Mother Juana de la Cruz, 1481–1534: Visionary Sermons

Honorable Mention, Society for the Study of Early Modern Women's 2017 Scholarly Edition in Translation Award for a work published in 2016

Juana de la Cruz (1481–1534) is a unique figure in the history of the Catholic Church, thanks to her public visionary experiences during which she lost consciousness, while a deep voice, identifying itself as Christ, issued from her, narrating the feasts and pageants taking place in heaven. Juana’s so called “sermons,” collected in a manuscript called Libro del Conorte, form a fascinating window into Castilian religiosity in the early sixteenth century. There is much to reap from these sermons concerning Spanish Renaissance culture, theology, mysticism, gender roles, and interreligious interactions.

"This superb edition presents to English-readers the extraordinary Mother Juana de la Cruz, whose visionary sermons and ecstatic “body language” fascinated Spaniards from villagers to Charles V. Ronald Surtz and Nora Weinerth provide masterful translations of Juana’s transcribed sermons and Jessica Boon contributes an insightful introduction to the mystic’s life, religious milieu, and theological discourse. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of religion, gender, and materiality in Spain at the dawn of its Golden Age."

-Jodi Bilinkoff, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

JESSICA A. BOON is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at The University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. She is the author of The Mystical Science of the Soul: Medieval Cognition in Bernardino de Laredo’s Recollection Method.

RONALD E. SURTZ is Professor of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures at Princeton University. He is the author of The Guitar of God: Gender, Power, and Authority in the Visionary World of Mother Juana de la Cruz (1481–1534) and Writing Women in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain: The Mothers of Saint Teresa of Avila.

NORA WEINERTH is an independent scholar who lives in New York.

REVIEWS
The Catholic Historical Review 103.3 (2017): 582–583. Reviewed by Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt.
La corónica 45.2 (2017): 326–328. Reviwed by Rafael M. Mérida Jiménez.
Renaissance & Reformation 40.2 (2017): 185–187. Reviewed by Sarah T. Nalle.
Renaissance Quarterly 70.2 (2017): 731–732. Reviewed by Sara Vicuña Guengerich.