LAUSR

M ystical traditions are not apolitical. In this context, I understandmedieval politics in a broad sense, encompassing policies of the church (secular and regular) and the monarchy (government and court) that did not always align. I will refer to mysticism as a personal religious experience in which the subject seeks to encounter God and to unite with the divinity whether or not that end is achieved. There are many possible ways of addressing the connection between politics and mysticism using examples frommy main geographic area of expertise, the Iberian Peninsula, which—borrowing from Sharon Kinoshita—is where I put the foot of my compass while studying the Mediterranean. In this brief piece, I will argue not only that medieval and early modern mystical traditions are political but that those politics were gendered. Medieval virtue was as performative and as constructed as gender, and it was based on a “stylized repetition” of virtuous acts; therefore, for women to be recognized as having attained distinction in devotion and mysticism, they needed to comply with, resist, or fight against the particular roles assigned to them (sometimes all at once).1 Similarly, because men were considered generically more virtuous, womenwere supposed to becomemanlier to bemore virtuous.2 It is no coincidence that the etymological root of virtue, the Latin virtus, is vir, or man; therefore virtue signified “manliness,” or “courage.” For the sake of brevity, I will look at one example, that of Teresa Enríquez (1450–1529), known as the Madwoman of the Host (La Loca del Sacramento)—the nickname given to her by Pope Julius II. Her other popular nicknames were the Drunkard of Celestial Wine (La Embriagada del Vino Celestial) and God’s Fool (La Boba de Dios).3 I will examine how she acted and was perceived during her lifetime and howher figurewasmodified in a series of texts penned bymale authors shortly after her death and into the twentieth century. All the authors tailored her biography to suit their own objectives and presented her experiences and those of her grandmother—both of whomwere connected to the Trastámaras, the royal dynasty ruling the Crowns of Aragon and Castile—in a more mystical light. I will contend that those texts portrayed Teresa as a model for upper-class women (particularly widows) to emulate but that these portrayals obscure and diminish the agency she had in life. These writers’ aimwas to convince women that the theological virtue of