Review of Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450-1750, by J. Bilinkoff

Review of Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450-1750, by J. Bilinkof

Convents as Litigants: Dowry and Inheritance Disputes in Early-Modern Spain

This article examines the contentious and frequently litigious relationship between convents and the families of professed nuns in early-modern Spain. From the:mid-sixteenth century forward Spanish convents entered into oftentimes protracted lawsuits over disputes involving these nuns\u27 dowry payments, yearly maintenance allowances, and inheritance rights subsequent to their profession. Because the parties to these disputes were willing to risk long-standing and mutually beneficial relationships to defend their social and financial interests in court, these clashes are significant for what: they reveal about the complex social matrix involving nuns, their families, and convents. Nuns demonstrated a profound sense of connection to family property. Despite the physical and spiritual barriers of the cloister, nuns used their dowries and other property interests to exercise fiscal influence and autonomy. Convents, on behalf of these nuns, asserted a temporal identity by filing lawsuits in the secular courts of the day. Finally, families worked vigorously to protect the integrity of their patrimonies even though this protection frequently conflicted with their support for female monasticism. As such these disputes illuminate a complicated social world in which the lives and interests of professed religious women continued to intersect with the calculations and preoccupations of their families

Review of A Wild Country Out in the Garden: The Spiritual Journals of a Colonial Mexican Nun, edited and translated by K.A. Myers and A. Powell, and Persephone\u27s Girdle: Narratives of Rape in Seventeenth-Century Spanish Literature, by M.L. Welles

Review of A Wild Country Out in the Garden: The Spiritual Journals of a Colonial Mexican Nun, edited and translated by K.A. Myers and A. Powell, and Persephone\u27s Girdle: Narratives of Rape in Seventeenth-Century Spanish Literature, by M.L. Welle

The Effects of Common Stressors on Poultry Production: A Case Study in Northern Mozambique

Chicken is one of the main proteins that feeds the world. For centuries, the human race has relied on chickens to eat. Therefore, as food science becomes more relevant, the way that chickens are raised has become a science. However, this is not true in every part of the world. In Mozambique the process for raising chickens for consumption is not the same as it would be in America. This is a study of two specific “stressors” (feed and temperature) and how they impacted chicken growth and development on a live production poultry farm in Northern Mozambique. In addition, it analyzes the processes of production and explores possible opportunities for improvement

Review of Feminizing the Enemy: Imperial Spain, Transvestite Drama, and the Crisis of Masculinity, by S. Donnell

Review of Feminizing the Enemy: Imperial Spain, Transvestite Drama, and the Crisis of Masculinity, by S. Donnel

Review of the Rule of Women in Early Modern Europe, edited by A.J. Cruz and M. Suzuki

Review of the Rule of Women in Early Modern Europe, edited by A.J. Cruz and M. Suzuk

Ideal Men: Masculinity and Decline in Seventeenth-Century Spain

This article examines how the experience and critique of their country decline led Spaniards to craft a distinct discourse of masculinity in the seventeenth century. As they self-consciously examined Spain crisis and offered political and economic solutions, these same writers also offered a scathing critique of standards of masculinity. Using the figure of the ideal nobleman as a case study, the article examines how moralists, arbitristas, and hagiographers constructed a dynamic code of manhood linked to questions of productivity, male chastity, and military performance. Further, it argues that this discourse was ultimately nostalgic and failed to adapt itself to the circumstances of the seventeenth century

Ideal Men: Masculinity and Decline in Seventeenth-Century Spain

This article examines how the experience and critique of their country decline led Spaniards to craft a distinct discourse of masculinity in the seventeenth century. As they self-consciously examined Spain crisis and offered political and economic solutions, these same writers also offered a scathing critique of standards of masculinity. Using the figure of the ideal nobleman as a case study, the article examines how moralists, arbitristas, and hagiographers constructed a dynamic code of manhood linked to questions of productivity, male chastity, and military performance. Further, it argues that this discourse was ultimately nostalgic and failed to adapt itself to the circumstances of the seventeenth century