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Seroras and Local Religious Life in the Basque Country and Navarre, 1550–1769

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 February 2016

Amanda L. Scott
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Abstract

In the early modern period, Basque women who could not or did not want to follow the traditional paths of monasticism or secular marriage had a third option. They could become seroras, or celibate laywomen licensed by the diocese and entrusted with caring for a shrine or parish church. Seroras enjoyed significant social prestige and their work was competitively remunerated by the local community; yet despite their central place in the local religious life of the early modern Basque Country and Navarre, the seroras have attracted almost no historical study. The purpose of this article is twofold: first, it summarizes the social and spiritual context that allowed for women to experiment with the more unorthodox religious vocations like that of the seroras; and secondly, it draws from extensive primary documentation concerning the seroras in order to outline the main features of the vocation, by extension differentiating them from better-known categories of the semi-religious life such as the beguines, Castilian beatas, or Italian tertiaries.

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Articles
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Church History , Volume 85 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 40 - 64
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Copyright © American Society of Church History 2016 

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References

1 Archivo Diocesano de Pamplona [ADP], Tribunal eclesiástico C/833 N.2, fol. 3r.

2 This term is borrowed from Katherine French's foundational work on lay parish women and their central roles in redefining the local religious culture of late medieval England. See Katherine L. French, The Good Women of the Parish: Gender and Religion after the Black Death (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2007).

3 Pilar Peñaranda García, “Un desconocido grupo social: Las seroras navarras,” in Grupos Sociales en Navarra. Relaciones y Derechos a lo Largo de la Historia. Actas del V Congreso de Historia de Navarra, vol. 1 (Pamplona: Ediciones Eunate, 2002): 297.

4 Rev. Wentworth Webster cites this figure from 1700. Webster, Wentworth, “Seroras, freyras, benoîtes, benedictae parmi les basques,” Revue du Béarn et du Pays Basque 2, no. 4 (1905): 146Google Scholar.

5 Among his many works, see in particular Sorondo, Antxon Aguirre, “Las ermitas de Hernani,” Zainak: Cuadernos de Sección. Antropología-Etnografía 11 (1994): 9–70Google Scholar; Antxon Aguirre Sorondo, “La mujer en la religiosidad popular: Las seroras,” Sukil, Cuadernos de Cultura Tradicional 1 (Iruñea: Ortzadar Euskal Folklore Taldea, 1995): 105–112; and Antxon Aguirre Sorondo and Koldo Lizarralde Elberdin, Ermitas de Gipuzkoa (Antuan, Gipuzkoa: Fundación José Miguel de Barandiarán Fundazioa, 2000). For a similar treatment of the shrines of Navarre, see Fernando Pérez Ollo, Ermitas de Navarra (Pamplona: Caja Ahorros de Navarra, 1983).

6 Mikel Larrañaga Arregi, Serorak Debagoienean (XVI-XVII) (Bergara, Gipuzkoa: Bergarako Udala, 2010) and Zudaire, Claudio, “Seroras del Báztan en el siglo XVII,” Cuadernos de etnología y etnografía de Navarra 10, no. 30 (1978): 435–439Google Scholar. See also, Azpiazu, José Antonio, “Las seroras en Gipuzkoa (1550–1630),” Cuadernos de Sección: Antropología-Etnografía 13 (1995)Google Scholar.

7 Alday, Florencio Arza, “La oficio de la beata in Salvatierra-Agurain (Álava-Arava) en el siglo XVI,” Vasconia 35 (2006): 33–47Google Scholar. See also his “Freilas, seroras, y beatas vascas: Personalidad y caracterización (c.1500–1650)” (PhD diss., Universidad de La Rioja, 2015).

8 In addition to the above see passing references by William A. Christian Jr., Local Religion in Sixteenth-Century Spain (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University, 1981), 107, and Allyson M. Poska, Women and Authority in Early Modern Spain: The Peasants of Galicia (New York: Oxford University, 2005), 236.

9 For a brief outline of the historical position of the serora, see Julia Baldó Alcoz and Amaia Nausia Pimoulier, Navarra: 1212–1512: Ser mujer (siglos XIII-XVI) (Pamplona: Fondo de Publicación del Gobierno de Navarra, 2012), 35–37, as well as Juan Garmendia Larrañaga, Costumbres y ritos funerarios en el País Vasco (Donostia-San Sebastian: Editorial Txertoa, 1991), 7–11.

