Week 14: "Hey, don't knock masturbation. It's sex with someone I love."

"Hey, don't knock masturbation. It's sex with someone I love."
- ALVY SINGER (Woody Allen) in Annie Hall (1977)

Okay, I do not even know where to start with this post…
We read a case investigated by the Inquisition, as it relates to heresy, with regards to a beata named Marina de San Miguel. Now, one of the major reasons for reading this article was to understand the procedural dichotomy used by the investigators and notaries, for the purpose of analyzing what formula was followed during such trials and how they were interpreted by the notaries. So let us skim through this first. Jacqueline Holler informs us that notaries did not transcribe the procedures verbatim, rather, they more often than note were a summary of what the accused had said; especially when the accused repeated a culturally used phrase or quote (i.e. scripture from the Bible). Holler does point out, however, that the records are very specific and personal, given their empirical inclination. She then explains the standard formula in succession, as it relates to procedural flow of a typical inquisition trial. I did find it highly unusual that in a trial of such magnitude, the defendant was allowed counsel; even if they had been appointed through the court itself.
What makes Holler’s argument so interesting is the case she chose to examine. Marina was a fifty-three year old woman, living as a beata in Mexico, circa1598. Beata’s were less formal version of nuns, giving themselves a position socially that was acceptable, but also establishing a nun’s life without the restrictions of living in a monastery. Through her testimony, we are able to establish that she belonged to the Dominican order and her occupation was as a needle worker and she owns her own home; thus reflecting the independence Marina had spiritually, financially and socially, especially since she had never married. In her first confession, she declares that perhaps the reason she has been arrested was because of a conversation she had had with a non believer. She informs the committee that she had already told her order’s priest about this and was absolved. She is then sent back to her cell and told to reexamine her memory. Three days later, Marina again confesses to the same conversation and was again sent back to her cell to go over her thoughts. Then her narrative starts to get weird.
One day later, on her third confession, she began confessing to seeing a hallucination of Christ and body aches similar to what might have been the onset of menopause. She then describes what sounds like an epileptic seizure and astral flight. The court then set her back to her cell (and probably took away her mushroom stash). The next day she starts to describe another delusion that depicted…hell? Somehow, in this version, Christ superimposed himself on her “former” fiancé, then she got drunk, and (if I understand this correctly) got married and had sex with him, before waking up the next morning, probably with one hell of a hangover and trying to figure out what had happened the night before; too bad Marina did not have Alan Jackson to sing her the explanation.

A couple of days later she confesses eating meat at times it is restricted by her faith and asks for forgiveness. Then nearly two months later Marina, literally lets the “(pussy) cat out of the bag” She divulges to the committee that fact that she has been “self-sustaining” sexually for at least the last fifteen years, where upon “came to pollution”, (i.e. orgasm), but only a couple of times every other month or so. From self-love, she then admits to having sex with Juan Nunez, apparently an accountant, also living among her order. Actually, she not only admits to having sex, but to specific and descriptive sexual acts. Then next day she confesses to having sex with another man, Alonso Gutierrez, as well as more masturbation. Then next day, she admitted to sexual acts with a former priest, who was now in China.
Her ninth and final confession, Marina admits to having a sexual relationship with another beata in her order. Finally, on February 2nd, oddly enough the Day of Purification, Marina decides she has confessed enough. She was later convicted, her punishment being gagged, bound, while partially nude, beat a hundred times, fined, and sentenced to a live in a plague hospital, where it appears she became ill and died.
So what can we take away from this bizarre story? First, the longer someone is held in prison, the more things they will confess to. Second, Marina starting confessing things before she ever knew why she was there or by whom the Inquistition had gotten her name. Third, she admitted to sexual behaviors, which she was punished for, though she had only taken a promise to be celibate, unlike the vows nuns were required to adhere by. Fourth, the Order of Saint Dominic was a very “loving” and sexual group of believers. It appears that Marina’s punishment was intended to kill her, but my question would be, why did it take nearly two years after her confessions for her to be punished? Also, were there records of who actually turned her in and for what charges? Were they punished in a manner similar to Marina, or was she punished worse because she was an independent, female beata?