This lecture was given by Jessica J. Fowler (University of Montana Western), who is an HDS Visiting Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and Catholicism on her work, "Illuminating the Empire: The Spanish Inquisition and the Spread of Global Heresy."
This event took place October 11, 2023.
Transcript:
SPEAKER 1: Harvard Divinity School.
SPEAKER 2: Illuminating the Empire-- The Spanish Inquisition and the Spread of Global Heresy. October 11, 2023.
ANN BRAUDE: Good afternoon, and welcome. It's very good to see you all here today for the first Women's Studies in Religion Program lecture in our annual series. We have six wonderful research associates who will each be presenting their work. And it's wonderful to have Jessica Fowler be our first presenter this year. There's a lot going on in the world. And-- it's-- this is a little bit of a break, a welcome break to turn to the Spanish Inquisition, some nice light and lively conversation starting topics.
But Jessica is a wonderful speaker. Jessica Fowler is an associate professor of Latin America and the Atlantic world at the University of Montana, the Western division in Dillon, Montana. However, she is a citizen of the globe. She is a global scholar. We were first attracted to her work because of the innovative way that she looks at the Spanish Inquisition not just in a narrow context or in relation to one colonial site, but into a really global framework.
And we see her global awareness both in her scholarship and in the many distinguished research awards that she has received and continues to participate in. She was an advanced researcher for the project Conversion, Overlapping Religiosities, Polemics, and Interaction, Early Modern Iberia and Beyond, which was funded by the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid. And she continues to be very involved with Iberian studies in collaboration with Spanish colleagues. And it's very impressive to me when colleagues in Spain reach out to someone in Montana for their expertise. So we're really thrilled to have Jessica with us today.
Before she begins her presentation, I'll just mention the next presentation that will be coming up. On October 31, we will hear from Elena Herminia Guzman on chimera geographies, Black spiritual borderland performances of the Caribbean. Elena-- who, unfortunately, has COVID and is not here today, but we wish her well, and if she's online, we send special greetings-- she courageously agreed to present on Thursday, October 31, Halloween, which she thought would be an appropriate time for her work on spiritual borderlands and spirits. So without further ado, I will turn the microphone to Jessica to talk to us about Illuminating the Empire-- the Spanish Inquisition and the Spread of Global Heresy.
[APPLAUSE]
JESSICA J. FOWLER: First off, thank you for joining us here in person, in the ether, wherever thou shalt be. Thank you for your gracious introduction. I've opted to give you a bit of an overview of how I'm proceeding with this project, I thought about giving you a chapter, but it seemed really out of context. So we're going to look at some broader methodologies, give you some case studies, some sample sets to think about, and we'll go from there.
So Illuminating the Empire, the Spanish Inquisition and the Spread of Global Heresy is the title of the book, specifically because though I study the sect of alumbrados, this is a book about inquisitorial networks and inquisitorial discourses. It just happens to be around this particular heresy.
Guiding questions. And so, fundamentally, my question is, how could the Spanish Inquisition, which is supposed to eliminate heresy, the goal is to get rid of heretics, actually, one, create them, almost with no evidence? And how could they spread them when their job is to stop them? And so because it never gets old, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition to create heresy.
So because I suspect there are limited inquisition specialists amongst us, a quick rundown. You might have heard of inquisition, inquisitions. There's definitely a plural there. But you might be more familiar with the medieval precedents. This is 12th and 13th centuries. We're going to see inquisitions set up that are controlled by the Pope, that are temporary, and that are mobile.
So for instance, our great example here is the Cathars An inquisitor will be appointed. He will travel to the place where these Cathars are apparently are. He hears they're in the next town. He finishes his work. And he moves to the next town. And then when the Cathar threat has been abolished, or supposedly, it's disbanded. The institution ends.
This will be a very different thing than we see with the Spanish Inquisition. The Pope conceded the right to an inquisition to the Spanish monarchs. The idea would be that it would be controlled by Spain. The King and Queen of Spain, mostly the King, but occasionally the Queen, will have control of this institution, not the Pope. The Pope will only intervene in the most serious of circumstances.
It will also be permanent. We will see the inquisition abolished finally in Spain in 1834. It will be abolished in the Latin American colonies of Spain with independence. So this is a long-running institution. And it will be stationary. So the idea is that they will set up a tribunal in one city, and they will stay.
Now, inquisitors might go around to the neighboring areas to ask if anybody has denunciations, but the tribunal will stay in one place. And then it's originally established to deal with Judaizers or those who are converts from Judaism to Catholicism. However, there will be a moment after immense persecution and death and blood when the inquisition runs out of Judaizers. They've kind of dealt with the largest population left. Now what?
And so here's a map of the various tribunals. What I want to emphasize here is they are organized at different times. Madrid you would think would be certainly one of the first tribunals. It's actually not, because Madrid is not formalized as the capital of Spain, where the King and his court will stay for quite a while. But we have them in Sicily here, in the Italian holdings, the Canaries. And then we will have three tribunals in Latin America. Here, I want to point out, though, the Mexican tribunal is actually also responsible for overseeing the faith in the Philippines. So they also are responsible for the people there, the Catholics there. And you'll see why that's going to become important shortly.
And so because I just know you studied inquisitorial organization this morning, I know you were ready, a quick overview of how this is organized. We have the suprema, or the consejo, which is the supreme council. They are the overseeing body of each tribunal. All tribunals report to them. They send out information to all tribunals. And they will range from two to sometimes as many as four inquisitors, depending on the tribunal, depending on if it's a moment of crisis or whatnot. Running average around two, OK? Oop. I went too far.
And so this is fundamentally-- I study it as an information network. If you were here to hear a lecture about the blood and guts and torture of the inquisition, you might want to take your grape leaves and-- you're going to be very bored. But what I study this is is as information networks. I think that most of us think of these sorts of networks happening in a very modern way, as a much more later and more modern period. It turns out the inquisition beat us to it.
And so from the suprema, they will send out edicts of faith. This is basically your guide to heresy. It's a heretical handbook. It is to be read aloud to the public so that each of you can know what we're looking for. And then you can come tell us, hey, Ann, she's doing those sketchy things. You should watch out for her. And then they'll send out letters.
In return, all the tribunals send back reports and correspondence to the suprema. This is, hey, we found this sketchy person. What do we do? Or there's a new outbreak of something. What do we do? Or we would like to burn him. Can we burn him?
