El sanador, el párroco y el inquisidor: los saludadores y las fronteras de lo sobrenatural en la España del barroco

Abstract

In a period in which the truth seemed to get confused so easily with the untruth, a new field of battle for the assignment of meanings and the capture of symbols arises in Renaissance and Baroque Spain. It is the mythical complex of the Iberian saludador, a belief that succesfully challenged the most sophisticated thelogical devices —such as the agustinian doctrine on superstition or the discernment of spirits—, which were unable to assign an unequivocal meaning to the myth. As a consequence of this theoretical disability, the mythical complex of the Iberian saludador became an object of dispute, a sensitive space for the tracing of those borders of the supernatural that so intensely obsessed the early modern culture. The most diverse social actors, such as charismatic-healers, rural priests, aspiring saints, and inquisitors, sought to turn the legend of the saludador into another device for the formation of subjectivities, into a cultural tool capable of simultaneously constructing otherness and the proper identity.