ABSTRACT
This article deals with the paths of a number of women who achieved a certain social distinction in seventeenth and eighteenth-century Portugal, despite the fact that they belonged to lower strata with respect to gender or social origins. The analysis is based on Inquisition proceedings related to the crimes of molinosism and simulation of ecstasies, visions and revelations; on written memories of religious communities; and on treatises about moral themes and saintly lives. The tactics and competences that enabled these women to reach such positions are not related to lineage, to the kingdom’s administration or to prestigious economic activities, but to religious performance. Notwithstanding the particular characteristics of the cases examined here, there are homologies between the conceptions used to describe and validate them and the ones that refer to more institutionalized processes in the domains of law and government.
Keywords:
woman; social mobility; religious practices in modern Portugal