Alumbrados

Abstract

The term alumbrados was applied by the Inquisition or Holy Office in Spain to denote a group of devout people who developed a new form of devotional practice in the province of Guadalajara, to the west of Madrid, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The name alumbrado comes from the verb alumbrar, to light up. The implication is that those who consider themselves alumbrado are lit up from within by their sense of spiritual intimacy with God. It was first invoked in an Edict of Faith proclaimed in Toledo on 23 September 1525 in response to the identification by the Holy Office of heresy among the Guadalajara worshippers, though they themselves would neither have used nor recognized the term alumbrado. The Edict of Faith listed the heretical practices associated with the so-called alumbrados and called for evidence and denunciations. The word, and the related term alumbradismo, would subsequently be used for almost two centuries within Roman Catholicism in Spain to describe groups of people suspected of engaging in a wide variety of heretical activities. Most of these had very little in common with the Guadalajara movement which can, with justification, be considered to be part of the gathering momentum towards reformation of Roman Catholic practices that crystallized in the one-time Augustinian, Martin Luther’s public declaration of his 95 Theses in 1517.