New Books In European Studies

Amanda L. Scott’s book, The Basque Seroras: Local Religion, Gender, and Power in Northern Iberia, 1550-1800 (Cornell University Press, 2020), focuses on the Basque seroras, a category of uncloistered religious women that were employed by parishes to perform a wide variety of functions. Somewhat like other religious laywomen like Belgian beguines, Italian tertiaries, or Castilian beatas, they occupied an intermediate zone of honorable possibility for women between marriage and the convent. Unlike women in those other categories, however, the serora enjoyed financial security and respectability in her community in part because of her protection by local communities and church authorities. By situating the seroras within these social dynamics, The Basque Seroras broadens the way we conceive of female religious life and the opportunities it could provide. It also crucially revises our understanding of reform and consumption of legal resources at the local level. Following the Council of Trent, uncloistered religi