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Spain  Convent  Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt The convents of baroque Spain, like their counterparts throughout Europe, occupied a significant place in the religious landscape of the Catholic faithful. By the seventeenth century their physical presence decorated the landscape of cities, towns, and villages across the peninsula. As an increasing number of women made religious professions in this period, many families felt a vital connection to these institutions, which were the home of their female relatives.The nuns, for their part, were paragons of piety and valued for their intercessory prayers. They were expected to live by a code of behavior that prized their separation from the world.Yet geographical proximity, familial ties, and the desire to be allied with such spiritually powerful women in turn fostered networks of affection, patronage, and religious devotion that bound convents to their local communities. To understand the place of convents in these communities we need to understand their composition.Who were thewomen who took solemn vows and chose a lifeof reclusion ? For the most part, convents in the Baroque era were elite institutions that required sizable dowries from aspiring entrants.Though not as large as secular marital dowries, convent dowries were still substantial and required a financial commitment from a woman’s family. In addition, many convents expected families to provide a yearly maintenance allowanceforindividualnuns.Asaconsequence,manyconvents were populated by the daughters of the nobility and local elites. The reformed religious orders of this era (the Discalced Carmelites, for example) founded on the ideals of austerity and poverty rejected the necessity of such prohibitive financial requirements for entrance.Yet even these orders gradually succumbed—likelyout of financial necessity —to the practice of demanding large dowries. Interestingly , convents often waived these demands in the interest of attracting talented musicians.The archival records of numerous convents include examples of women who were allowed to enter without dowries because of their ability to sing or play a musical instrument. Yet while some convents managed to preserve a codeof simplicity that allowed women of modest means toenter, the convent as a baroque institution was often socially exclusive. What types of lives did these women lead once they made their profession? Like their monastic contemporaries throughout Europe, the responsibilities of intercessory prayer and religious observances ordered their daily lives. Conventual life also emphasized community; nuns spent most of their time in the company of others, whether praying in church or eating meals in the refectory. Yet the blossoming of early modern spiritual currents that encouraged greater interiority and mental prayer (often referred to as recogimiento) resulted in some cloistered communities trying to strike a balance between a spirituality practiced in common and the time for individual prayer and recollection . The architecture of some convents reflected this: to encourage this kind of contemplation, the nuns abandoned the idea of common dormitories and instead set aside individual cells for nuns. Despite their spiritual obligations , convent architecture also anticipated the presence of the outside world. It was entirely customary for family members to visit nuns in the locutorios (parlors) within the cloister—though male ecclesiastics sought to regulate the use of this space carefully, insisting, for example, that older nuns listen in on conversations to make sure they were edifying . Many convent churches also acted as the local parish church, affording laypeople a glimpse of convent inhabitants as they sat in the choir. The convent was also a singular type of institution because it afforded women the experience of living in a community composed only of other women. This grouping often included female relatives such as sisters and aunts. Novices joined all of these women in the common pursuit of the religious life. We know from nuns’ chronicles and other evidence that nuns took tremendous pride in the history and identity this shared purpose fostered. In addition, although we tend to think of convents as composed only of those who took solemn religious vows, other women made these institutions their homes. Widows and other secular women resided in convents without taking formal vows as an expression of their piety or to seek safe haven. The nuns who spent their lives in convents enjoyed other opportunities, including the management of convent finances. Convents had to provide food, clothing, and adequate housing for their inhabitants. The accumulation of gifts from patrons and dowries allowed convents to amass significant patrimonies.The convent of San Quirce inValladolid , for example, while not unusually wealthy, owned property throughout the region, rented houses in the city, collected various annuities, made...

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