Unruly friars: correction and social discipline of the Dominicans of Castile in the first half of the 16th century

Abstract

In Castile, at the dawn of the Modern Age, the reform movement led to a closer monitoring of the friars and a continuous process of disciplining them and correcting their behavior. Based on the legislation emanated from the provincial chapters of the Order of Preachers, moral theological treatises composed by the religious order itself and numerous files preserved in the State archives (letters of the Dominicans to the kings or the Holy See and records of blood cleansing from different convents), this article explores the relationship between reformation and exclusion of conversos in Castilian monasteries. Certainly, this is a rather complex process that will eventually give a new meaning to the word «observant.» Throughout the period studied, the exclusion of «New Christians» was not easy or final, as one might have thought. This procedure was rather unpopular among the Dominicans until the 1520s and was embraced only by the convent of Santo Tomás de Ávila. In fact, the participation of many monks in the Revolt of the Comuneros, and the suspicions that were later brought on by Erasmism increased the repressive capacity of the superiors of the order, a situation that favored the subsequent imposition of the statute of purity of blood in monasteries that functioned as study centers.