10 Manuel de Larramendi, Corografía de la muy noble y muy leal Provincia de Guipúzcoa (1756; Bilbao: Editorial del Libro Vasco, 1985); Julio Caro Baroja, Los vascos (Madrid: Ediciones Istmo, 1971); and José Miguel de Barandiarán, Obras Completas (Bilbao: Biblioteca de la Gran Enciclopedia Vasca, 1973).

11 Roslyn Frank, “The Religious Role of the Woman in Basque Culture,” in Anglo-American Contributions to Basque Studies: Essays in Honor of Jon Bilbao, ed. William A. Douglass (Reno: Desert Research Institute Publications on the Social Sciences, 1977), 153–160.

12 Seroras were suppressed as a result of Bourbon reforms that closed many shrines and called for a restructuring of parish benefices in the eighteenth century; however, these reforms mainly applied to the Basque Country and not to Navarre. Nonetheless, many Navarrese parishes chose to replace their seroras with male sacristans. At present, a handful of Navarrese and Basque parishes continue to employ seroras, though nowadays the vocation is very changed from what it was in the sixteenth century. Now, the vocation is more of an honorary title with a cultural heritage function and seroras can be and often are married with families.

13 For studies on women, gender, and society in the early modern Basque Country and Navarre, see Renato Barahona, Sex Crimes, Honour and the Law in Early Modern Spain: Vizcaya, 1528–1735 (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2003); Milagros Álvarez Urcelay, Causando gran escandalo e murmuraçion: Sexualidad transgresiva y su castizo en Gipuzkoa en los siglos XVI, XVII, y XVIII (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2003); Oihane Oliveri Korta, Mujer, casa, y estamento en la Gipuzkoa del siglo XVI (San Sebastian: Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa, 2009); and Amaia Nausia Pimoulier, “Suegros, nueras, y viudas ante los tribunales: la restitución de dotes, siglos XVI y XVII,” in Padres e hijos en España y el mundo hispánico: siglos XVI y XVIII, ed. Jesús María Usunáriz Garayoa and Rocío García Bourrellier (Madrid: Visor, 2008), 245–266.

14 Julio Caro Baroja, “Agriculture and Cattle Raising,” in The Selected Essays of Julio Caro Baroja, ed. Jesús Azcona and trans. Robert Forstag (Reno: University of Nevada, 2011), 207–217.

15 For an excellent study of the social effects of migration on the early modern Basque Country, see Juan Javier Pescador, The New World inside a Basque Village: The Oiartzun Valley and its Atlantic Emigrants, 1550–1800 (Reno: University of Nevada, 2003).

16 José María Imízcoz Beunza, “Comunidad, red social y élites. Un análisis de la vertebración social en el Antiguo Régimen,” in Elites, Poder y Red Social. Las élites del País Vasco y Navarra en la Edad Moderna (Estado de la cuestión y perspectivas), ed. José María Imízcoz Beunza (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 1996), 32.

17 Julio Caro Baroja, De la vida rural vasca, 3rd edition (San Sebastián: Editorial Txertoa, 1974), 23–30.

18 Ana Zabalza Seguin, “Casa e identidad social. La casa en la sociedad campesina: Navarra, 1550–1700,” in Casa, Familia, y Sociedad (País Vasco, España y América, siglos XV-XIX), ed. José María Imízcoz Beunza (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2004), 79–85.

19 For a recent work on the use of Basque in Navarre around even around the more culturally fluid capital city, see José María Jimeno Jurío, Toponimia Navarra. VI. Cuenca de Pamplona. Cendea de Itza (Arre, Navarra: Pamiela, 2015) and on the demographic linguistic expansion of Basque in late-medieval and early modern Navarre, see Monteano, Peio, “La carta bilingüe de Matxín de Zalba (1416). El iceberg lingüístico Navarro,” in Fontes Linguae Vasconum 47, no. 119 (2015): 147–173Google Scholar.

20 On understanding the historical and linguistic roots of Basque culture as tied to preservation of the Basque language, see Julio Caro Baroja, “Historical-Cultural Problems of the Basque Language,” in The Selected Essays of Julio Caro Baroja, 115–130; on the mythic construct of Basque identity, Juan Mandariaga Orbea, Anthology of Apologies and Detractors of the Basque Language (Reno: University of Nevada, 2006), 30–64; and for an articulation of the need to minister to Basque-speakers in their own language, ADP, C/466 N. 25.

21 Pierre de Lancre, On the Inconstancy of Witches, ed. Gerhild Scholz Williams (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2006), 82–88.