[LAUGHTER]
And so there's this whole level of back and forth correspondence that happens at all times. And again, because of this, this sets up an Atlantic network. We will have correspondence and reports going back and forth between Lima and Mexico City. But if you remember, Mexico City is also responsible for Manila. And so we have an Atlantic and a Pacific network set up.
This means you can track inquisitorial correspondence originating out of Manila-- from the representative of the inquisition because there's no tribunal, there's simply a representative-- as he says, Mexico, I found something. And they're like, oh, dear. Mexico writes to Madrid, oh, dear, we found something. Madrid says, hurry up. Get him arrested. Mexico says, hurry up. Get him arrested. A guy shows up in Mexico eight years later.
So it is not necessarily most efficient information network we've ever seen. But the fact that I can trace that correspondence is impressive and, oh, I don't know, 17th century. And so anything happening in Manila, it's a representative of the Mexico tribunal. They will literally send defendants across the Pacific, not just papers, but defendants. I have defendants that are arrested in Manila and will be sent to Mexico to stand trial.
And so why would I pick this heresy no one's ever heard of? I mean, that seems like a weird choice. And so why the heresy of alumbradismo? One, it's got a global reach. I've got nearly 500 cases, maybe more. They're not all going in the book. Don't panic. But it's nearly every tribunal in Spain, as well as Sicily, Lima, Mexico, and the Philippines. I'm really still looking for that Cartagena trial, but it doesn't seem it happened there. But this would be one of the very few tribunals that does not see some cases of this heresy.
The social station of the accused. These are mostly poor people. They can be priests. They are occasionally some kind of friar or monk, but typically discalced, like, the unshod. Wow. I should have worked on my English translations before that one. The poor reformed orders. These are not people who are moving great distances. The majority of these people are poor women who don't have enough money to actually get into a convent, which means they often don't have enough money to travel.
And so I had some questions as I started seeing how broadly this heresy appeared-- how it's moved. It's certainly got to be heretics. They have to be moving. But I increasingly found my heretics are not financially capable of a social status to move.
And then the other thing that made this heresy particularly exciting to me is that in General Edicts of Faith, so this is a printed one, alumbrados are the fourth heresy of concern, right, after the Law of Moses, so Judaism or Judaizing, the Sect of Muhammad, Islam, Sect of Luther, Protestants-- Sect of Alumbrados. Alumbrados don't have any formal statement of doctrine. They never wrote one.
And so I'm wondering, OK, we know Judaism and Islam are real. Luther has ideas. He's written them down. We have something we can look back and see inquisitors judged you for this. How does that compare to the writings of your faith? We can't do that with alumbrados because they don't have any.
And so finally, what it comes down to is there's absolutely no documentation alumbrados as a sect or heresy exist except via their persecution. There's none. Alumbrados, these people accused as alumbrados do not confess unless they are tortured or on threat of their life. Then they will say, honestly, whatever the Inquisition wants them to say.
And so it led me to the conclusion this is actually spread by prosecutors. The inquisition is spreading this. These poor women who are trying to take religious lives and whatnot are not traveling around this empire. It's the prosecutors. And so we circle back to RI Moore. The explanation lies not with the victims or the prosecutors, and so the inquisition's information networks which moves paperwork. Personnel also move to different tribunals throughout their career. And there are required procedures. For instance, public auto de fes is what's going to spread this heresy.
So then I just have the small task of deconstructing every single one of these heretical appearances and how it happened. It's going to be a great book, guys. It's going to be great. So how does it happen? First cases. 1520s Toledo, Spain, so central Spain. Inquisitorial process says that I, as inquisitor, stay put mostly. And you, local folk, come to me with complaints, concerns about people you think are doing suspicious things.
I have some people come and say, hey, there's these women. They're doing spiritual teachings. They're, like-- they're not even nuns. Sketchy. And so I collect testimony. And eventually, I start seeing that they are indeed not quite orthodox. And so we arrest some of them.
And we release what is called an Edict of Faith. This is basically defining heresy. The 1525 Edict of Faith is the birth certificate of my heresy, of the sect of-- actually, excuse me, the heresy of alumbradismo. And it argues that these people are advocating mental instead of vocal prayer, that they can be in a state of spiritual perfection, abandoned to God's love.
They do not need intermediaries between them and God, which, as you can imagine, in early modern Catholicism, makes people anxious. They don't think the sacraments are that important. And they reject all external manifestations of faith, such as images, saints, good works, and fasts. OK, that's not orthodox.
And so by 1525, we have named a new heresy and we've defined it. Great. We've given them a doctrine even though they didn't have one. We got it covered. So this could have all ended in Toledo, and my book would have been very short and done about a decade ago, but alas. The suprema are sitting in Madrid, they've released a 1525 Edict of Faith for Toledo.
And then Alonso de Fuente-- Dominican, renowned heresy hunters-- meet some interesting characters down in Extremadura. He scratches his chin and can't figure out what these people are. So he asks another Dominican, Juan de Ochoa, hey, I found these people. What are they?
And Juan de Ochoa, another Dominican, says, hey, hey, hey, I judged these people. This is like the Toledo cases. You've got alumbrados. Alonso de Fuente, who is very proud of himself, immediately reports to the suprema, I found alumbrados. And the suprema is like, oh, my gosh. You did. They look a little different. So let's just redefine the heresy. It'll be fine, totally fine. So they do.
And so by the 1574 Edict of Faith, they take all these pieces from 1525-- reject external manifestations of faith, mental instead of vocal prayer. Now we get into some things about they take communion every day. And they claim that if you don't study with their teachers, you are going to go to hell. The actual Catholic priests have some questions about that. And they start having raptures and ecstasies.
We will certainly see these with famous figures like Saint Teresa, that certain very esteemed holy women do have raptures. But it's a very small number that are proven holy. And so this is also the first time they'll be identified as a sect. Sect emphasizing organized, spreading.
And so by 1574, alumbrados are not only a heresy, they are a heretical sect. And now they will be included in General Edicts of Faith. The Toledo edict of faith was read in Toledo. It could have stopped. When they were included in General Edicts of Faith, General Edicts of Faith are sent to every single tribunal. And now every single tribunal is on alert that they too should be looking for alumbrados.
And so our General Edicts of Faith spread this. This is what we showed earlier. Now everybody-- you could be in Lima. Never heard of them? Don't worry. They're going to read it aloud to the public. It'll be great.
