult Formation,
and Canonization, 265
Notes, 299
Bibliography, 335
Index, 345
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Introduction
One day in 1599, when she was just seven years old, María Ángela Astorch
fell ill and died after gorging herself on unripened almonds. After some con-
troversy, the family decided to move the body from the village of Saria,
where she had been living in the home of her wet nurse, to a final resting
place within the precincts of Barcelona’s Convent of the Commanders of
Santiago. But before the body could be taken for burial, María’s sister Isabel
insisted on seeing it one last time. Isabel arrived in Saria the following
morning in the company of her mother superior, the ecstatic mystic and
visionary María Ángela Serafina. As soon as she saw the serene and inno-
cent face of the dead girl, María Ángela Serafina was overcome by a power-
ful impulse to offer her most fervent prayers to Christ and the Virgin Mary,
begging them to return the soul to the body and restore the child to life.
While Isabel prepared the corpse for removal and surrounded the little coffin
with spring flowers, Serafina began to pray. Within a few moments she went
into a deep trance and had a vision of the Virgin Mary holding the child’s
soul out to her, indicating that she should immediately restore it to the body.
Emerging from the trance, María Ángela Serafina rushed to the coffin, where
María Ángela Astorch was already showing signs of life. A moment later,
the child had scrambled to the ground. In a few days, her health and strength
were fully restored.1
All of this had been accomplished by prayer and its capacity to invoke the
intervention of powerful supernatural forces. Blessed and restored to life by
the Virgin Mary like some latter-day Lazarus, María Ángela Astorch would
always be surrounded by the miraculous, and she herself would become known
3