22 Julio Caro Baroja, The World of the Witches, translated by O.N.V. Glendinning (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1964), 151–152, 155.

23 Frank, “The Religious Role of the Woman in Basque Culture,” 154.

24 These decrees were issued repeatedly, apparently without much effect. For one of the earlier decrees, see William and Mary Special Collections, Constituciones sinodales del obispado de Pamplona (Pamplona, 1591).

25 For example ADP, C/ 410 N. 11.

26 Herbert Grundmann, Religious Movements in the Middle Ages: The Historical Links between Heresy, the Mendicant Orders, and the Women's Religious Movement in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century, with the Historical Foundations of German Mysticism, trans. Steven Rowan (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 1995), 78, 139.

27 Walter Simons, Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200–1565 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2001), 48.

28 Most beguines worked in the textile industries, treating, preparing, and producing cloth. Ibid., 85.

29 Ibid., 80.

30 Katherine Gill, “Open Monasteries for Women in Late Medieval and Early Modern Italy: Two Roman Examples,” in The Crannied Wall: Women, Religion, and the Arts in Early Modern Europe, ed. Craig A. Monson (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1992), 16–17.

31 Maiju Lehmijoki-Gardner, “Introduction,” in Dominican Penitent Women, ed. Maiju Lehmijoki-Gardner with contributions by Daniel Bornstein and E. Ann Matter and prefaced by Gabriella Zarri (New York: Paulist, 2005), 1–2, 12.

32 Lehmijoki-Gardner, “Introduction,” 10.

33 Katherine Gill writes that the religious life—and especially the penitential movement—is a catchall for many different kinds of lay initiatives. Gill, “Open Monasteries,” 18.

34 Anna Benvenuti Papi, “‘Velut in sepulchro’: cellane e recluse nella tradizione agiografica italiana,” in Culto dei santi, istituzioni e classi sociali in età preindustriale, ed. Sofia Boesch Gajano and Lucia Sebastiani (Rome: Japadre editore, 1984), 367–455.

35 Ann K. Warren, Anchorites and their Patrons in Medieval England (Berkeley: University of California, 1985), 92.

36 Anneke Mulder-Bakker, Lives of the Anchoresses: The Rise of the Urban Recluse in Medieval Europe, trans. Myra Heerspink Scholz (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2005), 12.

37 Warren, Anchorites and their Patrons, 292–293.

38 See some of the excellent essays in Anchoritic Traditions of Medieval Europe, ed. Liz Herbert McAvoy (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2010), and Mario Sensi, “Anchoresses and Penitents in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Umbria,” in Women and Religion in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, ed. Daniel Bornstein and Roberto Rusconi (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1996), 56–83.

39 Alain Saint-Saëns, “A Case of Gendered Rejection: The Hermitess in Golden Age Spain,” in Spanish Women in the Golden Age, ed. Magdalena S. Sánchez and Alain Saint-Saëns (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1996), 55–65.

40 Gregoria Cavero Domínguez, “Anchorites in the Spanish Tradition,” in Anchoritic Traditions of Medieval Europe, 91–92. See also, José Goñi Gaztambide, “La vida eremitita en el reino de Navarra,” Principe de Viana 98–99 (Pamplona, 1965): 77–92.

41 Ann J. Cruz, “The Walled-In Woman in Medieval and Early Modern Spain,” in Gender Matters: Discourses of Violence in Early Modern Arts and Literature, ed. Mara R. Wade (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2014), 349–366. For a more expansive treatment of voluntary reclusion, see Gregoria Cavero Domínguez, Inclusa intra parietes: La reclusión voluntaria en la España medieval (Toulose: Framespa, 2010), ch. 4.

42 On lay female religious fervor and its tolerance after Catholic reform, see Lehfeldt, Elizabeth A., “Discipline, Vocation, and Patronage: Spanish Religious Women in a Tridentine Microclimate,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 30, no. 4 (Winter 1999): 1009–1030CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and for an excellent collection of essays on the intersections of lay and devout female spirituality in late medieval Spain, Blanca Garí, ed. Redes femeninas: de promoción espiritual en los reinos peninsulares (s. XIII-XVI) (Rome: Viella, 2013).