So by the punishment of this group, we tried some suspects. We put them in a public auto de fe. It showed. Correct. They're alumbrados. They are real. We've punished them. We showed everybody we punished them. But that means you've done this.
And so the inquisition asserted that alumbrados are a heretical sect. Through these Edicts of Faith, they spread information. When I read to you, hey, you should tell me about sketchy people who are endangering your salvation, the salvation of your entire community, suddenly, you all are very forthcoming. People are denounced.
Once the inquisitors validate these and say, yeah, you did find alumbrados, good work, they punish them publicly, which again, reaffirms to the public, alumbrados are real. This is a thing. You should be on the lookout. Once again, alumbrados are a heretical sect. They set up a self-referential and self-validating cycle.
Alumbrados were essentially a bogeyman of the inquisition, with very little foundation to define them. But now, by setting this up, it's pretty hard to disprove them. And so this is kind of the foundational idea around what my book is trying to show and trying to study.
And so to give you an idea how this worked, I'm going to show you just a couple of case studies so we can see some on-the-ground action, what this looks like. And so we left Extremadura in the 1570s. We got this new definition. It's sent off to Mexico.
Mexico is unimpressed. They're like, meh. But then another Dominican, Dionisio Castro, shows up to Mexico, looks around, and says, I met these people. And it smells and seems a lot like those alumbrados in Extremadura. You better do something. And the Mexican Inquisition can now not act. Now they definitely have to do something. But they remain hesitant. They're like, ah. Oh, OK. We have to set up trials. Fine.
But ultimately, the Mexican Inquisition for the 1590s and the early 1600s will reject this. They're not interested. They do not believe alumbrados have moved to Mexico. And so our three major defendants will be punished for diverse crimes. You know, it's close to heresy, but not quite. So Mexico shows restraint.
So the key aspect to this cycle is that there is room for agency. If we don't have that, that means inquisitors are crazed zealots, unthinking, who are not, in reality, the most intellectual caste of the Spanish Inquisition. These men are the brightest in the inquisition-- or excuse me, in the empire. They have the best degrees. They're the best trained.
And if we pretend that they don't have any effect, then we just paint them into a shadow. They're crazed zealots. And we lose a lot of how heresy and the inquisition function. And so by allowing that, we allow space for individuals to come out of the inquisition-- individual inquisitors, individual prosecutors, individual theologians-- to help dictate how these stories go.
And so the Philippines, a quick example from there-- Mexico City, 1650s. They have a big public auto de fe. There are some alumbrados punished. It is part of the inquisition's job to spread the news of auto de fes because you can only corral so many people into the plaza of Mexico City. But the lesson that needs to be learned from auto de fe is about heresy needs to be much bigger, much broader audience.
And so they sent a report of this to Manila, right, doing the good work. Unfortunately, because of that, this report was read in the Jesuit house in Manila. A individual who was kicked out of the order, shows up in Mexico City and said, hey, there's alumbrados in Manila. And the Jesuits are working with them. Then inquisition says, how do you know that? And he said, I read your report. And they're like, oh, dang. OK, carry on. And they have to pursue this sect.
And so we end up with an imperial inquisition that creates imperial alumbrados. This is a sample set, because otherwise they were just going to be too many arrows, of where I've traced documents and personnel moving. And so it turns out there's actually quite a few more of this. But realistically, that was going to be unmanageable on our slide. But so here's a sample set.
And so I have these cases that say very clearly, I read your report. That's why they're alumbrados. I know this. Or I already saw them over there, and here they are. I would say 95% of my cases are spread this way. I have a few oddballs, where alumbrados would move from, say, Seville to Madrid, or Extremadura to Seville. I have a few. But 95% are being spread by persecutors.
And so my global book, as Ann points out, is looking like this. And so, part one, we're going to define it. We're going to talk mostly about the 1525 edict, how it came to be. In Seville and Valladolid later, there'll be some concerns about Protestantism and alumbrados overlapping that we're going to have to tease out.
We're going to reconsider the bounds around 1574 Edict of Faith, try it out. Does it work? And then see how it goes abroad in Manila, Lima, and Mexico City. And then Cuenca is in Spain. So we're going to look at how these different places are reacting to this edict, if they're interested, if they're not interested.
By 4, chapter 4, we're looking at Seville in the 1623 Edict of Grace, where the Dominicans get really excited about this heresy and say that basically everything is this heresy. And they get pushback. And the inquisition says, you know, we went too far. We're going to step that one back a bit. And so once again, showing agency within the inquisition. This is not an unthinking institution. And then we're going to see what happens-- 1620s, the '30s.
We're going to have a whole convent of nuns in Madrid who are supposedly possessed by demons but also alumbrados. Lima. We have a Sicily case. Cuenca we're working on to see if that's going to be manageable in Barcelona. By the 1650s, Mexico City, Valencia, Toledo, possibly Sicily. And then we're going to contain it. How does this end? It's got to end somewhere.
By the 1680s, we're going to see an increasing distance. People are feeling this heresy does not hold the power it used to. It's not as relevant as it used to be, and how they're going to step away. But there will continue to be certain alumbrado-like cases in the 18th century that get renamed into these ilusoes iluminados. So the conclusion will start wrapping up how we transferred from alumbrados to this other charge of heresy.
And then-- oh, we're into bonus slides, the postscript. This manifested this summer. It's going to be called Finding and Losing Alumbrados in the Archive. Why? Because what I've discovered, if you look at anybody who studies this heresy, most people, not me, obviously, they say it's a catchall. It's meaningless. That inquisitors threw it around without thinking about it and it was just a, whatever, you're a problem. You're an alumbrado.
If you look at the number of cases involved with that charge and most of the lists, you know, the catalogs, it is overwhelming. But it turns out there's really good reasons for that. And so the postscript is going to do some archival theoretical work about how we lost alumbrados and found them.
So for instance, this is a trial from Toledo. This is in the National Archive of Spain. This is the front page you encounter. At the top alumbrados, or illuminados, but then it's crossed out. And then it was renamed. So the base text of this, according to the archivist, 1920s, best case, we got. The ilusa iludente comes later. But it turns out that's her original page, where she is only accused of propositions. Alumbrados is nowhere in that trial. And so this case keeps getting cataloged as an alumbrado case. But if you actually read it, she's not.
