Brides of Christ: Conventual Life in Colonial Mexico

Brides of Christ invites the modern reader to follow the histories of colonial Mexican nuns inside the cloisters where they pursued a religious vocation or sought shelter from the world.

Lavrin provides a complete overview of conventual life, including the early signs of vocation, the decision to enter a convent, profession, spiritual guidelines and devotional practices, governance, ceremonials, relations with male authorities and confessors, living arrangements, servants, sickness, and death rituals.

Individual chapters deal with issues such as sexuality and the challenges to chastity in the cloisters and the little-known subject of the nuns' own writings as expressions of their spirituality.

The foundation of convents for indigenous women receives special attention because such religious communities existed nowhere else in the Spanish empire.

Author: Asunción Lavrin
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 05/13/2008
Pages: 528
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.81lbs
Size: 8.94h x 6.58w x 1.31d
ISBN: 9780804752831

Review Citation(s):
Chronicle of Higher Education 07/04/2008 pg. 17
Reference and Research Bk News 11/01/2008 pg. 24

About the Author
Asunción Lavrin is the author of several books and numerous articles and book chapters on colonial and twentieth-century Latin American women. Her work has received a number of national awards. She is currently Professor of History at Arizona State University.