Casuistry and Early Modern Spanish Literature

Our project explores the interrelation between casuistry and narrative literature in Spain. Casuistry proper, the practice of applying dictums of the church authorities to judge the severity of sins during confession, originated in the medieval penitential books. The reach of casuistry in early modern Spain expands dramatically, from the strict sense of resolving penitents cases of conscience to broader political, economic, legal and scientific issues. Casuists became prominent educators, economists and political advisers, and their methods were adopted in other fields. Yet, perhaps owing to its image as a sophistical justification of suspect behavior and political expediencya perception promoted by the Jansenist Pascals famous denunciation of Jesuit laxism in his Lettres provenciales (1657), Spanish casuistry has been understudied. Building on recent attention to casuistry and theatre, we intend to address a serious gap in the scholarship. As a mode of inquiry that tests precepts amidst the vagaries of circumstance, the rise of casuistry coincides with crucial developments in moral philosophy. Of particular interest to our project is the legacy of Scholasticism in Spain, and how the (mostly) Jesuit casuists combined scholastic method with humanist rhetoric and civic concerns in accordance with their educational and political orientation. Alongside the scholastic roots, we consider the relationship of casuistry to medieval jurisprudential thought, as well as to the narrative tradition of exemplarity. During a period of global exploration, religious strife, economic transformation and social and political upheaval, the casuists became increasing sophisticated in gauging the complexities of circumstance, and their methods became instrumental in making sense of a confounding world. Part of our project involves examining the casuistic structure of early modern literary works, the presenting of a case and its circumstances, motives, etc. We also bring out the overlooked language of casuistry operative in many narratives. Finally, we trace actual source material to the rich compendium of cases in the confessors manuales and summae, which contain accounts of all manner of crimes, transgressions and dilemmas. The result will be not only a renewed appreciation of the centrality of casuistry in early modern Spanish culture; it will yield an original perspective on the rise of the novel itself.

This project explores the relationship between early modern casuistry and fiction. The analysis of the fascinating rapport between law and literature fosters a better understanding of how (pre)modern subjectivity has been fashioned and how everyday ethics were being conveyed to an ever more diverse society. Casuistry as a practice of applying dictums of the church authorities to judge the severity of sins during confession originated in the medieval penitential books. The reach of casuistry in early modern Spain expands dramatically, from the strict sense of resolving penitents' "cases of conscience" to broader political, economic, legal and scientific issues. Casuists became prominent educators, economists and political advisers, and their methods were adopted in other fields. Yet, perhaps owing to its image as a sophistical justification of suspect behavior and political expediency-a perception promoted by Blaise Pascal's famous denunciation of Jesuit "laxism" in his Lettres provenciales (1657)-, Spanish casuistry has been understudied. Building on recent attention to casuistry and theatre, this project addressed a serious gap in the scholarship. In order to fill this research gap, this project examined the "balancing" of casuistry in different narrative genres of the Peninsula. We deemed casuistry as a mindset that captures and at the same time informs various modes of communication. However, by no means did we assume a unilateral way of influence but also focused on the effect of narrative inventions on the ponderings of early modern jurists and theologists. Traces of a mutual impact could be found in the marital negotiations of the early modern novella after the Council of Trent or in autobiographical writings such as the Vida of Teresa de Avila. This reappraisal of casuistry in early modern Spanish culture offers a reconstruction of the embeddedness of literature in its social and political circumstances. On the one hand, our rejection of prejudices regarding casuistry as a sophistical justification of suspect behavior uncovers the casuists' innovative approaches in facing new problems as could be shown in Tomas Mercado's debates of oversea trade and slavery. On the other hand, our findings help to conceive of literature as a social act, thereby making graspable how the grammar of interiority developed in the storytelling praxis of Christian confession forms a continuity with the interest in and the creation of fictional narrations. Both aspects reflect radical changes in early modern society, which presently gain a new momentum: globalization and a media revolution. Hence, the awareness for the importance of playful day-to-day fictionalizations in coping with all sorts of changes and challenges highlights the significance of literature in the shaping of the modern self. Thus, our project bridges the gap between literary studies, historical research and social science.