Historia del Carmelo Español. Vol. II: Provincias de Cataluña y Aragón y Valencia, 1563-1835. Vol. III: Provincias de Costilla y Andalucía, 1563-1835 by Balbino Velasco Bayón, O.Carm, and: Los Carmelitas: Historia de la Orden del Carmen. Vol. IV: El Carmelo Español (1260-1980) by Balbino Velasco Bayón, O.Carm

Abstract

Historia del Carmelo Espanol. Vol. II: Provincias de Cataluna y Aragon y Valencia, 1563-183 Vol. III: Provincias de Castilla y Andalucia 1563-1835. By Balbino Velasco Bayon, O.Carm. Textus et Studia Historica Carmelitana, Vols. XVIII and XM. (Rome: Institutum Carmelitanum. 1992, 1994. 4. 679; 712. Paperback) Los Carmelitas: Historia de la Orden del Carmen. Vol. IV: El Carmelo Espanol (1260-1980). By Balbino Velasco Bayon, O.Carm. (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos. 1993. Pp. xlvi, 457. Paperback) The Carmelites began as a group of lay hermits on Mount Carmel ca. 1200, became a mendicant order by 1247, were joined by a Second Order of women in 1452, contributed through Teresa of Jesus and John of the Cross classical texts to the Western mystical tradition, became two separate orders with the creation of the Discalced Carmelite Order in 1593, and gave the Church one of its most popular saints ever in Therese of Lisieux (d. 1897). Yet, the history of this order that will soon celebrate its eight hundredth anniversary has been tardily told with much research yet to be done. However, Father Velasco's prodigious published research on Carmelite men and women in Spain has made the Iberian Carmelites the envy of the rest of the order. A review of Velasco's first volume, Historta del Carmelo Espanol...c 1265-1563 has already appeared in this journal: LXXVIII (October, 1992 644-645. Velasco's decision to begin the story of the various Spanish provinces in 1563, the year in which the Council of Trent concluded its work, is a surprise. Would not 1593, the date of the definitive break between the Calced and Discalced Carmelites, have been a more logical date to begin a story which deals exclusively with the history of what Velasco calls the old order, the O.Carm.'s, not the O.C.D.'s (the Discalced Carmelites). Velasco's histories of the Spanish provinces conclude in 1835 at the time of the suppression of religious houses in Spain. The subtitles of these two volumes indicate Velasco's administrative divisions of his research. Each province receives monograph-length coverage. Vesco has amassed a staggering amount of historical detail about Carmelite life in these regional divisions. The Spanish historian's volumes contribute a verifiable encyclopedia of Carmelite history and culture in Spain. Velasco covers numerous facets of Carmelite life not treated in more narrowly conceived histories of religious orders. Each of these two volumes contains a long list of manuscript sources from many locations along with an extensive bibliography of printed sources and secondary works. Of immense help to researchers who find themselves only tangentially involved in the complex world of Spanish Carmelitana are the very full indices which take up thirty-five pages in Volume I and forty-nine pages in Volume II. …