This is the first essay collection to examine the relation between text and gender in Spain from a broad geographical, social and cultural perspective covering more than 300 years. The contributors examine women and the construction of gender thematically, dealing with the areas of politics, law, religion, sexuality, literature and economics, and in a variety of social categories, from Christians and Moriscas, queens and merchants, peasants and visionaries, heretics and madwomen. The essays cover different regions in the Spanish monarchy, including Andalusia, Aragon, Castile, Catalonia, Valencia and Spanish America, from the fifteenth century through to the eighteenth century. Women, Texts and Authority in the Early Modern Spanish World focuses on two central themes: gender relations in the shaping of family and community life, and women's authority in spheres of power.

Contents: Women in texts: From language to representation, Marta V. Vicente and Luis R. Corteguera; Sclaves molt fortes, senyors invalts: Sex, lies and paternity suits in 15th-century Spain, Debra Blumenthal; The gender of shared sovereignty: texts and the royal marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand, Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt; Writing (for) her life: Judeo-conversas in early modern Spain, Gretchen D. Starr-LeBeau; Representing madness: text , gender and sexuality in early Habsburg Spain, Bethany Aram; Patience and pluck; Job's wife, conflict and resistance in Morisco manuscripts hidden in the 16th century, Mary Elizabeth Perry; The three lives of the Vida: The uses of convent autobiography, Alison Weber; Visualizing gender on the page in convent literature, Sherry M. Velasco; Forms of authority: women's legal representations in mid-colonial Cuzco, Kathryn Burns; The making of a visionary woman: The life of Beatriz Ana Ruiz, 1666-1735, Luis R. Corteguera; textual uncertainties: the written legacy of women entrepreneurs in 18th-century Barcelona, Marta V. Vicente, Index.