Another example. This one's even more fun. Toledo! Great. Ilusa iludente. OK, no alumbrado anywhere. Clear. Her second page, oh, dang it. There they did that again. I'm not actually clear of the datings of these yet. The archivists weren't super forthcoming about how these and when these happened yet. So we're going to have to go back and have a conversation about this-- but previously alumbrados, now ilusas. Her original cover page, heresy, generally. Not this heresy. And alumbrados are nowhere in that trial. She's not charged as that. She's not-- no theologian uses that. But somehow, archivists decided she was that.
And so what my thoughts are is that archivists were informed by a historiography that told them this is a meaningless charge. It's a woman. She's doing kind of wild things-- alumbrado. And how the historiography influenced archivist, and how that became its own cycle, as people looking for alumbrado cases found hundreds and decided this was too big, we can't do this. You can't write a book on this. But that maybe it's not. And that by refinding some of the base cases, that we can write about this. But once again, another self-referential loop, self-validating loop. Alumbrados are too expansive. It means everything. And archivists say, yeah, yeah, of course it does. Look at all these cases. And so that's that.
[APPLAUSE]
ANN BRAUDE: You might wanna hold on to the microphone. [CHUCKLES] Thank you so much. And I'm sure there's going to be a lot of questions. I'll-- so we may-- oh, look, you have a microphone too.
JESSICA J. FOWLER: Just being greedy.
ANN BRAUDE: Oh, that's great, that's great. OK, and we can actually walk the microphones around. There's a few here because we're kind of spread out today. So I see a question already. You ready? OK. OK. Yeah, you have to turn it on. Thanks. Do you want to introduce yourself?
NANCY KOTT: Yeah, I'm Nancy Kott, retired from the History Department. That was great. That was really a great talk, fascinating. I have, sort of, straightforward questions that maybe could be answered briefly. One, I wasn't sure what you meant early in the talk about the social status of those accused not being sufficient for them to move and what was the inquisitor saying leave Spain altogether or what.
Second, is there an English translation of the word "alumbrados"? And third, what happened to those who were accused? Were they all killed? I was also interested in, but you probably can't estimate, what the average time for the communications was, because it must have been years between the various sites across the ocean. So that's a lot, but maybe they're sort of factual.
JESSICA J. FOWLER: No, these are great. Thank you so much. When I say social status, I'm referring to many of these people-- most of them are female beatas, which are women who could not afford to get into convents. They took religious vows and remained in the secular world. They often reported to a professor of some sort.
But many of these were poor women who couldn't even afford to get into convents that they wanted to get into. We don't see families moving. They tend to be families that have been in that area or within the area for quite a while. And so we're just not seeing the movement of these. They don't have the money for passages across the sea. These are not merchants. These are not people with those kind of access. Alumbrado translation is actually, like, the enlightened. So the illuminate. Or it can be the enlightened or the illuminated, hence the "Illuminating the Empire."
How do they end? Honestly, not bad. I mean, they are not burned. I don't have a single case of an alumbrado burned. They do not kill them. Some of them will die in jail because sometimes this takes a while. So we have an issue of long jail terms or they're not even jail terms. During the course of the case, they will sit in jail long enough that they will pass-- inquisitorial jails suffering from all early modern jail issues-- illness, et cetera.
But most of them-- for instance, the group I'm working on right now, they're asked to-- they're exiled from the city they were practicing in. They spend maybe four to six years in a hospital serving women. And the very worst case, she claimed to have stigmata, which was a pretty bold claim. She got 100 lashes, exiled, and reclusion. So not as brutal as you would expect for the inquisition.
And then the communication, it would depend on the tribunal where you're referring to. The Philippine ones were slow. And also, it had a lot to do with when the communication was sent. Because based on the rains and the seasons, if you send it at the wrong part of the season, you could be waiting eight, nine months to go again, versus if you send it right as the ship is about to leave, you have slightly faster. But I can say the joke about Manila, Mexico, Madrid-- that's one of my cases-- it was literally eight years for it to get back and forth. I don't have the timestamp on the specifics of the Atlantic versus Pacific crossing, but about eight years is what that would entail.
NANCY KOTT: Thank you.
JESSICA J. FOWLER: Yeah.
TOM SANTAMARIA: OK, it's on. I'm Tom Santamaria, one of the YANG visiting scholars this year. It was a great talk-- very interesting, and really, very innovative too. It has left me with some questions. So the interesting thing about heretics is that if they are indeed heretics, they are burned. Because heresy isn't a wrong idea, it's the obstinate maintenance of one. So if they aren't burned, I mean, is this a heresy at all or is it something else?
Two other interesting points, it seems, to me. One is that in Catholic ideology or maybe even theology, heresy is never new. It comes from somewhere else. Or it's entirely new, and that's just heresy in and of itself, a paradox. It seems to me that many of the propositions relate to many earlier heresies. And I suspect that in the archival documents they refer to, oh, this is just a resurrection of ex-heresy from time before. Probably there's an obvious Manichaean elements here or Cathar elements. Of course, Catharism and Albigensianism are resurrections of Manichaeism to some degree.
And then the other point is that no one gets burned. Well, an interesting issue which I know that you know-- oh, something I said-- is that many of the propositions refer to practices which either have been holy practices of longue durée or, in the case of frequent communion, for example, are now newfound holy practices. And indeed, many canonized saints in this period, some of whom were accused of alumbradismo at various points, as you know, did do those things. So in the balance of that, you know, what is this thing?
JESSICA J. FOWLER: OK, so the projector was super excited about your questions.
[LAUGHTER]
You're correct. Heresy is never new. This heresy is most tied to Beghards and Beguines of the medieval period. In its first iteration in 1525, they're a little confused about Luther. And they're like, Lutheran? Question mark. And then they step away from that. They also initially have some concerns because the earliest group are all conversos. And so they're like, Judaizers?
But neither the Lutheran or the Judaizer association goes much past the 1520s. So they kind of clear that up. By the time they get into these kind of the idea that they can have these [INAUDIBLE], these ecstasies, raptures-- I was translating this morning, sorry-- they start seeing this as something maybe more inclined like the trope of orgiastic heresies of the past.
Because we start seeing priests soliciting women, or women engaging-- I have one woman in the 1650s in Valencia who is convinced if she sleeps with priests, every time she releases a soul from purgatory. The inquisition had questions. So we see some of this kind of old-- much older tropes about orgies and heresy involved.
