Five—
Visionaries and Affective Spirituality during the First Half of the Sixteenth Century
Geraldine McKendrick and Angus MacKay
Shortly before his death on 25 January 1516, Ferdinand the Catholic received a message from God, passed on to him by Sor María de Santo Domingo, the celebrated visionary and Dominican tertiary who was also known as the Beata de Barco de Avila or the Beata de Piedrahita:[1]
And while His Highness was in this place (Madrigalejo), his illness became much worse, and he was made to understand that he was very close to death. But he could hardly believe this because the truth is that he was much tempted by the enemy who, in order to prevent him from confessing himself or receiving the sacraments, persuaded him to believe that he would not die so soon. And the reason for this was that, when he was in Plasencia, one of the royal councilors who had come from the Beata de Barco de Avila told him that the Beata was sending to tell him on behalf of God that he would not die until he had taken Jerusalem. And for this reason he would not see or send for Fray Martín de Matienzo, of the Order of Preachers, his confessor, even though the confessor himself tried to see him several times.[2]
Although in this particular case Sor María's prophetic powers proved ineffective, she had for many years been a cult figure. In love with God, with whom she talked intimately, embracing his body, Sor María delivered sermons-in-trance, underwent ecstatic crucifixions, and even claimed that she was Christ. She enthralled the royal court with her ecstasies and celestial dances, Cardinal Ximénez de Cisneros consulted her on important matters such as the conquest of Oran, and the duke of Alba built a magnificent convent for her in Aldenueva, near Avila.[3] Of course, not everyone believed in her, and the Dominicans in particu-
lar were hostilely skeptical.[4] Nevertheless she had protectors in high places, and when a special ecclesiastical commission was set up to investigate her, she emerged from the investigation with her reputation for saintliness intact. The Italian Pietro Martire d'Anghiera particularly commented on Cisneros's devotion to Sor María, and indeed the cardinal, who was himself a Franciscan, gave the beata a Franciscan girdle to wear under the Dominican habit, thus emphasizing both his attachment to her and a symbolic process of "Franciscanization."[5]
A large number of visionaries like Sor María de Santo Domingo, as well as other practitioners of an emotional, intensive, and affective spirituality, figure in one way or another in the Inquisition records, and in terms of culture and control, they raise some very interesting problems. In the first place, the degree to which some visionaries of the first half of the sixteenth century were left undisturbed by the Inquisition is quite remarkable. Perhaps the most astonishing case is that of the millenarian friars of Escalona.[6] In 1524 the Franciscan church in Escalona witnessed some bizarre scenes. Fray Olmillos, for example, improved on his public visionary performances by moving the altar to the middle of the church so that more people could witness his ecstasies,[7] and Fray Ocaña unfolded a millennial program for the reform of the Church. Preaching on the text, "Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished" (Luke 18:31), Ocaña told his audience that the people of Escalona were the most blessed in the world. In another sermon he called for those in power in the Church to be "thrown out like pigs"; the messianic program revealed to him and Fray Olmillos stipulated that Charles V would defeat the king of France and take over his kingdom, the pope would be deposed by the Marquis of Villena, Ocaña himself would be installed as the new reforming pope, and the illiterate visionary Francisca Hernández would reform and revise the Holy Scriptures.[8] Here surely was an open challenge to establish authority within the Church that could hardly be ignored. Yet the Inquisition never moved against these friars, or indeed against the group to which they belonged that practiced recogimiento, an interiorized religious state, but concentrated instead on the dejados, who practiced spiritual abandonment to God and actually considered the visions, ecstatic fits, convulsions, and excesses to which recogimiento gave rise to be delusions induced by the Devil. Moreover, even when the Inquisition did condemn individual visionaries, it frequently did so after a considerable delay, during which the visionary enjoyed fame and prestige. In this sense the career of Magdalena de la Cruz, the celebrated visionary of Córdoba, constitutes
