La confesión de religiosas y su gestiónel caso de las brígidas de Vitoria y el obispado de Calahorra: 1751-1832

Resumo

The documentation preserved in the different diocesan archives allows us to understand better the way in which the confessors of nuns influenced their daily life, both spiritual and temporal, of their convents. Such is the case that we find in the convent of Santa Brígida de Vitoria (Álava) and its epistolary exchange with the bishop of Calahorra (La Rioja) between the mideighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Beyond the requests for licenses or the assistance of extraordinary confessors, the texts show us the conflicts around the freedom of confession; the expansion of certain devotions under the influence of confessors; the prelate’s attempts to influence the designation; the debates, conflicts, instability and problems within the community, between nuns, againts the confessor, or of the confessor himself against other assistants of the convent. The study of the specific case of the Brígidas de Vitoria allow us to understand the variability of confessional relationships in the female religious world and to observe the constancy of the confessor in it, but it also allows to approach to the weight and influence that the bishop had in their future.