43 For recent work on the Basque beatas and their relationship to monastic communities in the Tridentine period, see forthcoming work by Nere Jone Intxaustegi Jauregi as well as, “Celebraciones en torno a la clausura de los conventos bilbainos en el siglo XVII,” Bidebarrieta 25 (2014): 48–56Google Scholar. See also, Sorondo, Antxon Aguirre, “Diaconisas, beatas, seroras, ermitaños, santeros y sacristanes,” Boletín de estudios históricos sobre San Sebastián 16 (2013): 15–80Google Scholar, and the posthumous reprint of Gaztambide, José Goñi, “Beatas y Dominicas de la enseñanza, en Pamplona,” Principe de Viana 69, no. 245 (2008): 813–831Google Scholar.

44 Ángela Muñoz Fernández, Beatas y Santas Neocastellanas: Ambivalencia de la Religión correctoras del poder (ss. XVI – XVII) (Madrid: Instituto de Investigaciones Feministas de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 1994), 26.

45 Muñoz, Beatas y Santas, 144.

46 Jacqueline Holler, “Escogidas Plantas”: Nuns and Beatas in Mexico City, 1531–1601 (New York: Columbia University, 2005), ch. 2.

47 Muñoz, Beatas y Santas, 6.

48 The beatas and their connections to alumbradismo have been well-studied. For two examples, see Francisco Pons, Místicos, Beatas, y Alumbrados (Valencia: Institució Valenciana d'Estudis i Investigació, 1991), and Francisca de los Apóstoles, The Inquisition of Francisca: A Sixteenth-Century Visionary on Trial, ed. Gillian T. W. Ahlgren (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2005).

49 There is extensive literature on this subject. See among others, Mary E. Giles, “Francisca Hernández and the Sexuality of Religious Dissent,” in Women in the Inquisition: Spain and the New World, ed. Mary E. Giles (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University, 1999), 75–97; Richard L. Kagan, Lucrecia's Dreams: Politics and Prophecy in Sixteenth-Century Spain (Berkeley: University of California, 1990); Bilinkoff, Jodi, “A Spanish Prophetess and her Patrons: The Case of María de Santo Domingo,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 23, no. 1 (Spring 1992): 21–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Adelina Mora Sarrión, Beatas y endemoniadas: mujeres heterodoxas ante la inquisición, siglos XVI a XIX (Madrid: Alianza, 2003).

50 ADP, C/690 N. 16, fol. 72r.

51 Many seroras served side by side with male sacristans; however, it was not until the eighteenth-century Bourbon Reforms that most seroras were fully replaced by male sacristans. See José Luis Sales Tirapu and Isidoro Ursua Irigoyen, Catálogo del archivo diocesano de Pamplona (Pamplona: Gobierno de Navarra, Departamento de Educación y Cultura e Institución Príncipe de Viana, 1988–2010), and the Decreto real de 1769 sobre la extinción de las seroras y ermitas, conserved in many places including the Archivo Histórico Diocesano de San Sebastián [AHDSS], Arrasate, sig. 4870/002–01 and AHDSS, Zumarraga, sig. 3385/037–01.

52 See Larrañaga, Juan Garmendia, “El Señor de Loyola, patrono de la iglesia de San Sebastían de Soreasu y sus filiales. Las seroras (S. XVI),” Boletín del Real Sociedad Bascongada de los Amigos del País 63, no. 2 (2007): 471–481Google Scholar, and Juan Garmendia Larrañaga, Seroras y Sacristanes: Etnografía e Historia (Donostia: Eusko Ikaskutza, 2009), 15.

53 See for example, ADP, C/54 N.16, s/n.

54 For a good analysis of the process of taking possession of a church, see Antxon Aguirre Sorondo, “La mujer en la religiosidad popular: Las seroras,” Sukil, Cuadernos de Cultura Tradicional, vol. 1 (Iruñea: Ortzadar Euskal Folklore Taldea, 1995): 110.

55 Unlike contemporary nuns, seroras were not considered spiritual spouses to God. Though some seroras surreptitiously took lovers and many were widows, the position did not allow them to marry. Juan de Garmendia Larrañaga notes that while it was considered disgraceful for a serora to leave her position in order to marry, she technically could do so. See Garmendia, Seroras y Sacristanes, 5.

56 Archivo General de Gipuzkoa (AGG), PT548, fols. 144r-145v.

57 ADP, C/838 N.27, fols.1r, 2r-3r, 8v-9r, 49r, 55r.

58 A real was worth approximately 34 maravedís in the seventeenth century, though the value of a maravedí was not fixed. There were different kinds of ducats in circulation in Spain, and one silver ducat was worth about 375 maravedís in the early seventeenth century.

