Workshops: Faiths

Workshop 25: On the Margins of Sanctity:
Exploring Female Religiosity during the Catholic Reformation

Conveners:

• Susan Dinan, History/French
• Elizabeth Lehfeldt, History/Spanish
• Alison Weber, Spanish

An abundance of recent scholarship on sainted and saintly women of the early-modern era has greatly expanded our knowledge of female religiosity. This work has enabled scholars to understand how politics, rhetorical strategies, patronage, religious charisma, and other factors shaped reactions to those holy women who ultimately achieved the status of saint. Building on this scholarly legacy, this workshop sought to move the dialogue about female spirituality to the margins of sanctity. We used as the basis of this discussion an analysis of the careers and piety of several women revered and renowned for their spirituality and piety who nonetheless never achieved the status of saint or the ecclesiastical recognition which they clearly desired.

The lives of Cecilia Ferrazzi, Angela Mellini, Magdalena de la Cruz, Maria de la Visitación, and Marina de Escobar are fascinating examples of holy women of the Catholic Reformation whose careers suffered unexpected outcomes. Some were exposed as frauds who had made false claims to sanctity. Others, it seems, lacked either the necessary charisma or were unable to take advantage of the mechanisms (access to avenues of power and authority, patronage, for example) that might have allowed them greater prominence and recognition. The workshop sought first to examine these women on their own terms: what did they seek to gain from their expressions of piety and claims of sanctity? From there we sought to analyze the factors that resulted in these women being left on the margins of sanctity: what role did charisma, patronage, politics, and other mechanisms play in their careers as holy women?