In 1562, Teresa de Avila founded the Discalced Carmelites and
launched a reform movement that would pit her against the Church
hierarchy and the male officials of her own religious order. This
new spirituality, which stressed interiority and a personal
relationship with God, was considered dangerous and subversive. It
provoked the suspicion of the Inquisition and the wrath of
unreformed Carmelites, especially the Andalusian friars, who
favored the lax practices of their traditional monasteries. The
Inquisition investigated Teresa repeatedly, and the Carmelite
General had her detained. But even during the most terrible periods
of persecution, Teresa continued to fight for the reform using the
weapon she wielded best: the pen. Teresa wrote hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of letters to everyone from the King to prelates to
mothers of novices.
Teresa's epistolary writing reveals how she used her political
acumen to dodge inquisitors and negotiate the thorny issues of the
reform, facing off the authorities--albeit with considerable
tact--and reprimanding priests and nuns who failed to follow her
orders. Her letters bring to light the different strategies she
used--code names, secret routing--in order to communicate with nuns
and male allies. They show how she manipulated language, varying
her tone and rhetoric according to the recipient or slipping into
deliberate vagueness in order to avoid divulging secrets. What
emerges from her correspondence is a portrait of extraordinary
courage, ability, and shrewdness.
In the sixteenth century, the word letrado (lettered) referred
to the learned men of the Church. Teresa treated letrados with
great respect and always insisted on her own lack of learning. The
irony is that although women could not be letradas, Teresa was, as
her correspondence shows, "lettered" in more ways than one.
General
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