What makes alumbrados interesting-- and back to your point, that are they heresies-- one of my arguments about their uniqueness is there is no papal condemnation about this heresy. The Pope never talks about it. There's no council that actually discusses them. And so are they really heretics? I mean, they keep talking about them like heretics. But I think you bring up a great point-- they don't treat them like very serious heretics. But the fact that the Spanish Inquisition was left to its own devices to define them is an interesting point. The Pope, nobody gets down on this.
And then the cases I see-- so I do have a case pop up in Portugal. It's after the 1623 Edict of Faith also showed up in Portugal, which I think is very telling. The Portuguese, to my knowledge, never defined a heresy of this sort. But we see something like this in Italy with Anne Schutte's book Aspiring Saints, right, this feigning sanctity. But this never takes on its own quite heretical category of its own. It remained a category but not exactly heresy. They lean pretty closely that way.
The question about not burning them, I'm going to have to ponder that one. Correct, they don't burn them. And I would need to look at-- usually, like, with Judaizers, if they repent and say, I'm so sorry, please take me back to the Catholic faith, they can be let off pretty easily in such events. I suspect one of the reasons we don't burn a lot of these women is because they can end up playing the, I'm a poor woman, how could I have known card. They say they were deluded by the priest or the confessor. Or the confessor should have known better and led them in a better path, or it was the devil.
So we actually have women who will claim that the devil possessed them and they thought it was God. [INAUDIBLE]. They employ the rhetoric [INAUDIBLE] but not successfully. Well, successful enough to get them out of being charged with burning of heretics.
TOM SANTAMARIA: But do any of them not recant? Or do they all-- do any remain obstinate in the heresy? Or do they say, oh, I'm-- they, I'm sure, do the "I'm a poor woman" thing as part of their recanting. I made a mistake. But I mean, that is the fundamental difference between the heretic and the person who made a mistake, which the inquisition and Catholic theology allow for.
JESSICA J. FOWLER: So I think it's a fine line between saying, my mistake, I was an alumbrado and didn't know it, and my mistake, I just got really confused about what's happening. So they try-- in general, the defendants try not to adopt this language. Many of them actually will say, I don't even know what that means. What are alumbrados? What do you say? And so defendants tend to be very careful to not adopt the language. And I think that's, once again, another defense strategy.
And then you mentioned about holy practices and stuff. Saint Teresa of Avila, which we all know, Loyola, who founded the Jesuits, all get questioned for this heresy. And this is one of the reasons it's often construed as a catch-all. But being accused of the heresy and being found guilty of it are two different things.
And once again, gets back to the inquisition having agency, being a thoughtful institution, even if by their-- we don't necessarily agree with their standards, they did analyze cases. And the fact that people are accused of it but let off, again, demonstrates that inquisitorial agency to discern what is this heresy and what it is not.
But yes, there are-- in general, they step away from the sacraments and the emphasis of the Catholic Church as intermediary between their God and themselves. And so that's fundamentally [INAUDIBLE]. I think I answered that. But I was kind of distracted. I'm sorry.
TOM SANTAMARIA: OK.
JESSICA J. FOWLER: Awesome.
AUDIENCE: Thank you so much for that. My question is very simple. [INAUDIBLE]. So I couldn't help thinking that since [INAUDIBLE] Halloween, what was [INAUDIBLE]? Did they have communication with the [INAUDIBLE] witch files? Was there anything going on between [INAUDIBLE] northern and southern? And also, the fact that you said the Pope was no longer responsible for this-- I mean, do they [INAUDIBLE] this is what's going on [INAUDIBLE]? What I'm really more interested in is what's going on between [INAUDIBLE].
JESSICA J. FOWLER: So my defendants would know this. The inquisitors were absolutely aware. And Spain will have its own very brief outbreak of witchcraft. But once again, the inquisition, being a fairly discerning institution, they see witches pop up in northern Spain. And they have one inquisitor, Salazar, who just doesn't believe it. He's like, I just don't think they're flying around on brooms, guys. I think they're deluded. And he writes a lot of treaties and has a lot of correspondence with the consejo about this. And it largely stops witch-hunting in Spain. So they are aware of witch trials.
They know these things are happening, the inquisitors certainly are. I mean, they are the most educated elite. Are my defendants knowing about witch trials would be? Less so. But yeah, the inquisition is pretty unique, and along with Portugal, for never really getting involved in these witchcraft trials. And so this is-- you know, a joke inquisition people will laugh at is that in Germany, if you're accused as a witch in the morning, you'll be dead by the afternoon.
AUDIENCE: Right, right.
JESSICA J. FOWLER: That's hilarious to inquisitorial historians because we're like, you're going to spend four years in jail before we do anything. Like, you won't even think about that. And so it's a more-- the inquisition, interestingly, because of its bureaucratic procedures and protocols, can't have a witch craze in the same way, because it's going to take too long, too much investigation. And Salazar [INAUDIBLE] make sure that does not happen.
And then the Pope's role. The Pope only really gets involved with the inquisition when they go after major ecclesiastical figures. So Archbishop Carranza gets accused of heresy. The Pope gets involved. Short of that, there's a few stellar cases like that that really speak to the hierarchy of the church the Pope will step in in. But in general, no. He has no-- I have no evidence that he ever was consulted about, discussed, considered alumbrados. He's not part of day-to-day functioning. Occasionally, there would be-- inquisitors could act as emissaries to Rome about certain issues. I have no evidence that ever occurred with alumbrados, no.
AUDIENCE: Thank you. Now that the microphone is working, I have one last question. So was it efficient and effective, the process?
JESSICA J. FOWLER: Hmm. Efficient? Probably not. No. And the further from the center of power, the further from Madrid, less so. Martin Nesvig just wrote a book about the Mexican tribunal and how it was kind of a Wild West out there in certain provinces. The further you were away from the tribunal, the less efficient it became. And so if you were right in Mexico City, there was a higher level of efficiency than you were up in the northern frontier.
And yeah, there were visitations, sure, right, and so closer to the centers of tribunals. And then each tribunal tended to behave better closer to Madrid. But at times, tribunals would behave badly. And the consejo would send out inspectors, who are other inquisitors, to go clean up their mess. And so in Mexico, we will see an inspector basically, who's an inquisitor, spend a decade reviewing the Mexican tribunal's trials, their processes because they are not behaving right. So there are some checks and balances for that sort of misbehaviour.
