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This introductory chapter provides an overview of a serora, or a devout laywoman entrusted with caring for a parish church or shrine in the early modern Basque Country and Navarre. As common as seroras were in early modern northern Iberia, their prominence and geographic reach was limited to monolingual Basque-speaking lands and their bilingual neighboring areas. They of course shared many things in common with other devout and semireligious women active in the late medieval and early modern periods; however, the seroras represent a powerful variation that accorded Basque women far more social prominence, economic independence, and religious status and responsibility than any of their counterparts. The vocation was always reserved solely for women and was considered functionally separate from any role the lower male clergy might assume. In this capacity, the seroras may be one of the earliest examples of a specifically female livelihood with a salary that did not imitate or replicate male labor and that took place outside the home. Seroras complemented, and certainly facilitated, male religious work, but the two operated in tandem and were not considered interchangeable. In this light, the seroras push one to reconsider assumptions that early modern Catholic reform was categorically repressive and restrictive for women.

This chapter discusses the lay female religious life in the early modern world. Simultaneously ignored, sanctified, suspected of heresy, lauded, and targeted for reform, devout laywomen presented both obstacles and inspiration in the milieu of early modern European religious life. The seroría provided Basque women with a sanctioned and respectable channel, while allowing them freedom of movement and a degree of economic autonomy that was unmatched by other forms of lay religiosity elsewhere in Europe during the late medieval and early modern periods. Yet while the seroría was unique to the Basque lands, it reflected common female impulses to seek spiritual fulfillment at home and in the familiar spheres of their parish communities. These impulses swelled and then tapered off periodically from antiquity through the medieval and early modern periods, yet they were a consistent part of lived Christian experience that mirrored and responded to wider social, economic, and religious movements of the times. The seroras can be understood only within the context of lay and quasi-religious female devotion—in its many permutations—and placing them within this context also helps broaden the definition and parameters of medieval and early modern female religious life.

This chapter examines the duties and obligations of the seroras. Seroras expressed piety through practice and action, which were both utilitarian and highly performative. Their practical role, coupled with the formality that went into their selection and installation, places seroras in a category unlike any other iteration of lay devout female service. There were many factors that led women to the semireligious life and seroría. At the most basic level, however, the vocation remained viable and popular for so long because it responded equally to practical needs of the parish community and the parish fabric, or material infrastructure. Even if it was not always fully condoned by diocesan officials, it was mostly considered a benign outlet for female piety. Different localities had slightly different methods for selecting seroras, and responsibilities and rituals of installation varied according to geographic circumstances or patterns of local power and influence. On the whole, however, the institution was remarkably consistent across the Basque lands. Regardless of where they served, most seroras could expect to perform a fairly standard set of duties and to be remunerated in similar ways by the communities they served.

This chapter provides a brief synopsis of the presence of Navarrese delegates at the Council of Trent, then moves on to an overview of the Diocese of Pamplona's most important Tridentine era synod meeting and a representative sampling of reform episodes as they played out on the ground. To understand the inconsistencies in enforcement concerning the seroras, reforms concerning the seroras must be left in their original context. Mirroring the diocese's attention to clerical misbehavior, the chapter thus approaches reform of the seroras through the lens of male reform, and especially pastoral residency. The diocese's concentration on professionalizing the lower clergy and directing lay devotion into appropriate channels reveals much about the diocese's unstated policy against interfering with the seroras: that is, the diocese identified reforming the lower clergy as the key to a successful reform program, and everything else was secondary. Other aspects of local religious life that did not mesh with official Tridentine reform ideals were allowed to slide to make way for more urgent reforms. In this context, the diocese judged that licensing the seroras was the easiest way to control the vocation, allowing ecclesiastical authorities to turn their eye to more pressing matters such as wandering abbots, violent hermits, and “repulsive” parish priests.

