Sor Isabel de Villena: A Gendered Perspective on the Immaculate Conception
 

 

Lesley K. Twomey,
School of Arts and Social Sciences Northumbria University

Notes

 

1. Stefano di Fiores and Salvatore de Meo, Nuevo diccionario de mariología (Madrid: San Pablo, 1988).

2. Fiores and Meo, Nuevo diccionario de mariología, p.911. A history of the doctrine before the sixteenth century is discussed by J. Ignacio Tellechea Idígoras, La Inmaculada Concepción en la controversia del P. Maldonado, S.J., con la Sorbona (Vitoria: Seminario, 1958); Edward D. O'Connor, C.S.C., The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception: Its History and Significance (Notre Dame: University of Notre-Dame Press, 1958). The development of the doctrine in Spain is discussed by Nancy Mayberry, 'The Controversy over the Immaculate Conception in Renaissance Art, Literature and Society', Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 21:2 (1991), 207-24. Its development in literature is partially charted by Antonio Riera Estarellas, 'La doctrina inmaculista en los orígenes de nuestras lenguas romances', Estudios marianos, 16 (1955) 245-84. A study of the development of the Immaculate Conception in the Spanish Franciscan order can be found in Manuel de Castro, 'Legislación de la orden franciscana en España', Archivo Ibero-Americano, 15 (1955), 36-103. For a study of literary debate in Spain, see also Lesley K. Twomey, 'Una qüistión sobre la conçebçión de Santa María', Hispanic Research Journal (forthcoming Spring 2003).

3. Sor Isabel de Villena, Vita Christi, Albert-Guillem Hauf i Valls (ed.), Les millors obres de la literatura catalana, 115 (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1995), p.67.

4. Sor Isabel de Villena, Vita Christi, introducció i selecció de Lluïsa Parra (Valencia: Institució Alfons el Magnànim / Institució Valenciana d'Estudis i Investigació, 1986), p.10. Parra does not refer to the Conception of the Virgin Mary as an element of the protagonism of the female sex which she distinguishes throughout the text, however, the transfer of the beginning of redemption to the angelic annunciation to Joachim could also corroborate her argument: 'És de notar també el marcat protagonisme de les dones en general al llarg de tot el llibre, en contrast amb les figures masculines, molt més desdibuixades' (p.10).

5. M. R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955; repr. 1969).

6. Lesley Twomey, 'The Immaculate Conception in Castilian and Catalan Poetry of the Fifteenth Century: A Comparative Thematic Study', unpublished PhD thesis, (University of Hull, 1995).

7. Suzanne Stratton, The Immaculate Conception in Spanish Art (Cambridge: CUP, 1994), pp.20-28.

8. Stratton, The Immaculate Conception, figure 14: Juan de Borgoña, Embrace at the Golden Gate, Sala Capitular, Cathedral of Toledo, p.26.

9. Stratton, The Immaculate Conception, p.22.

10. Stratton, The Immaculate Conception, plate 1: Juan de Borgoña, Embrace at the Golden Gate, chapel of the Conception, Cathedral of Toledo.

11. Sor Isabel de Villena, Vita Christi, ed. by Albert-Guillem Hauf i Valls (Barcelona: Ediciones 62 i La Caixa, 1995), p.74. All references to the Vita Christi are taken from Albert-Guillem Hauf i Vall's 1995 partial edition of the text. Page references will be given immediately after the citation in the text.

12. The embrace at the Golden Gate as a representation of the Immaculate Conception was discouraged after the Council of Trent, being eventually banned by Pope Innocent IX in 1677. Stratton, The Immaculate Conception, p.28.

13. Twomey, 'The Immaculate Conception', p. 361.

14. Antoni Ferrando Francés, Els certàmens poètics valencians (Valencia: Institut de literatura i estudis filològics /Institució Alfons el Magnànim, 1983), p.465.

15. Ferrando Francés, Els certàmens, p.445.

16. De Spiritu Sancto, 3, 79, cited in Hilda Graef, Mary: A History of Doctrine and Devotion (London: Sheed and Ward, 1963-65), p.88, n.5.

