Contents
List of Maps
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Santiago and the Shadow of Decline
2. Saint Teresa and the Lived Experience of the Holy
3. The Politics of Patron Sainthood
4. The Gender of Foreign Policy
5. Mapping Sacred Geography
6. King, Nation, and Church in the Habsburg Monarchy
7. Endgame in Rome
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index
Erin Kathleen Rowe is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Virginia.
“This is a significant book that will change the way historians
think about the intersection of politics, religion, and national
identity in early modern Spain.”—Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt,Cleveland
State University
“Saint and Nation is a learned and lively investigation of the
seventeenth-century battle to make Saint Teresa a co-patron of the
Spanish nation. Erin Rowe has uncovered the larger intellectual and
political concerns that bolstered loyalties to specific saints—and
in the process has revealed unexpected nuances in the imaginations
of Spanish religious elites. It is a compelling piece of
scholarship.”—Lu Ann Homza,College of William and Mary
“Saint and Nation breaks new ground in the religious and political
history of Spain by shifting from the recent focus on local holy
figures and institutions to the importance of patron saints on the
national level. The early seventeenth-century effort to promote
Teresa of Avila as co-patron saint of Spain alongside Santiago
(Saint James) gave rise to a wide-ranging debate in pamphlets and
pulpits over the character of the Spanish nación. Erin Rowe’s work
reveals how advocates for co-patronage portrayed Teresa as a native
daughter who would protect the Spanish people from Protestant
heretics, whereas defenders of the sole patronage of Saint James
argued that the ‘lived experience’ of the patron saint of the
reconquest continued into modern times through devotion, miracles,
and victories, and insisted that the election of Teresa would lead
to ruin on a national scale. Resisting the temptation to
characterize the failure of the co-patronage campaign as a simple
victory of reactionaries over the forces of progress, Rowe’s work
uses this controversy as a means to examine how patron saints
encompassed competing understandings of Spain’s origins, sacred
geography, and political aspirations. Saint and Nation makes a
strong case for the key role of religion in nation-building at a
time of crisis and transition from medieval kingdom to modern
politicized nation. This work promises to be of great interest to
scholars of early modern Europe, history of religion, and political
science.”—Benjamin Ehlers,University of Georgia
“Should Spaniards elevate the recently canonized Teresa of Avila to
the status of patron saint, along with their traditional protector,
Santiago? This seemingly simple question riveted Spanish society in
the early seventeenth century. Erin Rowe’s sensitive examination of
the dozens of pamphlets and sermons produced by advocates and
opponents of each saint, as well as legal and diplomatic sources
and visual imagery, sheds light on court politics, religious
institutions, gender norms, and the persistence of local and
regional imperatives in the face of centralizing monarchical power.
Rowe’s compelling study challenges us to think in new ways about
national identity, church-state relations, the uses of the holy,
and the construction of memory in a conflictive age.”—Jodi
Bilinkoff,University of North Carolina at Greensboro
“In the early seventeenth century, Spain was riven by a bitter
polemic over whether the recently canonized Teresa of Avila should
become its co-patron saint, sharing this honor with Santiago, ‘the
Moor Slayer.’ Despite the support of the royal family, the
co-patronage proposal provoked a fierce backlash. Opponents argued
that a female saint would impugn Spain’s collective masculinity,
give credence to the reformist agenda of the king’s unpopular
minister, and lend support to a less belligerent foreign policy.
Erin Rowe’s absorbing study illuminates how the search for a symbol
of national identity ironically exacerbated economic, political,
and ideological divisions in a nation that was unified only by the
awareness of its own decline.”—Alison Weber,University of
Virginia
“The book in its entirety, meticulously researched and highly
readable, sheds new light on the inseparability of religion,
politics, and nation building in Early Modern Spain.”—Darcy Donohue
Renaissance Quarterly
“Rowe handles very well the complexity of her subject and her
sources, and in doing so sheds valuable insight on the evolution of
the Spanish national identity during the early-modern period.”—Sara
T. Nalle Catholic Historical Review
“In this nicely written volume, the author offers a lively,
multifaceted account of the campaign in early-seventeenth-century
Spain to make St. Teresa of Avila national copatron with Santiago
(St. James) and the debate that it produced.”—Ida Altman The
Historian
“Erin Rowe's study, Saint and Nation, provides an important new
context to understand the tensions inherent in the development of
Spain as a national entity during the early modern period.Overall,
Saint and Nation is a good, sturdy study of intersection between
religion and politics at the beginning of the seventeenth century
and makes an important contribution to our understanding of the
role of ecclesiastical politics in the evolution of the nation
state.”—Allyson M. Poska Sixteenth Century Journal
“Most impressive is Rowe’s ability to weave together into a
coherent, engaging story the distinct strands of the political,
religious, social and intellectual concerns voiced by parties
invested in the debate. Not since Lucrecia’s Dreams and The Avila
of Saint Teresa have I felt so compelled to attempt to introduce
students to the complex intersection of early modern religion,
politics and identity. Rowe’s well-written, engaging, and
thoroughly researched work offers a new angle from which to
approach the matter and will be of significant interest to scholars
and students alike.”—Michele Clouse Journal of the Association for
Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies
“Rowe successfully illustrates how the co-patronage debate
reflected the diversity of cultural, religious, and political
identities in early modern Spain. . . . This is a work of sound
scholarship and far-reaching insights that deserves wide
dissemination among students of religion and politics.”—Helen
Rawlings American Historical Review
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