a good example. During the early decades of the sixteenth century she was considered saintly and was in constant and intimate communication with God, and her devotees included the general of the Franciscan Order, Fray Francisco de los Ángeles Quiñones; Fray Francisco de Osuna, the mystic whose writings were so appreciated by Santa Teresa; and the archbishop of Seville and inquisitor general, Alonso Manrique. Indeed, on the birth of the future Philip II in 1527, "the hábitos of this nun were sent off as a sacred object so that the infante could be wrapped up in them and thus apparently be shielded and protected from the attacks of the Devil." In 1533 Magdalena was elected abbess of her convent and was at the height of her power and popularity. But only in 1546, and after many prophecies, visions, and miracles, including even a pregnancy by the Holy Spirit, did the Cordoban Inquisition finally try her and sentence her to life imprisonment in a convent in Andújar.[9]
The second point of interest is the fact that so many of the visionaries and practitioners of intense affective spirituality were women. In addition to the Beata de Piedrahita and Magdalena de la Cruz, already mentioned, a list of only a few outstanding examples would include Francisca Hernández, whose powers and marvels were well known in Salamanca and Valladolid, and whose reputation for sanctity spread to New Castile; Isabel de la Cruz, leader and idealogue of the dejados; Isabel de Texeda, whose visionary excesses were notorious in Guadalajara; the ecstatic Mother Marta, a miracle-working Benedictine nun in Toledo who was visited by the king, courtiers, and prelates; and Juana de la Cruz, the visionary abbess of Cubas.[10] Nor were these isolated cases, as incidental references in the Inquisition records demonstrate. In Guadalajara, for example, a widow went into a trance in a public square and claimed that she had seen more visions than St. Bridget of Sweden, and elsewhere in the same town another widow fell into a rapturous ecstasy and saw all the blessed souls in heaven.[11]
The object of this essay, therefore, is to place affective spirituality and the visionary phenomenon into context. Why were some "excesses" controlled and others condoned? What assumptions and beliefs lay behind María de Santo Domingo's assertion, and Ferdinand's apparent acceptance of this assertion, that the king would not die until he had conquered Jerusalem? Why did women play such a relatively prominent role in the visionary phenomenon?
In pondering why the inquisitors failed to take any action after they had learned of the revolutionary reform program of the Franciscans of Escalona, Nieto comments: "The solution which comes readily to one's mind is that in some way, somehow, they themselves believed the ideas
contained in this ideology of religious-political reformation."[12] He is surely right; the fact is that in the drive to define and protect orthodoxy the policies of both the monarchy and the Inquisition are of interest not only because of the war waged on "heresy" but also because of what was accepted or tolerated within the confines of orthodoxy.
Christian eschatological doctrines or beliefs concerning "the last days" enjoyed a particularly flourishing tradition in the Iberian world: rooted in the appropriate biblical texts and producing Spanish and Portuguese variants, its last important manifestation occurred as late as 1896 in the famous Brazilian rebellion, inspired by Sebastianism, of Antonio the Councilor.[13] But its most outstanding feature was that it was based on a mutation of the apocalyptic legend of The Last Roman Emperor . The source of this West European legend was the Greek apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, written in the seventh or early eighth century, although the Greek text was itself a translation of a seventh-century Syriac original, also attributed to a Methodius, but composed in Mesopotamia. This apocalyptic legend was translated into Latin in the late seventh or eighth century in Merovingian Gaul, thus introducing into the West the belief that at the end of days a king of the Greeks or Romans would defeat the Muslims, conquer Jerusalem, and renounce his empire directly to God at the hill of the skull, Golgotha. Subsequently a tenth-century monk, Adso, rewrote the legend to fit an eschatological French king, and between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries Germanic variations developed, so that by the fifteenth century it was believed that Emperor Frederick II, who died in Apulia in 1250, was still alive and hidden on Mount Kyffhauser, awaiting to return and fulfil the millennial prophesy.[14] But, in addition to the last World Emperor, the figure of the Angelic Pope emerged toward the end of the thirteenth century and came to reflect the aspirations of the spiritual Franciscans. For the Spirituals Rome was identified with the carnal Church, to be rejected by Christ at the end of the sixth age. Rome was Babylon meretrix et impudica; illa Babylon meretrix magna . At the end of days, therefore, the World Emperor would be helped by the Angelic Pope.[15]
