The female conventual exemplarity in Catalonia

17th and 18th centuries

Abstract

This article analyzes the effort of the different religious orders to select, among their men and women, those who should be considered exemplary, a step prior to promotion to the altars. The negative discrimination suffered by women is verified, with greater difficulties than men, for their own recognition of exemplary nature. The hagiographic biographies, cultivated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, have been used as a source and, above all, the collective collections of exemplary Franciscans and Carmelites, whose unpublished documentation is preserved in the University Library of Barcelona, as well as the repertoires of holiness of Pere Gil, Antonio Vicente Domenech and Pere Serra y Postius. The study of this documentation allows us to explore the social origins, family life prior to the convent and the values of these women wielded by the narrators of their virtues. At the same time, some individual cases are examined, which stand out for their exceptional connotations, for their marital problems prior to the convent, such as Ángela Ginestar, Ángela Bertomeu and Verónica Rossell or for their unique African origin, such as the case of Juana Serafina.