Abstract
The term alumbrados was applied by the Inquisition or Holy Office in Spain to denote a group of devout people who developed a new form of devotional practice in the province of Guadalajara, to the west of Madrid, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The name alumbrado comes from the verb alumbrar, to light up. The implication is that those who consider themselves alumbrado are lit up from within by their sense of spiritual intimacy with God. It was first invoked in an Edict of Faith proclaimed in Toledo on 23 September 1525 in response to the identification by the Holy Office of heresy among the Guadalajara worshippers, though they themselves would neither have used nor recognized the term alumbrado. The Edict of Faith listed the heretical practices associated with the so-called alumbrados and called for evidence and denunciations. The word, and the related term alumbradismo, would subsequently be used for almost two centuries within Roman Catholicism in Spain to describe groups of people suspected of engaging in a wide variety of heretical activities. Most of these had very little in common with the Guadalajara movement which can, with justification, be considered to be part of the gathering momentum towards reformation of Roman Catholic practices that crystallized in the one-time Augustinian, Martin Luther’s public declaration of his 95 Theses in 1517.
References
Gutiérrez, GarcÃa, and José MarÃa. 1999. La herejÃa de los alumbrados: historia y filosofÃa, de Castilla a Extremadura. Madrid: Mileto.
Haliczer, Stephen. 2002. Between exaltation and infamy: Female mystics in the Golden Age of Spain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hamilton, Alistair. 1992. Heresy and mysticism in sixteenth-century Spain: The alumbrados. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Hamilton, Alistair. 2010. The alumbrados: Dejamiento and its practitioners. In A new companion to Hispanic mysticism, ed. Hilaire Kallendorf, 103–126. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Keitt, Andrew W. 2005. Imagining the sacred: Imposture, inquisition and the boundaries of the sacred in Golden Age Spain. Leiden: Brill.
Márquez, Antonio. 1980. Los alumbrados: OrÃgenes y filosofÃa: 1525–1559. Madrid: Taurus.
Pastore, Stefania. 2004. Un’eresia spagnola: Spiritualità conversa, alumbradismo e Inquisizione (1449–1559). Florence: Leo S. Olschki.
Pastore, Stefania. 2010. Una herejÃa española: conversos, alumbrados e Inquisición (1449–1559). Madrid: Marcial Pons.
Santonja, Pedro. 2000. Las doctrinas de los alumbrados españoles y sus posibles fuentes medievales. Dicenda, Cuadernos de FilologÃa Española 18: 353–392.
Weber, Alison. 2000. Demonising Ecstacy: Alonso de la Fuente and the Alumbrados of Extremadura. In The mystical gesture: Essays on medieval and early modern spiritual culture in honor of Mary E Giles, ed. Robert Boening, 141–158. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Andrews, J. (2020). Alumbrados. In: Sgarbi, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_454-2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_454-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-02848-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-02848-4
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities
Publish with us
Chapter history
-
Latest
Alumbrados- Published:
- 18 October 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_454-2
-
Original
Alumbrados- Published:
- 12 May 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_454-1