ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the acquisition of reading and writing skills as described by Discalced Carmelite nuns of the seventeenth century. It examines the ways in which residents of convent communities represent their reading and writing experiences in the short spiritual biographies known as vida s. Arenal and Schlau provides several specific examples of the genre from early modern Spain and Latin America. In his study of early modern literacy, R. A. Houston states, Groups of literate people could develop a sense of identity and an enhanced feeling of worth, rather like a learned club and this was certainly the case of the Discalced Carmelites. The white-veiled nuns or freylas were most often of lower class and rural origins and performed the housework of the community: cooking, cleaning, laundering, and taking care of the ill, none of which required the ability to read or write.