17. Edward D. O'Connor, C.S.C., The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception: Its History and Significance (Notre Dame: University of Notre-Dame Press, 1958), p.476, n.39. See also Twomey, The Immaculate Conception', pp.142-153.

18. See Zurbarán's Virgin of the Immaculate Conception with Saint Anne and Saint Joachim, Stratton, The Immaculate Conception, plate 3. Here Tota pulchra es symbols are apparent surrounding the Immaculate Virgin.

19. Jaume Roig, Llibre de les dones o Espill, ed. by Marina Gustà, Les millors obres de la literatura catalana, 3 (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1978).

20. For fuller exploration of the use of pre-creation imagery in Castilian and Catalan poetry, see Twomey, 'The Immaculate Conception', pp.208-60.

21. Vita Christi, p.69.

22. John Duns Scotus, Four Questions on Mary, trans. and ed. by Allan B. Wolter, O.F.M. (St Bonaventure, New York: Franciscan Institute, 2000), p.37. Duns Scotus quotes from Anselm's Cur Deus Homo, III, ii. See note 7, p.55 of Wolter's edition.

23. Duns Scotus, Four Questions on Mary, p.43. Scotus writes: 'God could have at the very first instant infused into this soul grace to such a degree as was given to other souls at the time of circumcision or of baptism;'

24. Lesley Twomey, 'Sor Isabel de Villena, her Vita Christi and an Example of Gendered Writing in the Fifteenth Century', paper presented at the International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, July 1999.

25. Albert G. Hauf, 'Text i context de l'obra de Sor Isabel de Villena', in G. Colón., L. Peñarroja, C. Tarancón, A. Hauf (eds), Literatura valenciana del segle XV, (Valencia: Consell Valencià de Cultura, 1991), 91-124, p.124.

26. Daniel Benito Goerlich, El Real Monasterio de la Santísima Trinidad, Sèrie minor (Valencia: Generalitat Valenciana/ Consell Valencià de Cultura, 1998), p.66.

27. St Ambrose, Exhortatio Virginitatis, 27, cited by Hilda Graef, Mary: A History of Doctrine and Devotion (London: Sheed and Ward, 1963-5), p.88.



Bibliography

 

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---------, 'La Vita Christi de Sor Isabel de Villena y la tradición de las Vitae Christi medievales', Studia in honorem Profesor M. de Riquer, 2 vols. (Barcelona: Quaderns Crema, 1987), II, 105-64..
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James, M. R., The Apocryphal New Testament, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955; repr. 1969).

Mayberry, Nancy, 'The Controversy over the Immaculate Conception in Medieval and Renaissance Art, Literature and Society', Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 21: 2 (1991), 207-24.

O'Connor, Edward D., C.S.C., The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception: Its History and Significance (Notre Dame: University of Notre-Dame Press, 1958).

Riera Estarellas, Antonio, 'La doctrina inmaculista en los orígenes de nuestras lenguas romances', Estudios marianos, 16 (1955) 245-84.

Roig, Jaume, Espill o llibre de les dones, Marina Gustà (ed.), Les millors obres de la literatura catalana, 3 (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1978).

Stratton, Suzanne, The Immaculate Conception in Spanish Art (Cambridge: CUP, 1994).
Tellechea Idígoras, J. Ignacio, La Inmaculada Concepción en la controversia del P. Maldonado S.J. con la Sorbona (Vitoria: Seminario, 1958).

Twomey, Lesley K., 'The Immaculate Conception in Castilian and Catalan Poetry of the Fifteenth Century: A Comparative Thematic Study', unpublished PhD thesis (University of Hull, 1995).

---------, 'Sor Isabel de Villena, her Vita Christi and an Example of Gendered Writing in the Fifteenth Century', paper presented at the International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, July 1999.
--------, 'Una qüistión sobre

Villena, Sor Isabel de, Vita Christi, Albert-Guillem Hauf i Valls (ed.), Les millors obres de la literatura catalana, 115 (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1995).

--------, Vita Christi, introducció i selecció de Lluïsa Parra (Valencia: Institució Alfons el Magnànim / Institució Valenciana d'Estudis i Investigació, 1986).