acase@tulane.edu / 1 / Bradley J. Mollmann

In the vestry of the cathedral church of Santa Maria in Toledo hangs a large painting by El Greco entitled El Espolio, the ‘Disrobing of Christ’. Executed shortly after his arrival in Spain the painting marks a major stylistic departure from the artist’s earlier work and would command attention on that basis alone. The subject, while iconographically obscure, is, at another remove, utterly familiar as a Passion scene tied to a well known iconographical canon. Compositionally, the Christ figure predominates but the ‘legionnaire’ occupies a contrasting and almost equivalent space in his carapace of steel. These figures beg for further elaboration I will argue that this painting can be read as a nexus between a reformed liturgy and a post-Tridentine programme of Church renewal in Spain allied to a monarchical programme of nación under Philip II (1527-98) that was essentially one and the same. The salient questions needing a response are these: How, in a vestry, can we expect such a subject to have much impact beyond the very limited audience it was designed for? This is the crux of the matter in many ways. What in the painting suggests more than the straightforward analysis of the subject matter? What in the times suggests another reading of this great work of art? The pursuit of the answers to these questions constitutes the driving force behind this investigation. Biography, the intellectual and artistic formation of the artist, are positioned with reference to the intellectual ferment of the period, the religious upheaval iii in Christendom, the advances in the understanding of the nation state. More specifically, the altered relationship between the monarchy and the church in Spain, following the Council of Trent (1545-63)will be shown to have a reflection in El Espolio. El Greco’s work has mostly been treated as the product of a painter of the spirit, of religiosity, even of mysticism. El Espolio has been interpreted here within a broader frame of reference and the argument suggests our understanding of El Greco’s oeuvre has been somewhat narrow. / Thesis (Master, Art History) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-15 16:13:04.047

Souvent méconnues, les beatas de la Couronne de Castille, réunies en petites communautésappelées beaterios, ont jusqu’à présent très peu attiré l’attention de l’historiographie. Considérées commedes femmes laïques se livrant, au milieu du XVe siècle, à des formes de dévotions populaires et à despratiques mystiques jugées hétérodoxes, les beatas recouvrent pourtant une réalité plurielle et complexeque cette thèse entend approfondir. Un dépouillement minutieux de sources inédites dispersées enEspagne et au Vatican a permis de bâtir une vaste enquête prosopographique sur 195 beaterios et354 beatas, dont l’objectif est de mieux définir et appréhender la naissance, l’implantation géographiqueet la répartition de ces foyers dans les royaumes et les villes de Castille, entre 1450 et 1600. Notrerecherche se propose donc d’appréhender les modes de vie et les pratiques spirituelles de cescommunautés féminines dans leur diversité, en insistant sur leur engagement caritatif et leur intégrationdans la société et la vie religieuse castillanes des XVe et XVIe sièclesement le nombre et la répartition de ces foyers, et d’autre part, pour connaître et comprendre leur intégration, leur mode de vie, et définir de la sorte les conditions d’existence éphémère de ces communautés. L’étude de la singularité des pratiques, de l’entourage et des parcours des beatas analysées tout au long de ce travail, permettra, selons nous, de proposer une réflexion mûrie et nuancée sur l’implication de la beata dans la vie sociale et religieuse castillane des XVe et XVIe siècles. / The little-known beatas from the Crown of Castile, who often lived together in smallcommunities called beaterios, have so far drawn little attention from historians. They are usuallyconsidered, in fairly general terms, as mid-15th century lay women who practised popular forms ofdevotion and a form of mysticism which fell foul of the Catholic orthodoxy. Actually, the beatasconstituted a plural, complex phenomenon that this thesis endeavours to explore. Indeed, the carefulanalysis of original sources from various locations in Spain as well as in the Vatican City leads to awide-randing prosopographical survey of 195 beaterios and 354 beatas, in order to better understand thecreation, geography and distribution of these communities in the kingdom and towns of Castile,between 1450 and 1600. This thesis offers to consider the diversity of lifestyles and spiritual practicesof these female communities, with a focus on their charitable work and their integration in Castiliansociety and religious life in the 15th and 16th centuries

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Cette thèse étudie les évolutions du marché du crédit de long terme (les censos) dans l'Espagne moderne. Après une description des acteurs et du fonctionnement de ces marchés dans le premier chapitre, le deuxième chapitre s'intéresse aux conséquences de la fragmentation juridictionnelle sur l'intégration du marché du crédit. Ensuite, le troisième chapitre étudie le fonctionnement et la gouvernance d'un ordre religieux en particulier et met en évidence le rôle d'intégration joué par les institutions ecclésiastiques. Enfin, le dernier chapitre examine la répression financière exercée par la Couronne à la fin du XVIIIe siècle et son rôle déterminant dans le retrait des institutions religieuses des marchés du crédit et la contraction de l'offre de crédit qui s'en est suivie. / This project analyses the evolutions of long-term credit markets (the censos) in eraly modern Spain. After a description of the actors and the functioning of these markets in the first chapter, the second chapter focuses on the consequences of jurisdictional fragmentation on credit market integration. Then, the third chapter examines the functioning and the economic governance of a single religious order and sheds light on the integration role performed by ecclesiastical institutions. The last chapter studies the financial repression implemented by the Crown in the late eighteenth century and its decisive role in the withdrawal of religious institutions from the credit market and the subsequent credit contraction.

This dissertation examines narratives of early modern women travelers and the spectacles these women produced as a strategy to negotiate gender paradigms that aimed to silence and immobilize women. In María de Zayas's short novel “La esclava de su amante” (1647), the protagonist's journey to North Africa gives her the tools she needs to publically address her rape. Historia de la Monja Alférez (c. 1626) is the autobiography of Catalina de Erauso, whose constant movement on both sides of the Atlantic allows her to construct a spectacle of hybridity that both entertains her audiences and authorizes her many transgressions. Finally, Viaje de cinco religiosas capuchinas de Madrid a Lima (1722) highlights the masses of people who clamor to catch a glimpse of the itinerant nuns, creating a spectacle that reaffirms the women's importance in the social hierarchy of the Spanish Kingdom. In these three baroque texts, I highlight the construction of the female traveler's body and the suffering it endures while crossing great distances. I examine the ways in which each text reimagines or reorganizes the traveler's social relationships and her place in early modern Hispanic society. Through an analysis of spectacle based on the mediation of these relationships, I interrogate the image of women travelers and the power that image has to push back against a gendered social hierarchy.

The question of decline in the historiography of seventeenth-century Spain originally included socio-economic analyses that determined the decline of Spain was an economic recession. Eventually, the historiographical debate shifted to include cultural elements of seventeenth-century Spanish society. Gender within the context of decline provides further insight into how the deterioration of the Spanish economy and the deterioration of Spanish political power in Europe affected Spanish self-perception. The prolific Spanish women writers, in addition, featured their points of view on manhood in their works and created a model of masculinity known as virtuous masculinity. They expected Spanish men to perform their masculine duties as protectors and providers both in public and in private. Seventeenth-century decline influenced how women viewed masculinity. Their new model of masculinity was based on ideas that male authors had developed, but went further by emphasizing men treating their wives well.