“The Greatest Woman in History since the Mother of God”: Global Catholic Community in Contemporary Efforts to Canonize Isabel of Castile
Date
2016
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Producer
Director
Performer
Choreographer
Costume Designer
Music
Videographer
Lighting Designer
Set Designer
Crew Member
Funder
Rehearsal Director
Concert Coordinator
Advisor
Moderator
Panelist
Alternative Title
Department
Haverford College. Department of Religion
Type
Thesis
Original Format
Running Time
File Format
Place of Publication
Date Span
Copyright Date
Award
Language
eng
Note
Table of Contents
Terms of Use
Rights Holder
Access Restrictions
Open Access
Terms of Use
Tripod URL
Identifier
Abstract
This paper emerges from a lacuna in the historiography of Isabel of Castile. Numerous studies explore the rituals, art works, and language employed by Isabel’s medieval supporters, by the Queen’s imperial grandson, by nineteenth century historians, and by Franco’s regime in midnineteenth- century Spain, with the aim of elevating Isabel to mythic status. Isabel’s pending saintly status, however, has received far less scholarly attention. Exploring a contemporary website (c. 2010) and magazine (1996-2010) dedicated to the cause of Isabel’s canonization, media I refer to collectively as Isabel, I seek to shed light on recent appropriations of the multivalent figure of Isabel. I argue that Isabel’s historic relationship to gendered discourses of bodily integrity versus bodily corruption; her reputation as a crusader and converter in the Reconquista of Iberia; and her signification as unifier of Spain and mother of the Americas are valences Isabel recycles at the service of its vision of ‘global Christendom.’ Isabel of Castile’s body becomes a metonym for one, indivisible Catholic Church and one, indivisible transnational family of humanity. Yet Isabel’s effort to produce an all-encompassing Catholicization of the world most prominently serves to demonstrate the factions within the Catholic Church and the impossibility of such a project of world unification. In this way, the call for canonization does not concern the connections between heaven and earth, alone, but also calls into question the politics of the material world.