The sword and the veil : an annotated translation of the autobiography of Doña Catalina de Erauso
Date
2001
Authors
Pedrick, Daniel Harvey
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Catalina de Erauso was one of the few women of Counter-Reformation Spain to effectively escape the enclosing and confining strictures imposed on women by the Church and the Crown. Her purported autobiographies, first published in 1625, enjoyed wide popularity and elevated her to the status of national hero. Erauso's relationships with other women, frankly recounted in the autobiographies and mentioned in other contemporary sources, were regarded by most of her male contemporaries as part of an elaborate masquerade feigned in order to achieve the socially acceptable goal of defending the interests of the Spanish Empire as a soldier. This essay, which includes an annotated translation of a version of the autobiography from the original Spanish, takes the position that the popular success of the highly embellished accounts of Erauso's escapades was abetted by the phallocentric view of sexuality commonly held by church authorities and male-dominated society in Counter-Reformation Spain, a view which precluded recognizing, much less understanding, female homosexuality. This attitude blinded most observers to the more probable nature of the brash Erauso, whose own words and deeds, when considered from a modem perspective, suggest that she was most likely homosexual. The style in which she presented herself, in the pages of her books as well as in real life, amounted to a successful survival strategy that won her the approbation of the most influential and powerful men of her time.