The Basque Seroras

The Basque Seroras explores the intersections between local community, women's work, and religious reform in early modern northern Spain. Amanda L. Scott provides a wonderful depiction of these uncloistered religious women, who took no vows and were free to leave the religious life if they chose. Their vocation afforded them considerably more autonomy and, in some ways, liberty, than nuns or wives.

Scott's archival work recovers the surprising ubiquity of seroras, with every Basque parish church employing at least one, if not several. Their central position in local religious life allows Scott to revise how we think about the social and religious limitations placed on women during the early modern period. By situating the seroras within the social dynamics and devotional life of local communities, The Basque Seroras broadens the way we conceive of female religious life and the opportunities it could provide. It also amends our understanding of reform at the local level.

Scott contends that even though the Counter-Reformation program of centralization and standardization is often characterized as an immediate--and repressive--success, the seroras demonstrate the variability of local enforcement and the ways in which parishes could successfully press for leniency or reach compromises with authorities. These devout laywomen, straddling the secular and religious spheres, were instrumental in this process of negotiated reform.