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Lucrecia's Dreams: Politics and Prophecy in Sixteenth-Century Spain. By RICHARD L. KAGAN. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. ix + 229 pp. $24.95.
Sixteenth-century Spain was the stage for a considerable struggle with the issue of discernment of spirits in religious women. By the end of the century, the same visionary experiences that had previously given women access to public modes of discourse were singling them out for scrutiny and censure. Richard Kagan's study of the inquisitional trial of Lucrecia de Leon is extremely valuable in this respect, because Lucrecia's trial in the 1590s shows the extent of the disintegration of the visionary model which had proven so fruitful for women throughout the Middle Ages. Lucrecia's Dreams examines the content and context of nocturnal visions based on the only source available to us: the trial records of the Spanish Inquisition. Kagan is to be commended for his detailed examination of this...