59 ADP, C/ 366 N.3 fols. 2r-4r, 50r-v, 59r-v, 73r-74r, 90r-v, 109r.

60 A robo, or arroba, equaled approximately 11.5 kilograms. ADP, C/690 N.16, fol. 35v.

61 Catalina de Jasso and the other seroras employed over the years by the cathedral church at Tudela differ from typical seroras in several ways: for instance, they were under the direct employ of the cathedral and did not answer to any local interests, though they seem to have been integral to the spiritual and everyday functioning of the cathedral and its chapter. The cathedral chapter honored its seroras by interring them in the cloister.

62 Payments to the ministro mayor of the chapter, for example, included a wide selection of agricultural produce including linen, barley, hemp, and onions. Archivos Eclesiásticos de Tudela (AET), Archivo Catedralicio, Estatutos, in particular fol. 46v, as well as fols. 46r-48r.

63 AET, Archivo Catedralicio, Estatutos, fols. 46r-48r.

64 The question of who should control or inherit a serora's property following her death was not certain. Many parishes insisted that a serora's property joined that of the parish fabric upon her entrance to the seroría; to avoid this kind of appropriation, many seroras wrote wills prior to entering the seroría, itemizing gifts to other women in their community and naming younger female relatives their primary heirs. Few seroras wrote wills leaving all their property to the parish or indeed naming priests as their heirs. For good examples of seroras’ testaments, see Archivo Foral de Bizkaia, Not. Cristóbal de Amezqueta, N19/496, fols. 701v-704v; Archivo Histórico Provincial de Bizkaia, Not. Gaspar Echaburu, sig. 24, fols. 233r-235r; AHDSS, Legazpi – Parroquia de Asunción de Nuestra Señora, sig. 2543/024–01, s/n; Archivo Histórico de Protocolos de Gipuzkoa, sig.1/2628, fols. 20r-21r; and Archivo Histórico Provincial de Álava [AHPA], Esc. Juan de Urrutia (1561), prot. 3073, fols. 14v-16r. For a recent local study of a single community and their patterns of will writing which includes some information relevant to seroras and their testaments, see Denis Álvarez Pérez-Sostoa and Iñali Garrido Yerobi, In Dei Nomine: La Hondarribia del Siglo XVI através de sus Testamentos (Hodarribia: Hondarribiko Udala, 2014).

65 It is unclear where María de Villanueva acquired so much wealth, though gifts and a former dowry may explain it in part, since most of her wealth consisted of household goods. Doña Ana de Alzate, on the other hand, was a widow and had inherited considerable property from her late noble husband. Archivo General de Navarra [AGN], sig. 257611, fols. 1r, 7r -8r, and ADP, C/183 N.1.

66 AGN, 091023, fol. 1r.

67 For information on Navarrese participation at the Council of Trent and on the implementation of the Tridentine reforms in Navarre, see José Goñi Gaztambide, Los navarros en el Concilio de Trento y la reforma tridentina en la diócesis de Pamplona (Pamplona: Imprenta Diocesana, 1947).

68 See José Goñi Gaztambide, Historia de los Obispos de Pamplona, vols. 4–5 (Pamplona: Gobierno de Navarra, 1985–1987).

69 Constituciones sinodales del Obispado de Pamplona, fol. 93v.

70 Archivo Histórico Eclesiástico de Bizkaia [AHEB], Constituciones Synodales Antiguos y Modernas del Obispado de Calahorra y La Calzada (Madrid: Antonio Gonzalez de Reyes, 1700), 497.

71 In 1626, the bishop's fiscal cited Libro 4, Capitulo 6, fol. 93, an error for Constituciones sinodales del Obispado de Pamplona, Libro 4, Capitulo 5, fol. 93r. See also ADP, C/690 N.16, fol. 1r.

72 ADP, C/690 N.16 and also the article by Zudaire, Claudio, “Seroras del Báztan en el siglo XVII,” Cuadernos de etnología y etnografía de Navarra 10, no. 28 (1978): 435–439Google Scholar. For a more general overview of society in Baztan, see Pedro Esarte Muniain, Como vivían los baztaneses en el siglo XVI (Baztan: Baztan Udala, 2006).

73 This occurred during the spring of 1626. “De la lizenciada y titulos que tienen y no las mostrando o pareziendo a ser examinados y a pedir y sacar las con ynformacion della vida hedad y costumbres como lo dispone la dicha sinodal visuales del habito y exerzizio y prohibir y mandar a los dichos rectores y curas que no las admitan ni cosientan en el dicho oficio de seroras y pide justicia.” ADP, C/690 N.16, fol. 1v.