ANN BRAUDE: Sharon's got the microphone. Let's get Sharon and then [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: First of all, thank you so much for this. It's absolutely fascinating. Because I work on early heresies, there's so many adumbrations of this and these issues about inventing. And so let me pick just a couple that are fairly broad and see if you can help. One is the way in which-- I'm very interested in what is it the content of the 48 and the 22 propositions, you know? And partly because, you know, one of the things that happens in the early churches is that orthodoxy-- heresy gets determined as dogmatic and belief in a way that is actually extremely innovative in the Greco-Roman world. And so just I only got a quick view before we hit slides about what was going on there.
And the question then has a couple of twists to it. One is, are these violations of what are considered to be already established dogma? You know, are they clear, et cetera, et cetera? And/or are we also seeing, at the same time the way in which the invention of heresy is a way of thinking through theologically issues that are going on right then and there and that are being contested in other spheres and so forth? And so that it becomes a place, OK, in which to think about those places and exercise power around them at the same time. So it's a way of winning a debate, if you will, through a judicial-style process.
So maybe that's enough for now. But the notion that heresy is always invented and it's always about internal stuff always also makes me ask the question about it can't be a coincidence that most of the people that you're talking about are women. And so what might that be about, if you have anything to--
JESSICA J. FOWLER: So this is a great question. I thank you for asking it. My next [INAUDIBLE] is coming out on inquisitorial [INAUDIBLE]. And I argue this heresy is a little bit [INAUDIBLE] between orthodoxy and heterodoxy. And so 48 and 22, I can bring those slides back up. I can send you the full translations of them. But yes, there are violations of established dogma. But these moments come out strongest around the counter-reformation, while Spain is trying to rein things back. And then the one we didn't talk about as much as [INAUDIBLE] I'm working on now. But it becomes really, really expansive.
But it's actually only an Edict of Grace. It was only meant for Seville, but it gets out. And then the inquisitors understand they opened a Pandora's box. They say they have thousands of denunciations. 600 people are [INAUDIBLE]. And they immediately actually [INAUDIBLE] it back down because [INAUDIBLE] challenged by [INAUDIBLE] lawyer, you can't say all this is heresy.
And I think-- what I'm kind of working on right now is the 1623 edict, I think is a response to the canonization of Saint Teresa. Because suddenly, women are having ecstasies all over the place. And I think there's a huge-- the Dominicans, when they helped create the 1623 edict, are very much trying to put women back in their place despite the canonization of St. Teresa. And so those are two key moments that I think are speaking to what you mean. They're trying to reaffirm orthodoxy by setting it up as heresy
AUDIENCE: I mean, it's so-- the whole issue of heresy is so interesting precisely because you canonize somebody like Saint Teresa in order to keep her in the box, you know, under control. And the way in which these kinds of rapturous, spiritual experiences can escape the control of those who feel like they should be in control, so there's a kind of anxiety about borders, and boxes, and order, and et cetera that appears.
But the boundaries between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, from what I saw of that list, there wasn't much there that was dogmatic, you know? And these persons are arguably, from what you've said, not particularly espousing the kind of intellectual theses that we see happening with Luther or Calvin, et cetera, et cetera.
So in that sense, it just made me wonder if part of the Pandora's box was it precisely what we see in early Christianity as well, which is that the literature of theology and orthodoxy and heresy isn't even beginning to cover what people are actually doing. And people are doing stuff that would be considered to be magic and to be considered other under the rubrics of-- you know, and the lines between so-called idolatry and Judaism are really very ill-defined and crossed and bordered. And if they run into that and then they panic a little bit more, that there's more going on there that-- underneath the radar, so to speak, that-- anyway, just--
JESSICA J. FOWLER: No, and I'll be very--
AUDIENCE: Yeah, I'm sorry.
JESSICA J. FOWLER: I'll be very [INAUDIBLE] like, come to my class. [INAUDIBLE] 3 o'clock.
[LAUGHTER]
But the fact-- and she has to play all these rhetorical games and whatnot to get through. But the fact that they canonized her provides a lot of women-- a lot of these women claim they [INAUDIBLE] holy like Saint Teresa, you know? They cite her as like, oh, no. I'm having this experience just like her. So though her canonization actually speaks to her being [INAUDIBLE]. She still provides them a model of [INAUDIBLE] sanctity that many women who were craving or moved up to [INAUDIBLE] as well.
Your question about dogmatic, I would love to continue this conversation in about two months. Because I have a-- I think he was-- maybe he's Jesuit, who's accused as an alumbrado. And he writes theological treaties about how he could not be. And what does that actually mean?
And so he's a case coming out of Granada that I have not gotten to yet. But he is accused of this. And he's like, oh, you want to have that, do you, and writes pages and pages defending himself against it. Well, actually, would alumbrados say this? That's not actually that bad. But when they say it like this, it does matter.
And then similarly, I have this one canon lawyer who writes back because he's fake. He makes a joke. He's like, you say alumbrados. What is wrong to be enlightened by God? And mocks the Dominicans who made this. And so there's some interesting theological things happening. But I would have more on that [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: Yeah, we'll talk. Thank you so much.
MUSTAFA: Hi, my name is Mustafa. I'm from the Divinity School. Thank you first for the presentation. And I had two questions. I think one you partially just answered a bit. But so obviously, your main thesis is that this heresy is created by the inquisition. But on the other side, do you think there's-- I mean, you just mentioned they had a similar model of sanctity in Saint Teresa.
But do you think there is any real-- was it completely created by the inquisition? Is there any actual real correlation? Maybe these groups were learning from each other, or maybe they had some form of internal communication that allowed them to spread-- you know, different forms of ideas were spread. And maybe they were learning from each other, even if there wasn't any codified doctrine.
And my second related question is that you mentioned, like, the circular nature of the whole process. And so did this also reflect on to the people? I mean, even if this sort of sect was created by the inquisition, was there ever a point where people, like, maybe internalized it and said, yeah, maybe I'm part of this sect. Or was there any-- is there any like-- is there any information that maybe people perhaps internalizes and then maybe they even says this as a form of resistance towards the inquisition, that they righteously said that, no, I'm part of the sect. And I'll stand up for what-- this is what I believe in.
JESSICA J. FOWLER: OK, great. That's a great question. So [INAUDIBLE] we'll start with very first, 1525. That Edict of Faith was made off of people who came in and denounced it, who had no theological training. Just like, hey, that person [INAUDIBLE] these things and whatnot.
