This contribution to European historical literature provides a clear and dispassionate account of successive ecclesiastical-secular conflicts and controversies in Spain and deftly summarizes the diverse ideological and intellectual currents of the times.
Derived from the renowned multi-volume International Encyclopaedia of Laws, this convenient resource provides systematic information on how Spain deals with the role religion plays or can play in society, the legal status of religious communities and institutions, and the legal interaction among religion, culture, education, and media. After a general introduction describing the social and historical background, the book goes on to explain the legal framework in which religion is approached. Coverage proceeds from the principle of religious freedom through the rights and contractual obligations of religious communities; international, transnational, and regional law effects; and the legal parameters affecting the influence of religion in politics and public life. Also covered are legal positions on religion in such specific fields as church financing, labour and employment, and matrimonial and family law. A clear and comprehensive overview of relevant legislation and legal doctrine make the book an invaluable reference source and very useful guide. Succinct and practical, this book will prove to be of great value to practitioners in the myriad instances where a law-related religious interest arises in Spain. Academics and researchers will appreciate its value as a thorough but concise treatment of the legal aspects of diversity and multiculturalism in which religion plays such an important part.
This volume integrates the theme of Spain in Italy into a broad synthesis of late Renaissance and early modern Italy by restoring the contingency of events, local and imperial decision-making, and the distinct voices of individual Spaniards and Italians.
Religion in New Spain presents an overview of the history of colonial religious culture and encompasses aspects of religion in the many regions of New Spain. In reading these essays, it is clear the Spanish conquest was not the end-all of indigenous culture, that the Virgin of Guadalupe was a myth-in-the-making by locals as well as foreigners, that nuns and priests had real lives, and that the institutional colonial church, even post-Trent, was seldom if ever above or beyond political or economic influence. Susan Schroeder and Stafford Poole have divided the presentations into seven parts that represent general categories spanning the colonial era: "Encounters, Accommodation, and Outright Idolatry"; "Native Sexuality and Christian Morality"; "Believing in Miracles: Taking the Veil and New Realities"; "Guardian of the Christian Society: The Holy Office of the Inquisition--Racism, Judaizing, and Gambling"; "Music and Martyrdom on the Northern Frontier"; and "Tangential Christianity on Other Frontiers: Business and Politics as Usual." Sacred space can be anywhere and might not be bound by walls and ceilings. As the authors of these essays show, religion is often an attempt to reconcile the mysterious and unmanageable forces of nature, such as storms, droughts, floods, infestations of pests, epidemic diseases, and sicknesses; it is an attempt to control the uncontrollable.
Previous scholarship has interpreted Bishop Isidore of Seville (d. 636) retrospectively as the architect of the medieval Spanish church, as the father of Spanish identity, and as a key figure in the transmission of Classical and Patristic learning to the Middle Ages. Drawing on recent studies on identity formation in the early medieval period and an upsurge in interest in late antique Spain, this book examines the historical Isidore as a social actor managing a complex web of responsibilities and relationships. A comparative analysis of Isidore's historical works demonstrates that writing about the past was a method for reconciling Visigothic kings, nobles and Spanish bishops in a period of transformation. This results in a fresh portrait of Isidore as motivated, both politically and pastorally, to balance competing interests and ensure the spiritual and material security of the people of Spain.
This book analyzes the problems that arise when women's rights conflict with the views of conservative organized religion. Specifically, it addresses the legalization - or lack thereof - of divorce and abortion in three recently democratized Catholic countries: Spain, Chile, and Argentina. Offering a vital and timely contribution to political debates on democratic consolidation, social policy, gender, politics and religion, it challenges many of the accepted assumptions and conclusions in these fields, arguing that to understand the political dynamics and policy trajectories on these issues we must first analyze the distribution of both economic and political power. Merike Blofield moves the debate away from a (unitary) focus on values and public opinion to an analysis of how economic, social and political structures give certain actors more power than others. The topics covered should appeal to a broad readership interested in the difficulties of democratic consolidation in Latin America, and the obstacles to social policy reform in a region with such high levels of inequality. The analysis presented in The Politics of Moral Sin also deepens our understanding of why and how European countries have been so successful in limiting the indulgence of organized religion and in promoting women's rights.
In early seventeenth-century Spain, the Castilian parliament voted to elevate the newly beatified Teresa of Avila to co-patron saint of Spain alongside the traditional patron, Santiago. Saint and Nation examines Spanish devotion to the cult of saints and the controversy over national patron sainthood to provide an original account of the diverse ways in which the early modern nation was expressed and experienced by monarch and town, center and periphery. By analyzing the dynamic interplay of local and extra-local, royal authority and nation, tradition and modernity, church and state, and masculine and feminine within the co-patronage debate, Erin Rowe reconstructs the sophisticated balance of plural identities that emerged in Castile during a central period of crisis and change in the Spanish world.
DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Pagan Spain" by Richard Wright. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.
A magisterial, myth-dispelling history of Islamic Spain spanning the millennium between the founding of Islam in the seventh century and the final expulsion of Spain's Muslims in the seventeenth In Kingdoms of Faith, award-winning historian Brian A. Catlos rewrites the history of Islamic Spain from the ground up, evoking the cultural splendor of al-Andalus, while offering an authoritative new interpretation of the forces that shaped it. Prior accounts have portrayed Islamic Spain as a paradise of enlightened tolerance or the site where civilizations clashed. Catlos taps a wide array of primary sources to paint a more complex portrait, showing how Muslims, Christians, and Jews together built a sophisticated civilization that transformed the Western world, even as they waged relentless war against each other and their coreligionists. Religion was often the language of conflict, but seldom its cause -- a lesson we would do well to learn in our own time.
In 1502, a decade of increasing tension between Muslims and Christians in Spain culminated in a royal decree that Muslims in Castile wanting to remain had to convert to Christianity. Mary Elizabeth Perry uses this event as the starting point for a remarkable exploration of how Moriscos, converted Muslims and their descendants, responded to their increasing disempowerment in sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century Spain. Stepping beyond traditional histories that have emphasized armed conflict from the view of victors, The Handless Maiden focuses on Morisco women. Perry argues that these women's lives offer vital new insights on the experiences of Moriscos in general, and on how the politics of religion both empowers and oppresses. Drawing on archival documents, legends, and literature, Perry shows that the Moriscas carried out active resistance to cultural oppression through everyday rituals and acts. For example, they taught their children Arabic language and Islamic prayers, dietary practices, and the observation of Islamic holy days. Thus the home, not the battlefield, became the major forum for Morisco-Christian interaction. Moriscas' experiences further reveal how the Morisco presence provided a vital counter-identity for a centralizing state in early modern Spain. For readers of the twenty-first century, The Handless Maiden raises urgent questions of how we choose to use difference and historical memory.