Between Exaltation And Infamy

Using case-studies and biographies, the author examines women's mysticism in 16th- and 17th-century Spain and investigates the spiritual forces that provided women with a way to transcend the control of the male-dominated Catholic Church.

Once, the Virgin Mary was a pivotal element of Christianity, a holy figure at the heart of most Christians' spiritual lives. She was invoked at all major life passages--baptisms, weddings, childbirths, and funerals--and images of the Virgin Mary could be found virtually anywhere, from pub signs to sacred texts. Medieval women especially looked to Mary to answer their prayers, be their role model, and serve as their advocate in heaven. They prayed to her several times a day and sometimes devoted their entire lives to her service. This book investigates perceptions of the Virgin Mary through several centuries of literature. Focusing especially on the depictions of the Virgin Mary in medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, the author rediscovers a time when the Divine Female was very much in evidence, and good Christian women were taught to pray to a Holy Mother. Topics include the cyclical popularity of Virgin Mary; devotional objects such as Books of Hours, rosaries, and Marian gardens; the mystical qualities attributed to the Virgin Mary through centuries of reported divine visions; the historical relationships between the Virgin Mary and other religious figures, including the Devil; and Mary Magdalene as an alternative to the Virgin Mary as a feminine model.

In seventeenth-century Lima, pious Catholic women gained profound theological understanding and enacted expressions of spiritual devotion by engaging with a wide range of sacred texts and objects, as well as with one another, their families, and ecclesiastical authorities. In Embodying the Sacred, Nancy E. van Deusen considers how women created and navigated a spiritual existence within the colonial city's complex social milieu. Through close readings of diverse primary sources, van Deusen shows that these women recognized the divine—or were objectified as conduits of holiness—in innovative and powerful ways: dressing a religious statue, performing charitable acts, sharing interiorized spiritual visions, constructing autobiographical texts, or offering their hair or fingernails to disciples as living relics. In these manifestations of piety, each of these women transcended the limited outlets available to them for expressing and enacting their faith in colonial Lima, and each transformed early modern Catholicism in meaningful ways.

Cover -- Halftitle -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Unveiling the Manuscript -- Chapter One. Toledo to Cadiz -- Chapter Two. Cadiz to Mexico -- Chapter Three. The Manila Galleon -- Chapter Four. The Convent in Manila -- Chapter Five: Literacy and Inspirational Role Models -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

The great wartime leader, Winston Churchill, once remarked, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Democracy on Trial recounts the history of this progressive form of governance while comparing it to a competing form: absolutism. Today we see the results of this conflict: flourishing civilization on one hand and crushing despotism on the other. Dr. Lasso, from his own bitter experiences with the despotism of Panama’s dictator, shows us how today’s democracy was won and how it must be vigilantly earned. Dr. Lloyd Muller Historian

Mysticism in Early Modern England traces how mysticism featured in polemical and religious discourse in seventeenth-century England and explores how it came to be viewed as a source of sectarianism, radicalism, and, most significantly, religious enthusiasm.

Cloistered and inaccessible 'brides of Christ'? Or socially engaged women, active in the outside world to a degree impossible for their secular sisters? Nuns tells the fascinating stories of the women who have lived in religious communities since the dawn of the modern age - their ideals and achievements, frustrations and failures, and their attempts to reach out to the society around them. Drawing particularly on the nuns' own words, Silvia Evangelisti explores how they came to the cloister, how they responded to monastic discipline, and how they pursued their spiritual, intellectual, and missionary activities. The book looks not only at the individual stories of outstanding historical figures such as Teresa of Avila but also at the wider picture of convent life - what it symbolized to contemporaries, how it reflected and related to the world beyond the cloister, and what it means in the world today.