The Avila of Saint Teresa: Religious Reform in a Sixteenth-Century City
"The name Teresa of Avila immediately evokes Bernini's stone image of the saint in ecstasy. This lucid and readable study reveals another more public Teresa, the egalitarian monastic reformer. Tracing the development of Teresa's ideas in the context of the religious and social ferment of 16th-century Avila, Bilinkoff demonstrates the interaction between the urban pietistic reform movements and the rise of a non-noble merchant class of largely Jewish descent. Teresa's effort to reform the Carmelite order by founding small, unendowed convents devoted to contemplative prayer, Bilinkoff argues, challenged class and racial prejudices as well as the traditional dependence of monastic institutions on the aristocracy. Balanced and well researched, this volume will be welcomed by religious and social historians and scholars in women's studies."—Virginia Quarterly Review"What Bilinkoff does exceedingly well is to give us a genuine feel for the city of Avila both before and after Teresa's lifetime. . . . Reader's of this great saint's work will be enriched by this careful piece of social history."—Commonweal"An important addition to our understanding of sixteenth-century Spain."—Sixteenth Century Journal"Examining the Catholic Reform and Counter-Reformation through the microcosm of the city of Avila, Bilinkoff provides a depth of analysis unequalled by any other study of this major reform movement."—Catholic Historical Review