This chapter explores the kinds of material and emotional expression that shaped Basque notarial documents, drawing from testaments made by seroras as well as testaments that left goods or pious donations to seroras. It also assesses the reasons seroras did or did not write testaments and the kinds of relationships and networks that were forged through pious bequests among seroras and their communities. To a large extent, testaments followed set patterns and addressed similar issues across testators. Nonetheless, there was considerable room for flexibility and creativity. Ultimately, each testament was an abbreviated and compressed statement about what the testator had valued, the friendships she had cultivated, and an attempt to extend and preserve beyond death the social and economic networks she had built during life.

This chapter identifies the challenges to the seroras' existence. When communities vied to define or limit their responsibilities and curb the seroras' influence, they often framed their complaints in gendered terms, expressing uneasiness with a vocation that tested the limits of power afforded to women. The simplest of these attacks expressed basic fears about allowing women such a degree of autonomy, while the more complex ones mixed fantasy with reality, drawing liberally from what actually went on in the seroría as well as what was only rumored. The chapter then studies three of the most common types of gendered fears surrounding the seroría, one of which is witchcraft. The flexibility and freedom of the seroría raised questions regarding what women were doing in the seroría, as well as the suspicion that they could be using the seroría for nefarious sexual purposes.

This chapter reflects on the conflicts between seroras and their communities. Seroras, like their male colleagues, were parts of their communities through and through, and often little separated emotionally, physically, or economically from the people they served. Proximity easily gave birth to tension and conflict, and as members of their communities, seroras and priests often responded passionately and intensely. These visible contraventions to a reformed, peaceful, and professional clergy drew the attention of the bishop; consequently, criminal cases handled by the Diocese of Pamplona are skewed toward breaches of both legal obligation and social expectations, including episodes of violence. How parishioners reported, reacted to, and participated in conflict with their seroras underscores the ease with which the ideals of reform were consumed and deployed by local communities and for local purposes. Seroras occupied a central place within local religious life; yet the vocation was not static, nor was it immune to challenge. In the postreform years, conflict involving seroras and their communities provided a crucial opportunity for localities to engage with the practical aspects of implementing religious reform, mold it according to their own preferences, or reject it altogether.

This chapter discusses the fundamental transformation of the role of the seroras in the eighteenth century. Whereas the seroras survived Tridentine reform relatively unscathed, they were not so fortunate under the later Bourbon reforms. Fiscally pragmatic rather than directly confessional, the Bourbon reforms led to a drastic reorganization of local religious life. Some initiatives championed under the Bourbon reforms were well underway through regional reorganization and local initiative well before they were issued by official proclamation. In these cases, the Bourbon reforms merely expedited the inevitable. Aimed to achieve essential cost-saving measures across the empire, the Bourbon reforms as they played out through the Consejo de Castilla consolidated church lands, redrafted parish benefice plans, and decreased numbers of lower-order clergy and church functionaries. All these measures affected the seroras, and although localities and Basque church officials jointly championed their seroras, the Bourbon reforms ultimately signaled an end to the vocation. Eventually, the seroras were replaced by sacristans.

This concluding chapter examines how modern seroras serve as living reminders about the historic value of the seroras and their potential for revising people's understanding of the importance of women during the Catholic Reformation. More important, the long history of the seroras demonstrates that Catholic reformers did not operate with blind efficiency and detachment, so focused on a narrow definition of success that they could not consider variability in approach. Indeed, when examined not strictly through synods and decrees but rather through personal interaction, one sees a consistent recognition of the value of women's spirituality in strengthening and promoting the pastoral mission of Tridentine reform. Moreover, these diocesan efforts to include and work with the seroras in their reform program was deliberate and formalized, as evidenced by the copious documentary record produced on the seroras during these centuries. Their rich, if scattered, records also offer significant opportunity to hear the voices of not just a handful of anomalous women but a persistent chorus of thousands of individual women across three centuries. Amplified by their supporters, as well as detractors, the seroras leave a multifaceted testament about how communities experienced reform, and about the central role women played in mediating and helping mold it to local needs.