From Nun to Conqueror, from woman to man: The travels of Catalina de Erauso

Abstract

During the first half of the seventeenth century, the Spanish woman, Catalina de Erauso (1592-1650) was travelling between two continents, and between distant gender conditions. The religious novice Catalina crossed different frontiers and became Antonio: a peasant, a salesman, a soldier, a conquistador... Her singular identity changed and became more than one personality. The religious and political institutions of the Spanish colonial time admired Catalina's persona. In her journeys, always dressed as a man first in Spain and then in the New World, the Lieutenant Nun imitated masculine behaviour and became protagonist of her own actions. Catalina's masculine clothes and attitudes unlocked the doors to adventure and travelling. This article will analyse these notions and historical facts in her manuscript, History of the Lieutenant Nun (1829).