Quill and Cross in the Borderlands: Sor María de Ágreda and the Lady in Blue, 1628 to the Present

Quill and Cross in the Borderlands: Sor María de Ágreda and the Lady in Blue, 1628 to the Present

Quill and Cross in the Borderlands examines nearly four hundred years of history, folklore, literature, and art surrounding the legendary Lady in Blue and her historical counterpart, Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda. This legendary figure, identified as seventeenth-century Spanish nun and writer Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda, miraculously appeared to tribes in colonial-era New Mexico and taught them the rudiments of the Catholic faith. Sor María, an author of mystical Marian texts, became renowned not only for her alleged spiritual travel from her cloister in Spain to New Mexico but also for her writing, studied and implemented by Franciscans and others around the world. Working from original historical accounts, archival research, and a wealth of literature on the legend and the historical figure alike, Anna M. Nogar meticulously examines how and why the person and the legend became intertwined in Catholic consciousness and social praxis. Nogar addresses the influence of Sor María’s spiritual texts on many spheres of New Spanish and Spanish society over several centuries. Eventually, the historical Sor María and her writings virtually disappeared from view, and the Lady in Blue became a prominent folk figure in the present-day U.S. Southwest and U.S.-Mexico borderlands, appearing in folk stories, artwork, literature, theater, and public ritual that survives today. Quill and Cross in the Borderlands documents the material legacy of a legend that has survived and thrived for hundreds of years, and at the same time rediscovers the extraordinary impact of a hidden writer. "With Nogar’s monograph, the reader will be able to recognize and appreciate the importance of Sor María de Jesús as a writer and mystical missionary for the history and the spiritual life of Mexican and US-Mexico borderlands politics and folklore." ― Early Modern Women "Writing about someone whose life and writings involve claims considered outrageously impossible by most contemporary scholars is challenging―to say the least―and so is having to interweave historical, theological, and literary analysis of the significance of any such wonder-worker, but Nogar grapples with this challenge successfully." ― Church History "Nogar’s well-researched and beautifully written Quill and Cross in the Borderlands ties the early writings of Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda, the Lady in Blue, to the later folklore that arose from her miraculous visits to indigenous communities beginning in the 1630s." ― Journal of the West " Quill and Cross in the Borderlands achieves the difficult balance between academic rigor and readability and is a valuable resource for Sor María specialists and students alike. It may also engage aficionados of early modern women’s writing or southwestern history." ― Colonial Latin American Review "Nogar excels in her fine-grain, textually grounded analysis. She draws on a broad and varied source base, ranging from seventeenth-century miracle narratives to architectural renderings, library index lists, and operas. Nogar also shines in her engagement with visual sources." ― Hispanic American Historical Review "Nogar produced an excellent study that lays out the entrance of Christianity into the northern borderlands. Most important, as a text on Ágreda’s life, writings, and apparitions, it clearly documents her significance to the history and colonization of New Spain’s northern frontier." ― The Americas "An exhaustive study of the 17th century Spanish nun who miraculously appeared to tribes in colonial-era New Mexico and taught them the Catholic faith―while never crossing the ocean. . . . While the Lady in Blue's apparition has been written off as fantastical, Nogar focuses on the nun's spiritual writings, which have been overshadowed by her folklore narrative." ― Mirage Magazine “ Quill and Cross in the Borderlands will be an invaluable source for scholars of the American Southwest and Mexico alike. Nogar’s remarkable archival research coupled with copious transcriptions and translations of historical documents reveals how Sor María De Ágreda permeated New Spanish society.” ― Aztlan “Nogar weaves Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda’s roles as woman religious, author, mystic, and protomissionary into a vibrant historical trajectory that moves beyond fragmentary treatment of the nun as a predominantly folk figure.” ― Journal of Folklore Research “Anna M. Nogar’s contribution is necessary and just, in great part because nuns from both sides of the Atlantic are frequently decontextualized for the sake of exclusively theological, gender, or ideological interests.” ― Latin American Literature Today “At every level, this story offers linguistic accessibility, an introduction to complex historical processes of colonization and transculturization, and a clear respect for the cultures and peoples in the Lady in Blue narrative.” ― Chiricú Journal "Dr. Nogar covers a lot of ground and has painstakingly reconstructed the e