Apparitions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Spain

Book excerpt: To study the medieval roots of the experience of apparitions, William Christian analyzes direct accounts of appearances of Mary and other saints in rural Spain from 1399 to 1523. Drawing on verbatim testimony from children, farmers, shepherds, and servants, in addition to his own visits to the villages and his presence at a number of contemporary visions, he reveals people's experience of both the world of daily life and the world of images in their minds. Using notarized investigations of the apparitions by church and village authorities in parish, diocesan, and national archives, Dr. Christian also describes the reactions of skepticism and devotion the visions provoked in the local community and the reasons why the seers' accounts were accepted or rejected. The author first examines visions in Castile and Catalonia and their antecedents in monastic lore, sermon stories, and shrine legends. He then discusses the prosecution of visionaries by the Inquisition at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Finally, he compares the church's criteria for verifying these apparitions with those applied in France to the visions of Jeanne d'Arc. An appendix contains the original Castilian and Catalan texts. -- from dust jacket.