74 ADP, C/690 N.16, fol. 41r.

75 “ . . . cinco años y mas de ttiempo con mucha puntualidad y cuydado según el ministerio de su officio le obliga y que asi mismo es muger buena vida recogimiento y costumbres.” ADP, C/690 N. 16, fol. 109r.

76 ADP, C/690 N. 16, fol. 10r.

77 “ . . . en todo el dicho tiempo a tenido el dicho abito de serora que la tomo por su debocio y a serbido con mucho recoximeinto y decencia debida la yglessia.” ADP, C/690 N. 16, fol. 10r.

78 “ . . . muger honrrada y muy recoxida birtuossa y honesta aparte de rruydos y ottro qualquier escandalo. Y en esta fama opinion y reputación.” ADP, C/690 N. 16, fol. 41r.

79 For more information on the seroras’ work, see Garmendia, Seroras y Sacristanes, 11.

80 “ . . . a mas de beynte cassas y en una de ellas vibe como en desierto sino como vecina y sus ocupaciones y obligación.” ADP, C/690 N. 16, fol. 72r.

81 ADP, C/690 N. 16, fol. 37r.

82 ADP, C/690 N. 16, fol. 35v.

83 A good example of the trust that some female parishioners put in their seroras can be found in the rather unlikely place of a seventeenth-century witchcraft deposition, in which a serora accused of being a witch was believed to have made use of this trust to lure women to an akelarre. AGN, Codices, L.3, fols. 61r- 65r.

84 Elorza, Eva, “Expresiones seculares de religiosidad en rituales: La rodadura de niños sobre el altar,” Zainak: Cuadernos de Antropología-Etnografía 26 (2004): 653–668Google Scholar; Angel Cruz Jaka Legoruru, La Antigua: Santa María de Zumarraga, Catedral de las ermitas (Donostia: Kutxa Fundación, 1996), 144–190; Garmendia, Costumbres y ritos funerarios en el País Vasco; and Caro Baroja, De la vida rural vasca, 275–276.

85 Archives Departementales des Pyrénées Atlantiques, Registres de la Diocèse de Bayonne, G58, and AET, Archivo Catedralicio, Estatutos, fols. 46r-48r.

86 Hospitaller-seroras appeared all across the Basque provinces. See among the many examples, AHEB, Mendexa—San Pedro Ad Vincula, sig. F006.246 2647/004, fols. 24r, 42v, 45r, 55r, 137v; ADP, C/244 N.24; Archivo Diocesano de Calahorra, sig. 27/490/27; and AHPA, prot. 11512, fols. 12r-13v.

87 “Las cargas, obligaciones, que tiene sobre si la dicha serora son las seguientes: Cuidar de las llaves de las puertas principales de la Parroquia, de abrirlas temprano, por o comun a la 5 de la mañana, cerrarlas . . . anoche; llamar con la campana a las mañanas al Ave Maria, al medio dia y al anochecer, encender lamparas temprano al abrir al puerta, y debia si se apagan, y de noches al cerrer las puertas; traher agua temprano para Missas . . . todos los dias, encender y apagar luces todas las veces, que se ponen en las sepulturas en Missas cantadas.” AHDSS, sig. 2352/008–01.

88 “ . . . llamar con las dos campanas cada vez que la dela Hermita de Santa Barbara llama a nubada hasta que pase toda la tempestad.” AHDSS, sig. 2352/008–01.

89 “ . . . y respecto de que en vista de la dicha Magdalena de Estanga a sido robada la dicha hermita dibersas vezes por estar en despoblado an acordado los dichos padronos por obrar en adelante los dicho robos para que mejor se conserbe y baya en aumento dicha hermita de nombrarle por hermitaño della al dicho Joan Perez de Legarra por ser como es hombre de buena vida y costumbres temerosso de dios y de su consciencia apartado de ruidos, ygendencias y que a frequentado y frequenta los santos sacramentos con mucha puntualidad y save la dotrina cristiana.” ADP, C/985 N.11, fol. 1r.

90 Juan provided a dowry of 34 ducats. “ . . . para que en su virtud pueda gozar por todos los dias de su vida, llevando y gozando las rentas y provechos, que le pertenecen, como a tal Hermitaño en la forma, y manera que alas seroras de dicha Hermita cada una en su tiempo ha gozado, y llevado sin quitar, ni diminuir en cosa ninguna.” ADP, C/985 N.11, fols. 3r-3v.