In Spain the legend of The Last World Emperor, suitably influenced by Joachimite ideas and prophesies attributed to St. Isidore of Seville, produced a messianic king and world emperor, known variously as the Encubierto (the Hidden One), the Murciélago (the Bat), and the New David.[16] Moreover, as was amply demonstrated in the highly influential apocalyptic treatise of the Franciscan Fray Alemán, the eschatological "events" underwent a marked process of Hispanicization, for in Alemán's treatise the Antichrist appears in Seville, the messianic armies
disembark "near Antioch, which is the port of Cádiz," and a titanic battle ensues in Seville near the present-day cathedral. Victorious, the messianic forces proceed to take Granada; thereafter Jerusalem and the rest of the world are conquered, and of course an Angelic Pope is installed in Rome.[17]
Although the eschatological tradition was a long-standing one, it was only from about 1470 onward that reality began to match messianic expectations; as Milhou has demonstrated, an avalanche of prophetic texts, commentaries, and ballads, and even a letter of revelation which the Marquis of Cádiz, don Rodrigo Ponce de León, circulated to the great nobles of Castile in 1486, identified Ferdinand the Catholic as the Encubierto or Bat who would conquer the Holy House of Jerusalem and the whole world.[18] Nor was Ferdinand averse to believing all this. Pietro Martire thought in 1510 that Ferdinand was obsessed with the conquest of Africa, and in February of that year Ferdinand himself wrote in one of his letters that "the conquest of Jerusalem belongs to Us and We have the title of that kingdom."[19] Is it a coincidence that Sor María de Santo Domingo's rise to fame dated from 1509, or that from 1510 onward rey de Jerusalén came to be included by Ferdinand among his other royal titles?[20] In any case the dying Ferdinand would certainly have understood all the implications of the divine message which Sor María had sent him.
Of course, such messianic ideas could be projected onto others or be assumed by others. Within months of the conquest of Granada, for example, Columbus had received royal backing for his empresa de las Indias, which was designed to establish contact with the pro-Christian Mongol grand khan in the East in order that a combined offensive to recover the Holy House of Jerusalem might be undertaken. Subsequently Columbus continued to regard the lands he discovered as a stepping-stone toward this objective, and on the basis of a purported Joachimite prophecy that the conqueror of Jerusalem would come from Spain, he eventually came to believe that he himself was the messianic figure.[21] Messianic ideals were similarly projected onto Cardinal Ximénez[22] and, after his death, onto Charles V. Thus, for example, the famous apocalyptic prophecies contained in Manuscript 1779 of the Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid) identify Charles V as the messianic ruler who will be lord of Spain, France, and Germany, and who, after being crowned emperor of Rome, will cross the seas, become the ruler of all the world, conquer the Holy House of Jerusalem, and finally surrender his crown, presumably to God, on the Mount of Olives.[23] When, therefore, the Franciscans of Escalona prophesied that Charles V would de-
pose Francis I in 1523 and that Clement VII would be replaced by the equivalent of an Angelic Pope, were they not simply confirming messianic notions already in circulation? As far as the inquisitors were concerned, it would appear that visionaries who identified Ferdinand the Catholic or Charles V as the world emperor should be tolerated and left alone. Matters would be quite different when a visionary like Lucrecia de León would identify someone like Miguel de Piedrola as the New David or the Encubierto destined to rule over the whole world.[24]