That's literally the only foundation we have for the earliest Edict of Faith, which was the basis for 1554. The Dominicans will get very involved [INAUDIBLE]. So we get a little more theology there. But when I say completely created, were these people doing heterodox, non-Catholic things? Absolutely. [INAUDIBLE]. They called them a sect. They called them a heresy. Internal communication. Within outbreaks-- which I'm not loving this term [INAUDIBLE]. Within outbreaks they do know each other. I get-- like, each one of those case studies is, you know, sometimes three, sometimes 10 people who are in that group do all speak to each other and are [INAUDIBLE]. I think it's a problem [INAUDIBLE].
And then process. Does anybody internalize it and try to resist it? My resistance comes in the form usually of women saying, no, no, you don't understand. I am [INAUDIBLE]. And I have women who will go into rapture in front of the inquisitors while being questioned to try to demonstrate to them like, no, no, no. Look, I have been chosen. I do have divine gifts. So their resistance is not about adopting this language. But they will perform their gifts in an effort to resist.
Unfortunately, as far as efficiency and efficacy, the more you do that, the longer you're going to be there, because now they have to really be like, OK, who saw that? What was that? We have to ask more witnesses. And this will actually prolong your trial. And often, those who at some point perhaps try to form their gifts in an effort to resist, they cave. They realize that, you know, you could go to jail five years. [INAUDIBLE].
For instance, I have a case I just pulled for Cordoba. This mother and daughter were taken into jail and died there 11 and 12 years later respectively. Right, they seem to have resisted based on the correspondence. They were like, no, we are not alumbrados. We don't do this. And they both died. And they were both buried in the little garden by the torture chamber. So the price of resistance was often too strong.
I don't have-- if you're interested in resistance in inquisition, Miriam Bodian has a great book on Jewish martyrs to the inquisition, who were like, no, this is my faith. But I have some pieces like that. I have a little more faith. And I would have a little more faith that this was something a little more real as opposed to being [INAUDIBLE] by resistance, not by [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: So I'm curious. I was really struck. Like, obviously, you've got the internal to Spain cases. But both in your presentation today and chatting with you over the past couple of months, this is really-- like, I'm looking at the cases on the edges of empire. And so one of my questions is how many of these people are people who are new to Catholicism? There's the converso example in which, right, like, forcible conversion. What you're up to at home-- maybe not forcible. But like, what you're up to at home, different story.
And I'm assuming that that also happens on the edges of empire. I'm wondering, do you-- how much is this a category that is always understood as heresy? Are they making distinctions between heretics and heathens, basically, in how the term is deployed? Because I'm picturing-- I found myself wondering just because I teach survey of American religion, right, like about the missions up the California Coast. And I was thinking about, oh, shoot. He was sainted by Francis while he was here.
AUDIENCE: Serra.
AUDIENCE: Thank you. Serra, who works his way up the California Coast, right, forcibly converting people as he goes. And so I was just curious. How does that pan out?
JESSICA J. FOWLER: So interesting story. The Spanish Inquisition has no jurisdiction over brand new Christians who are, like, Indigenous people. So we don't see any of that. I have-- my Manila case I shared, with you with the Jesuits, the person denouncing that says that, tagalog beata, this indigenous woman is an alumbrado. And the inquisition says, can't touch that. We'll go for the Jesuits, but can't touch that because she was Indigenous. They don't have jurisdiction. So that limits some of that. Now if you want to get really dorky, the Portuguese Inquisition does not have this rule.
AUDIENCE: Why? Why don't they have jurisdiction?
JESSICA J. FOWLER: Because it's believed that-- well, so we-- initially, the bishops will exercise some jurisdiction. The friars will exercise jurisdiction in the New World initially, and then some bishops will. And there will be a lot of excesses. This is when we see a lot of burning of Indigenous people, burning of writings, et cetera, the horrible excesses of that period. And the inquisition believes that they have not had enough time to be fully taught the ways of Catholicism to hold them responsible for those actions. And so it is lenient.
And so one of the things I find really interesting about this, I occasionally have this Tagalog Beata in the Philippines who they accuse. But they're like, we can't do anything about that. So they go to the Jesuits. But in general, this heresy tends to stay very Spanish even as it's spread. So most of my Mexican cases are Spaniards or from Spanish parents.
They have-- sometimes I'll occasionally run into-- I have a mulatto, enslaved mulatto in Seville. But it seems like this is one of those moments of excess that the inquisition distances itself from afterwards. So there'll be occasional moments like this. But we're not seeing the sort of syncretism of belief that I would have expected going into Mexico.
And this is one of the reasons it's so important to me the way I've set up the book, is because-- there's a great book on these Mexican cases, that one of the main arguments is that this is a syncretic heresy, that by the 1650s, we see a sort of syncretism with Indigenous and African practices. But if you compare alumbrados in 1650 Mexico with alumbrados in 1650 Madrid, they look exactly alike.
And so this is one of the reasons for the structure of the book, is that by looking at outbreaks-- again, I'm working through how to figure out to get away from that term. But if I look at these in different places and individual moments, they have very different stories to tell them when I put them in comparative cases. So why does my alumbrado in Lima look just like my alumbrado in Barcelona? That's about an institution, rather than necessarily defendants. [INAUDIBLE].
ANN BRAUDE: I have tons of questions, but I want to make sure everybody else has got theirs on the table. All right, I'm going to offer you two questions and give you a choice because they're both kind of big. One is about the inquisitors, who-- you have a kind of refreshing respect for the inquisitors and their talents, and training, and rationale, abilities.
And you use this term "excess" that seems like they're being self-critical out of their own respect for the inquisition and its institutions. So at the same time, you've completely convinced us, or at least me, that they made up this heresy, which was a really stupid thing to do, that if they are-- they should not be making up heresies and then spreading them around the world. That seems really idiotic.
So how did these people who-- because we don't respect what they did, we stereotyped them as people who we don't respect. And you've been able to make a distinction there that I find really illuminating. But then that seems to kind of undercut your argument. So that's what-- do you want to answer that? Then I want to ask about the women.
JESSICA J. FOWLER: OK, we'll I'll get to some women here for you. Thank you for saying a refreshing respect. I've been accused of being an apologist. And I am not apologizing for these people. And they are self-critical. But the reason to make up a heresy, and that's a great question, it's useful. So though it may not be real, it is useful.
