Webs of Conversation and Discernment: Looking for Spiritual Accompaniment in Sixteenth-Century Spain

This article borrows a paradigm from a 2003 essay by theologian Mercedes Navarro Puerto to gauge spiritual priorities in sixteenth-century Spain. Spanish Catholicism in the early modern period very often is construed as averse to horizontal ties, individual judgment, and the free construction of religious communities, but Navarro's concept of "spiritual accompaniment" helps us to grasp the presence of conversation, reciprocity, and non-confrontational discernment in early modern Spanish Catholicism. The evidence assessed here broadens our understanding of what Spanish Catholicism would tolerate and even support in the sixteenth century, and deepens the way we portray religious dissent.