Yet few visionaries conformed to this precise eschatological tradition, and the phenomenon needs to be placed within a broader context—particularly, but not exclusively, within the context of the nature and influence of Franciscan spirituality.[25] Above all, the anti-intellectual and affective thought espoused by the Franciscans made them favorably disposed to certain aspects of female spirituality.[26] The dejados' opposition to "men of letters," for example, was a motif running through evidence given by witnesses in Inquisition trials. "In order to know God, the study of letters is not necessary," declared Pedro de Baeza, repeating what he had heard in Escalona about the teachings of the dejados;[27] and Isabel de la Cruz, a Franciscan tertiary from Guadalajara, believed that "learning killed the spirit," a sentiment echoing the old Franciscan dictum that "Paris has destroyed Assisi."[28] The Franciscans' attachment to an intuitive and emotional religiosity also led them to value the gift of prophecy. By the fourteenth century the Franciscan Nicolás de Lyra already referred to prophetesses as illuminatae mentis, made lucid by special grace.[29] Thus as the example of Francisca Hernández demonstrated, studying theology of the Scriptures at university was not essential—and was indeed inferior to knowledge obtained through faith and above all by an intimate experience of God. For when Francisca, responding to the request of her Franciscan devotee Fray Francisco Ortiz, offered her own interpretations of passages of Scripture, such as the Sermon on the Mount, The Song of Solomon, and Revelation, the friar had been astounded by her grasp of the essential truths of these writings; what Francisca had discussed in three short words would have been endlessly debated by theologians in long and arid treatises.[30] Similarly, those who listened to the sermons-in-trance of Sor María de Santo Domingo marveled at her insight into difficult theological problems:
Sometimes in her raptures Sor María is accustomed to answering difficult questions about theology, profound problems, matters concerning the Holy Scriptures, things pertaining to our Holy Catholic faith or to good customs, the glory of Paradise, the pains of Hell, Purgatory, and the Holy Sacraments . . . Thus all who see her and hear her respond think that it
is a marvelous thing that a poor, ignorant little woman like Sor María, who was brought up in a village, should respond so well and sometimes better than a Master of Theology or a man of great learning.[31]
"A poor, ignorant little woman": being a "fragile" female without any formal education and from a suitably humble background was in itself a guarantee that only God (or the Devil) could work such a miracle.[32] And so Cardinal Ximénez would consult Sor María as to whether he should cross the Straits of Gibraltar, and Fray Francisco de los Ángeles Quiñones, the General of the Franciscan Order, would ask Francisca Hernández for advice about a proposed journey to Italy.[33] Even the clothes of these women transmitted spiritual graces and healing powers as if they were relics. Contact with the girdle of Francisca Hernández, for example, cured Fray Francisco Ortiz of sexual temptation; Cardinal Ximénez gave Sor María a Franciscan girdle, requesting that she should always wear it and, through it, continually remember him in her divine prayers;[34] and, as has been seen, the habits of Magdalena de la Cruz were wrapped round the infante Philip to protect him from the Devil.
In fact, women were positively encouraged to develop an affective and intense spirituality. For example, Pedro Ruiz de Alcaraz, the devoted disciple of the Franciscan tertiary Isabel de la Cruz, spent long hours persuading women to practice dejamiento, or abandonment to the love of God, and Inquisition witnesses claimed that he had targeted three particular types of women—widows, beatas, and doncellas .[35] In Escalona he had considerable success among the maidservants and ladies-in-waiting in the palace of the Marquis of Villena. After mass in the local Franciscan church, the women would kneel at his feet, with their hands on their breasts, and listen in adoration as he discussed dejamiento. In Pastrana and Madrid, likewise, he would lodge in the houses of widowed devotees and hold private spiritual consultations for women, particularly those who were not married.[36] Alcaraz, of course, was a "heretic," but Ignatius Loyola was to operate in a similar fashion amongst the widows and beatas of Alcalá in 1526–1527.[37]
Moreover, the great Cardinal Ximénez de Cisneros himself helped to promote a visionary spirituality characterized by such mental states as trances, swoons, visions, dreams, and fits. It was not simply that Mother Marta, Juana de la Cruz, and Sor María de Santo Domingo were all his spiritual mentors; Cisneros also exerted a powerful influence over the type of material that issued from the printing presses at Toledo and Alcalá, and this included numerous works by such mystical authors as Vincent Ferrer, Catherine of Siena, and Angela of Foligno.[38] Indeed, just as Cardinal Ximénez protected Sor María from her Dominican de-