And one of the things I'm seeing them, as we're thinking about creating boundaries and stuff, is women who are doing things that look, sort of sound Catholic, have Catholic imagery, have Catholic basis, but they are going too far. And that this category, though it may not be real, was very useful for reining in women. They're not Judaizers. They're not Muslims. They're not Lutherans. But they've got to be reined in. That can't be. And they didn't have any better category for them.
So though I don't think it was actually stupid, and I don't think initially they realized what they were doing, obviously, but it was a really useful category. Because where else do we place these women on the scale of heresy, or close to heresy, if we're not going to burn them? What do we do with them? And so it was actually very useful. And so I think that was why make it, why keep it, why spread it. They always found defendants. There's very few of that list of tribunals that I don't have at least a or multiple cases from. And so it seems bizarre to have made it.
And they never had a Salazar sort of figure who would rein in the witch craze. They never had somebody that was like, well-- actually, I take that back. We have one in 1623. And he'll be promoted. He critiques the Edict of Faith against alumbrado, says it's too expensive. He will be promoted all the way up to the consejo for his critique of this. This goes back-- how effective it is after that, the question is there. But he reins in that edict.
Unfortunately, that edict spread without the consejo or his consent really. And it's published into French and Portuguese. And even though that will not be the permanent definition of that heresy that appears in General Edicts of Faith, it's the one that got out. And so in some ways, efforts to corral this heresy into something a little more tight, a little more defined failed. But there were efforts.
ANN BRAUDE: OK. Now I'll open the floor before I ask my second question.
AUDIENCE: Thank you. Well, it's kind of a follow up actually to Ann's. So you mentioned it was useful. And I'm wondering, you know, how do you tease out, like, the attempt to unify the empire as that being the central motivation versus to preserve orthodoxy and the power of the church? Is it-- you know, these are obviously all operating simultaneously. Is it even possible to kind of tease those out? And then I'm also wondering, was there any economic value to controlling these groups of women? Or is that just kind of not in the picture?
JESSICA J. FOWLER: OK, so unifying the empire is not on the top of their list of concerns as they pursue this heresy. The inquisition is actually the only Spanish institution that has jurisdiction over the entire empire. The other ones are divided along the crown lines of Aragon, Castile, whatnot. And so the inquisition is actually a massive unifying force in its own right. And so it is about preserving orthodoxy and the kind of social threat these women pose to Catholic practice.
Your point about academic value, though, there are certainly individuals who build their careers on the backs of prosecuting alumbrados, who get promotions, who get a level of respect that they did not otherwise earn or would not otherwise have reached. So Alonso de Fuente, who shows up in Extremadura and starts this again, he spends the next 30 years railing against alumbrados. He actually gets arrested a couple of times because they're like, dude, shh.
He goes, runs off to Portugal and tries to spread the news that alumbrados and Jesuits are the same thing. Again, gets him arrested. But he keeps going and going. And actually, he ends up in a very comfy position by the end of his career. And so we see a number of inquisitors who do gain a reputation and write to the consejo about, well, I worked so hard on these cases. Are you so impressed with what we found? And so maybe not academic, but certainly careerist, yes.
AUDIENCE: So I just had a follow-up about your note about how the Indigenous women were exempt for the most part. So did the women that were defendants, did their level of education, because you said they were pretty poor, they were not able to enter convents, so did that impact their level of literacy and the expectations for their commitments to orthodox Catholicism and all of its doctrinal nuances.
Like, they thought they were imitating Saint Teresa. They thought they-- you know, to the extent that they were maybe accused, they thought they were still orthodox. So why, I guess, did the-- was it because they were maybe Spanish that the, kind of, leniency that was maybe extended to newer converts to Catholicism did not extend to them in terms of responsibility for the faith?
JESSICA J. FOWLER: So yes, I have lots of uneducated women who cannot read. So they're hearing the lives of saints often being read aloud. And this is when the inquisition starts having some questions. Because they're like, well, then how did this happen? And the inquisition starts being more interested in the role of confessors and priests in either influencing these women or leading them down the wrong path.
Because for-- especially as we spread empire it does really great things, for instance, Lima when they get a female saint. Saint Rose of Lima changed the kind of religious profile of that colony in huge ways. The Jesuits-- there's a great article by Strasser about the Jesuits using women converts, model converts to really show the dividends that their great work is paying off.
And so there is actually something happening here, where confessors and priests are maybe not discouraging behavior because they're like, maybe we found her maybe. And it does great things for their reputation to be the person writing down the visions, writing about the raptures of this woman if she is proven to be holy.
Like, there's a whole genre of writing vidas and if they're the ones who located her. And so there is something kind of self-serving to the way some priests and confessors encourage these women's behavior. And the inquisition takes that [INAUDIBLE].
ANN BRAUDE: Well, that is so fascinating that the saint versus heretic could tip either way. And my questions go back to the ones that we've heard already about the accused. And you used the term beatas for them. So I wonder what-- so I wonder what descriptive utility that term is having in your study. Because if the heresy is hallucination, but beatas is an accurate description of them, is there anything you can actually say about them beyond the very interesting things you've already said?
JESSICA J. FOWLER: Yeah, and I should have explained that term a little bit better. So a beata is just this religious laywoman. Plenty of them live their entire lives and are never accused of this heresy. So they are assumed to be specifically prone to this heresy because, you know, various reasons. But there's plenty of beatas who do good work across Spain and never get accused of heresy. And so there's-- not all women accused are betas, but lots of them are. And so I would need to do better explaining that terminology.
But it's just it happens to be that many of these women have chosen-- and this goes back again to these Catholic excesses potentially, that these women are just a little-- are using Catholic ideas and Catholic imagery and stuff, but going a little too far outside of male control Catholic prescription to be acceptable. These women often take vows of chastity.
They work in the world. They teach sewing to poor children. They help prostitutes. Like, they're very much a service station in the world in a way that nuns can't be after they're forced back into the cloister. And therefore, these beatas often take over the roles nuns had previously had when they were allowed to be out and about before the kind of implementation of the Counter-Reformation.
And so they're are a very valued and often respected station. And this is another reason they gain such power when they start saying, I'm having visions. They're like, wow. She lives such a virtuous life. She serves the poor. Oh, you know, she seems like a valid candidate. This could be true.
ANN BRAUDE: Well, thank you so much. We think we will close here. So please join me in thanking Jessica for this wonderful, wonderful.
SPEAKER 1: Sponsor-- Women's Studies in Religion Program.
SPEAKER 2: Copyright 2023, the President and Fellows of Harvard College.