Last summer (2018), the American Association of Teachers of Spanish & Portuguese (AATSP) hosted their annual (and centenary) conference in Salamanca. I reached out to a pair of my dear friends and we decided to present a panel on female authority during Spain’s Golden Age. I described alumbradismo, a heretical offshoot of mysticism, and focused on a peculiar case that occurred in the convent of San Plácido (the original home of Velázquez’s Cristo crucificado) known as “el peregrino raro.” Gregorio Marañón spends quite a bit of time discussing it in one of his more substantial 1940 essays, “Don Juan.” Essentially, one of the co-founders of the convent, doña Teresa de Silva—who later became the convent’s abbess—, informed her superiors in 1628 that a type of demonic possession was affecting the nuns at her convent, causing them to enter into fits of “histerismo colectivo.” One instance affected her personally, wherein she felt compelled by “el peregrino raro” to shirk her duties as abbess and spend time in its company. After the Inquisition intervenes, it comes to light that a chronically misbehaving priest, Francisco García Calderón, is to blame for the heretical furor and condemned de vehementi for his misdeeds. My purpose in sharing the events at San Plácido was to underscore the vulnerable position females—particularly religious women—occupied during Golden Age Spain. I introduced the historical precedent that my colleagues rebuffed in their presentations with examples of powerful (and oftentimes fictious) women that autonomously exercised authority during a time when such behavior was severely frowned upon.
My visit to Spain also included some traveling around the northwestern side of the Iberian Peninsula, including a brief stay in Portugal (Porto and Vila do Conde), a short jaunt in Santiago de Compostela, one more road trip through Portugal and back over to Spain, this time cutting eastward to Salamanca, and finally a visit to Madrid for a few days. Having never been to Portugal before, it was a special experience to finally see the eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean. After growing up in California, the seashore felt like it was right where it should be. Santiago de Compostela holds a very special place in my heart, not only for its appeal as a pilgrim destination, but also due to its connection with Ramón del Valle-Inclán, the subject of my doctoral dissertation. Born in Pontevedra, a province just south of the Galician capital, he is one of the place’s most celebrated sons. I took a photograph next to the statue erected in the park where he would overlook the city’s beautiful cathedral. The rest of the trip is a bit of blur: my presentation in Salamanca was followed by an all-too-brief visit to Madrid.