tractors who thought her trances were the work of the Devil, so the passage in which the Dominican Vincent Ferrer condemned such mystical excesses as revelations and visions was deliberately omitted from the 1510 printed edition of his Tract of Spiritual Life .[39] Such mystical works were primarily intended for friars and nuns, but, as Bataillon rightly pointed out,[40] Cisneros almost certainly wished them to be distributed among the laity as well. The works of Catherine of Siena and Angela of Foligno must have been of particular interest to nuns and beatas, for both these women were tertiaries whose mystical experiences took the form of visions and raptures. Angela of Foligno, for example, was devoted to contemplation of the minutiae of Christ's suffering on the Cross, and her most profound mystical experiences took place during this spiritual contemplation. Thus in the Franciscan church in Assisi, Christ appeared to her dripping in blood, whereupon she herself, like Sor María, experienced the agony and pain of the Crucifixion.[41] And, like many Spanish female visionaries, Angela in her raptures suffered from temporary loss of speech or lost the use of her limbs.
But, although they did not enjoy the educational opportunities that were available to men, it should not be imagined that women who practiced an affective spirituality or were visionaries were either ignorant or simply reacting in a slavish manner to the encouragement or promptings provided by the male establishment. The medieval Church, following Pauline injunctions, had silenced women; but the language and behavior of the female spirituality that emerged during the early sixteenth century circumvented this silence, and some women seized the opportunity. Besides, the testimony of Inquisition witnesses provides ample evidence that women were actively interested in the religious education of their own sex. The town of Guadalajara provides an example. There María de Cazalla, who was arrested by the Inquisition in 1532 on a variety of charges ranging from Lutheranism to alumbradismo, or illuminism, did not confine herself merely to educating her two daughters and encouraging them to read the many spiritual tracts emanating from the Alcalá press, but she also gave catechism classes to rural women[42] and preached in urban households. In Advent, 1522, for example, she visited her widow friend Catalina Hernández Calvete and read one of the Epistles of St. Paul aloud, discussing its meaning in front of a female audience gathered together in the kitchen. As Catalina Alonso recalled:
. . . there were a lot of people there, and it seemed as if they were all women. . . . I think that there were more than twenty women because the kitchen was big and it was full. María de Cazalla read from a book, and then spoke, and everyone was silent as if they were listening to a sermon.[43]
Nor was María de Cazalla unique or exceptional. In the same town of Guadalajara a woman recalled seeing Isabel de la Cruz reading a book in a public square, a cleric affirmed that he had seen many women reading books aloud in the vernacular in front of other people, and the aristocratic Doña Mencía de Mendoza categorically stated that "it is a well-known fact that literate women read aloud to illiterate women books such as the Scriptures and Lives of Saints."[44]
Although such examples could be multiplied, it is also important to note that female literacy was also assuming an even more active role, with women either writing books themselves or having their books written for them. Isabel de la Cruz and Alcaraz, for example, were rumored to have composed a book on contemplation,[45] María de Cazalla's written correspondence on spiritual matters was bound together like a book and circulated among sympathizers and acquaintances,[46] the visionary Isabel de Texeda enlisted the services of a cleric to commit her revelations and prophecies to paper,[47] Juana de la Cruz had her sermons-in-trance written down by three of her fellow nuns,[48] and Sor María de Santo Domingo's Oración y contemplación was published by the press of Jorge Coci in Aragoza in 1520.[49] This was the same Sor María whose celestial ecstasies had so enthralled the royal court, who had been protected by the great Cisneros himself, and who had relayed God's personal message to the ailing Encubierto, promising that the Bat would not die until he had taken Jerusalem. During the first half of the sixteenth century God moved in mysterious ways.