Powerful Submissive, Bent Rebels. «Conflictive» Religiosity in Women of Power (from the Fifteenth to the Sixteenth Centuries - Joan I of Castile)

Abstract

A look at female religiosity in the 15th and 16th centuries allows us to observe significant changes in convent life, in forms of independent religiosity or outside of regulated institutions, or in the participation of lay women in religious movements such as the «alumbrados» or the devotio moderna. How did the changes affect other women, particularly some with potential influence on society? What role did queens and women of nobility, essential figures in female religiosity for centuries, have in new religious trends? Could they influence the religious powers? This work focuses on a Hispanic royal woman, a good example of «conflictive» religiosity, Juana I of Castile, and next to her we will briefly contemplate another royal woman, Margaret of Navarre, who had a significant role in the religious changes of the first third of the 16th century in France. With an exquisite cultural background for her time, both were inclined towards a religiosity different from the traditional Catholic one, but they were defeated when her ideas were not accepted by the political and religious powers controlled by men.