The unpublished memory of the female Discalced Carmel in the Crown of Aragon: historical biographies and chronicles

Abstract

The publication of the Teresian Book of Life and Foundations provided for the future a model of biographical and autobiographical writing, as well as a historical narrative of the foundational processes and the future of future religious communities, a pattern that was completed by the subsequent regulations for the creation of the Discalced Carmel. The necrologies of the nuns served as a building letter to disseminate the good examples, to enhance the personal curriculum for possible future elevations to the altars, and to maintain, through these circulars, a corporate cohesion of the religious of the same Order. The aim of this work is to address the corpus of the biographies or necrologies of the religious, written by the own habitants, and which constitute a valuable biographical patrimony, which until now has been given little attention. Some of these biographical and chronological materials were, on occasions, published by male historians, although their authorship or primary source was an extensive biography already written or contained in the book of praise of deceaseds, a work written by nuns of the same community.