La liturgia en la encrucijada de la reforma religiosa en los monasterios femeninos castellanos

Abstract

This article studies how examining liturgical books and certain sources that are not strictly liturgical, such as normative texts or miscellanies, can reshape our views and change our assumptions about reform processes in Late Medieval Castilian convents. It offers a detailed examination of the gendered definition of auctoritas, and the role of women in planning and performing the liturgy and the transmission of knowledge. This analysis considers canonical and theological texts together with liturgical sources and normative texts that codified the liturgy: ordinaries, ceremonials, customaries, etc., from female monasteries. Some of these sources were copied in miscellaneous volumes which will be discussed as vehicles for the transfer of knowledge and the creation of a reformed identity in close relationship with the liturgy. Finally, analyzing the circulation of some of these manuscripts through different networks will allow us propose some hypotheses about their roles in the early dissemination of reformist ideas in Castile.