ABSTRACT
The classification of genres written by religious women that concern —chronicles, biographies, and hagiographies—forms part of the historiographical or historical-literary genres. Moreover, on examination, the chronicles reveal significant generic hybridization, to the extent that it is difficult to discern where hagiography begins and where it ends, as it permeates the entire text. Indeed, nuns' chronicles, biographies, and hagiographies are multifaceted religious writings by women that allow multi- and interdisciplinary approaches. The term "by command" as applied to nuns' writings is characteristic of conventual genres, as it justifies the nuns' very act of writing. In her Libro de la vida, the saint had written, at her confessor's behest, the chronicle of the foundation of the first Discalced Carmelite monastery, San Jose in Avila. The saint narrates her initial reluctance to write the history of her foundations, but she seems to realize from the start the usefulness of such a document.
