Survival, memory and identity. The roles of saint worship in Early Modern Castile. Master’s thesis, 60 credits. Spring 2019 Author: Ricardo Fernández González. Supervisor: Henrik Ågren Seminar chair: Louise Berglund Date of defence: 28/05/2019 HISTORISKA INSTITUTIONEN Abstract This paper aims to explore the connections between the rural communities of Early Modern Castile and the saints they venerated through their festivities, relics and advocations and the roles that these relationships fulfilled in their societies. The Castilians of the sixteenth century seem to have used their interactions with saints not only for the purpose of the salvation of their souls, but rather, as ways to ensure the survival of their population, to cement social cohesion and identity, or to preserve the memory of their communities. Through the topographic relations of Philip II, a fantastic source that reproduces the voices of members of rural communities of Central Castile, this paper analyses the boundaries between the utilitarian and the cultural in the worship of saints, and the limits of local culture and identity. Acknowledgements I will like to extend a brief but very much earned thank you to some of the individuals that have helped me in the elaboration of this master thesis. First, I will like to thank Henrik Ågren, my supervisor, I have no doubts that this paper would not have come to be in the form that it is today without his attentive supervision. I am forever indebted for his support in the long months of work leading to the finalization of this master thesis. Mikael Alm, from Uppsala University, for his dedication to students, which is nothing short of admirable, and the fantastic support he provided for me and others across different phases of the research process. Francisco Javier Campos y Fernández de Sevilla, probably the most dedicated researcher of the Topographic Relations of Philip II. For his encouragement to base this master thesis on the Topographic Relations, saving some time in his schedule to sit down and talk with me about the source, and providing me with the transcription of the villages of Ciudad Real. I hope I have shown my gratitude by making justice to this fantastic source. Antonio Castillo, from the University of Alcalá de Henares, Terese Zachrisson, from Gothemburg University and Andrew Beresford, from Durham University, for their interest and help in the development of this master thesis in different phases of its elaboration. From the land down under, Stephanie Thomson and Jessica McCandless, from the University of Adelaide, for allowing me the opportunity to participate in the Symposium on Religion and Emotion in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, as well as the attendees, for their very valuable feedback. iii Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................................... iii 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 2 1.1. Confessionalization and the Post-Trento Church .................................................................. 3 1.2. Studying popular culture ............................................................................................................. 6 1.3. Materiality and immateriality. Religious rites in the Early Modern World .......................... 9 1.4. Research question and purpose ............................................................................................... 10 1.5. The topographic relations of Philip II .................................................................................... 11 1.6. Method ........................................................................................................................................ 13 1.7. Terminology ............................................................................................................................... 15 2. Saints set in stone. Saint worship and rural space ......................................................................... 17 2.1. What is an advocation? ............................................................................................................. 17 2.2. Saint dedications in the topographic relations ....................................................................... 21 2.3. Geographical distribution of the advocations ....................................................................... 26 3. Saints set in time. Religious festivities in the topographic relations ........................................... 29 3.1. Saints in the festivities of the topographic relations ............................................................. 32 3.2. Geographic distribution of saint festivities in the topographic relations .......................... 36 3.3. Why upheld a festivity? Reasons given in the topographic relations. Practical reasons .. 38 3.4. Why upheld a festivity. Reasons given in the topographic relations. Emotion, identity and religion ............................................................................................................................................. 45 3.5. What to do in a festivity? Rituals in the festivities of the topographic relations .............. 53 4. Saints set in flesh. Relics in the topographic relations .................................................................. 57 5. Local religiosity or popular religiosity? ........................................................................................... 61 6. Conclusions ......................................................................................................................................... 68 6.1. Afterword .................................................................................................................................... 71 7. Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 73 7.1. Primary Sources ......................................................................................................................... 73 7.2. Literature ..................................................................................................................................... 73 1 1. Introduction The villagers of San Sebastián de los Reyes, in what nowadays is the province of Madrid, received a letter from their king, through his representative in the villa of Madrid, on the 23rd of December of 1579. They had received a similar letter three years before, asking them a series of questions about their local community, from the political and economical to the cultural and religious. The royal survey called for the selection of some men from the community to answer the questions in the presence of the town scribe. The mayor and regidores of the village complied and chose Martín García and Sebastián de Medina, inhabitants of the town, “intelligent and curious”1, to answer the inquires. It is in this context that these two men related to their king, Philip II, and, by extension, to us a very curious story: The village celebrated the festivity of the saint that gave it its name, San Sebastián; in which it was prohibited to eat meat, fish or any other animal product. On that day, the villagers of the nearby village of Alcobendas used to come in procession to join in the festivities. Seventy years before Martín and Sebastián answered the questions of the aforementioned survey, in the day of the festivity, a man called Portazguero decided to go away to this neighbouring village with the villagers of Alcobendas as they returned to their homes, with the intent of eating meat there, dodging that way the prohibition in his local village. He stayed all day in Alcobendas, where he ate lunch and dinner, and then returned home at night, finding his wife, children and servants eating radish. Seeing this, the man uttered something along the lines of “You look well there eating radish, I just ate all the meat I could”. Immediately after, he suddenly died in his chair.2 The tragicomedy of the death of Portazguero no doubt served as a warning for the future generations of inhabitants of San Sebastián de los Reyes to maintain and respect the festivity of their patron saint, evidenced by the fact that they still remember the tale almost a century after the fact. The story would, however, eventually be forgotten. It is thanks to the letter that the king sent this community that we have heard this tale of defiance and death. Likewise, Martín García and Sebastián de Medina, our storytellers, are silent in other sources of the time, for not only were they peasants, but Sebastián was also illiterate, and another had to sign the document in his name. It is indeed rare to hear the voices of the rural inhabitants of the Early Modern period, even though they represented the vast majority of the European population. Usually, when they show up in the documents, it is only because they have infringed against the established rules, in the courts of law, terrene or ecclesiastical. Otherwise, historians have had to rely on second hand testimony on what the peasantry though and felt, through members of the elite that took their time 1 Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra, trans. Relaciones topográficas de Felipe