The author tells us that historians who have written about sixteenth-century Spanish religion have generally based their accounts on the works of great men of the church: clerics, bishops, and important spiritual figures. This type of study leads to an understanding of prescribed religion, but tells us little about religion as practiced by the large majority of the populace. It is the latter, what Christian calls “local religion,” that is of central concern in this study.
The author approaches this lay religion by analyzing the responses to a royal questionnaire sent out to the villages and towns of New Castile between 1575 and 1580. The respondents were ordinary villagers who, through natural intelligence or curiosity, were considered to know more than others about the traditions of their towns. Certain of the questions inquired about religious customs and it is these that Christian has analyzed. Villagers are thus able to speak to us about matters of greatest moment in their lives: how they contracted with saints to shield them in times of crisis, the miracles these saints performed, and how villagers honored their divine protectors with vows, shrines, and feast days. It is a scholarly and engrossing account that tries to provide insight into the thinking of ordinary people of the sixteenth century.
