ABSTRACT
An American specialist on early modern French social history has pinpointed the abundance of contemporaneous Spanish material dealing with women. From the very waning of the Middle Ages the loquacity of female visionaries has caused serious problems for the authorities of Catholic Christendom. It is well known that in the nineteenth century a leading Spanish historian quoted a papal librarian to the effect that Spanish history was but an Augean stable in desperate need of a good cleansing. There is no need to stress the importance of the Trinitarians in the Court of Madrid in the first half of the seventeenth century. Lerma was a major patron of both the Calced and Discalced branches. Fray Hortensio Felix de Paravicini was arguably the finest Court preacher of his day. Precisely because Sor Mauricia was such an intelligent operator of the system, this visionary grandmother was eventually to join one of the Catholic Monarchy's most exclusive female Orders.
