ABSTRACT
This chapter approaches the study of devotional practices in early modern Spain by considering how individuals performed their involvement in the institutional Catholic faith and how this reflected their personal beliefs. Its particular focus lies on the means and processes involved in the pursuit of virtue through acts of physical self-discipline executed in private or public domains—from conventual cells to rural hermitages, domestic chambers to Holy Week processions—by male and female members of religious orders as well as lay persons. By considering the mechanisms and conventions involved in the construction of spiritual reputations through the performance or narrative of self-mortification and the various pathways available to each gender and religious status, this work sheds light on the differences and tensions between the conceptualization, spatialization and performance of male and female devotion, as well as, more widely, the variegated nature of early modern devotional experiences.
