Hispanic Hagiography in the Critical Context of the Reformation

Summary The sixteenth century was a time of great religious turmoil in Europe, during which the critical positions within the Catholic Church led to a definitive break between Christians. One of the major controversies pertained to the cult of the saints, since in 1523 Martin Luther denied the mediating role of the saints and repudiated what he considered excesses in their devotions. The studies presented in this volume examine the impact of the Reformation on hagiography in the Hispanic sphere. They investigate how theological positions and controversy were projected onto literature, and how literature incorporated theological discourse, explicitly or implicitly. Unsurprisingly, the Catholic Church reaffirmed the hagiographical tradition, but to what extent was hagiographical literature, specifically Hispanic literature, affected by reformist approaches? This book explores issues less evident and hitherto neglected: for example, Hispanic Catholic authorities and authors, influenced by the denunciations of the excesses of the cult of saints and hagiographical ?fables,? publicly declared the purging of apocryphal elements in saints' lives; in practice, however, they grappled with the difficulty of applying theoretical criteria to such an enormous subject. As a result, certain contradictions arose between these criteria and the commitment to the hagiographical tradition, which some even sought to expand and update. This complex tension is brought out by the studies gathered here in the fields of hagiographical prose in Catalan, Portuguese and Spanish, in Iberia and in America, without neglecting the role of the theater in the dissemination of saints' legends. TABLE OF CONTENTS Fernando Ba os Vallejo, Introduction Mar a Jos Vega Ramos, Mediator Unus: The Intercession of Saints in the Expurgated Bibles of the Censura Generalis (1554) Fernando Ba os Vallejo, Villegas' Deviation in the Compositional Criteria of His Flos sanctorum Jos Arag s Aldaz, Holy Folly and Simplicitas during the Counter-Reformation Natalia Fern ndez Rodr guez, Hagiographical Theatre and Counter-Reformation: Between Baroque Aesthetics and Arte Nuevo Alicia Mayer, Delendus est Lutherus: The Triumph of the Saints and the Virgin Mary over Heresy in New Spain's Imagery Marcos Cort s Guadarrama, Evolution of the Figure of St Michael the Archangel: From Medieval Flos sanctorum to New Spain's Hagiography (ca. 1480-1692) Carme Arronis Llopis, Catalan Lives of Saints after Trent (1575-1602) Cristina Sobral, Nota, pio leitor.: The Hagiographic Critical Discourse in 1567