Abstract

This article investigates feminine religiosity in the context of the postridentine period (late 16th and early 17th centuries). Firstly, it shows how the suspicions of female alumbradism persisted. It analyzes the work of the Dominican Juan Gavastón, that imposed rigid discipline in convent life in order to defend the value of the purity of religious vocation, which could overcome the pressures of parents. Secondly, it studied the cases of two Dominicans: the Italian Francesca Vacchini of Viterbo and the Catalan-French Juliana Morell, two nuns who, in their childhood, suffered the bad treatment of their parents and who ended up finding a way of liberation in the beaterio or in convents.