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Spain  Clergy  Gretchen Starr-­LeBeau Clergy played multiple, diverse roles during the Baroque period in Spain. The word might have brought many things to mind foran early modern Spaniard. In a world where clergy were so prominent, they must have impinged upon thought often. Early modern Spaniards might be reminded of wealthy elite clergy, living in luxury unimaginable to most; relatively poor and ill-­ educated clergy, largely absent but visiting town on rare occasions; omnipresent clergy establishing schools and teaching; clergy begging for funds— sometimes illicitly; clergy who criticized parishioners publicly in their sermons; clergy who ministered to their parishioners through organizations such as confraternities. In other words, people in Spain had many, often contradictory images of clergy. A strain of anticlericalism ran through Spanish society; Spaniards complained to inquisitors (and toone another) about clergy whodid not observe their vows or who seemed to take advantage of their station . “The priest doesn’t remember when hewas a mere sexton ,” according to one aphorism.1 This highlights a related issue: Spaniards in the Baroque did not necessarily consider the entire clergy as a single generalized entity. Rather, clergy members were seen as a highly diverse group, including women and men of different statuses, functions, wealth, and effectiveness. The aphorism “Being a friar at Guadalupe is better than being a count or a duke” suggests the upper end of the lifestyle that some clergy enjoyed.2 Little wonder, then, that a range of attitudes and expectations existed both within and outside the Spanish clergy. As elsewhere in Europe, the clergy included both “regular ” clergy (bound by a rule [regula] such as the Franciscans ) and “secular” clergy (living in the world and not in monastic seclusion). Spain in this period had significant numbers of both. Specific data are sparse, but we have some estimates of the number of secular clergy for each end of this period. In 1591 Spain had an averageofone priest for every forty-­ two households.3 In 1797 a population of 10.5 million supported about 60,000 ordained priests (and 70,840 priests overall, including those who had received only minor orders), a number that seems fairly stable or slightly smaller than in 1700.4 These statistics are difficult to compare, though they may suggest a stable number of clergy or a slight increase relative to the population during the Baroque. Such figures are wildly misleading, in any case. As in the American colonies, secular clergy were concentrated in urban areas; rural communities were understaffed by diocesan priests throughout the Baroque. Even various urban areas were unevenly served by clergy. Not surprisingly, large urban centers and bishoprics had more priests in residence; as some areas declined in the seventeenth century those bishoprics maintained their status and financial holdings out of proportion to the shrinking size of their cities. Furthermore, throughout this period clergy were concentrated in the north, while physically extensive parishes in the south provided much smaller total numbers of clergy relative to the population. A shortage of priests was not a problem exclusive to Spain’s American colonies. Many of those who emigrated to the Americas were born in Spain’s southern communities; the shortages of priests that they found in the Americas, while perhaps more extreme, would not have been shocking or unfamiliar to them. Indeed, those traveling from rural Andalusia to urban Peru or Mexico might have been surrounded by more clergy, rather than fewer. Estimates for the numbers of regular clergy—orders such as the Franciscans, Benedictines, and Jesuits, among many others—are even sketchier. William Callahan estimates 53,098 male religious (monks, friars, and canons regular) and 24,471 nuns for the late eighteenth century, numbers that seem roughly comparable to or slightly lower than those for the early eighteenth century.5 In other words, regular clergy outnumbered secular clergy and in some parts of Spain had a pastoral role. Some regular clergy in their monasteries or friaries fulfilled the functions of parish priests; some completed a portion of thoseduties; and some merely contributed money toward the maintenance of a member of the secular clergy to do the work. As with the secular clergy, however, monks, friars, and nuns were disproportionately present in the north of Spain and in cities, in comparison to the south and the underserved countryside. Baroque clergy had a significant pastoral role in Spanish society, of course. Clergy were part of critical life-­ cycle events from baptism at birth through participation in the Eucharist, marriage (or Holy Orders), and...

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