Bonding Through Paper: Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza and Sor Mariana de San José’s Lettered Community

The early modern circulation of women’s letters, fostered by the commercial abundance of paper and increased female literacy and mobility, maintained the bonds created among physically distant communities. As egodocuments, these letters vocalized the formation and practices of women’s subjectivity. This essay investigates the affective, spiritual, and political alliance formed by a secular noblewoman in Anglican England, Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza, with three nuns in a Spanish convent, including its abbess, Mariana de San José. Luisa’s political agency as a self-imposed missionary in England was threatened by her religious contacts and by officials of both countries. Her correspondence with the female religious Magdalena de San Jerónimo, who actively opposed her stay in England, was challenged by letters of support among the small, lettered community that steadfastly sustained Luisa’s belief in her mission as mandated by divine will.