Bureaucracy of the Socialist System

I have finally managed to get the Spanish Ministry of Culture to recognize me officially as a professional historian. This was no mean task, and I did not anticipate the level of bureaucracy with which I have had to tangle.

I won a grant about ten months ago from the Ministry of Culture ($2500) through a visiting scholars program. I thought that would make life in the archives and libraries of Spain easy, but it turns out that the different parts of the Ministry have nothing whatsoever to do with one another.

The Árchivo Historico Nacional (above) is run by the CSIC (Consejo Superior de Investigationes Científicas). Spain, in the nineteenth century European tradition, likes to downplay the distinction between the physical sciences and the social sciences or humanities. Spain has had reputation for difficult-to-access archives. Being aware of this, the CSIC dropped its "proof of credentials" requirements a few years ago. Now, all you need is a valid ID to access any Spanish state archive.

The AHN, in their own literature, suggests this makes them easier to deal with than non-state or church archives. My experiences suggest otherwise. Where Toledo was easy to use, except for the esoteric 11AM-2PM hours, the AHN is a pain. During the summer, they are open an only slightly less weird 9AM-2:30PM. They also have lots of security: ID check when you enter the building, strict rules governing what can and can't be brought into the reading-room, and double or triple signature plus computer-system number control over documents. Everything must be requested through their Windows 98 era computer program, and then you have to wait for up to thirty minutes for the archivist to fetch your documents. Just today they decided that the last requests must be made an hour before closing time. You can also only have three items at a time. They will only allow me access to photos and microfilms of medieval documents; to see the real things, I have to "make a case" for it to the "Constable" of the archives. The constable is also one of the three people you have to see in order to pay for photocopies. My total bill of 3.88 euros required three signatures and visits to two different buildings. Basically the AHN is terrible when compared tothe Cathedral of Toledo, where the archvists freely handout multiple 800 year old documents with no worries, and where I could make my own (expensive) digital photos of anything I wanted, all on the honor system. Unfortunately, the reality is that in two weeks in Toledo I found about eight useful things, and in one week here I have found about twenty.

The Biblioteca Nacional is also its own entity, with no contact with the rest of the Ministry of Culture. I thought, since I had been allowed to use the AHN with relatively little trouble, that getting into the BN would be no problem. I was wrong. They have three security checkpoints, where one has to explain one's business, before you ever get to the actual library. The first step was applying for my card. They needed all kinds of credentials; luckily my advier Dr. Burman anticipated this and made me take some letters, department stationary, and my school ID with me. They needed all that, plus my passport, plus a recent utility bill (to confirm my address), plus a hand-written explanation of why I wanted access to the BN. Forty-five minutes later, they gave me my carné (Spanish word for card is almost the same as the word for meat) de investigad(or). I can't wait to see what happens when I try to go to the Royal Academy next week.

Santa Teresa de Ávila

Saint Teresa is Ávila's most famous citizen, and she left a major mark on her hometown. The most obvious is the church (right) built over her original convent (or over her birthplace of 1515, depending on your source).

Teresa was a mystic and an ecstatic. She entered the Carmelite Convent of Ávila when she was of marrying age. Apparently she was a sickly girl, because most of her early visions are associated with illness. These episodes became the subject of much of her writing, in which she the joy of direct connection with God, and a renewed understanding of and fear for the power of sin in human life. This last idea, which formed the core of much of her work, made her an important inspirational figure in the Counter-Reformation. The importance of the intercession of the saints to help ameliorate sin, and the power of the Church to assign pennance, were some of the ideas which the Protestants challenged most aggressively. She also wrote extensively on meditative prayer.

Her experiences made her an avid reformer. She set out to return the Carmelite nunneries to stricter observances of their rules, and ended up founding the Discalced (shoeless, though sandals are OK) Carmelite Order, originally for women, and then for men too with the help of her friend Saint John of the Cross. As often happens with charismatic reformers, there was a backlash against her from within her own order. The Inquisition became involved; Teresa was arrested, as were several of her friends. She spent much of her 60s defending herself and her new order, and finally won the support of King Philip II and the Pope. In her later years, the Discalced Carmelites flourished. Teresa died while travelling between some of her convents in 1582.

Fittingly, Teresa became a saint in the seventeenth century. Her relics are split between the active Carmelite Convent outside of Ávila and the Convent/Church over her birthplace (and no doubt a million other places, in good Catholic tradition). I got to see her desicatted finger, still wearing a ring. It is not nearly as incorrupt as the propaganda suggests. Also there were her sandals, her walking stick, some of her writings, and the scapula of John of the Cross.

Cathedral Statuary

The Cathedral does feature a couple of very impressive thirteenth century doorways with a myriad of statues. The north door (above) is the best, with some fairly standard iconography: the twelve apostles (two are cut out of the picture), Christ Pantokrator in the middle. Scenes from the life of Jesus, including the very visible Last Supper. The arches seem to include some visual allegories of people struggling with sin.

The western door is also interesting. I have no idea what this guy is supposed to be.

Cathedral of Ávila

This church claims to be Spain's first Gothic structure, though there are several "protogothic" churches which combine Romanesque and Gothic styles. This building is unmistakeably Gothic. It dates from the second half of the twelfth century, and retains many of its early features, such as the impressive northern doorway from the early thirteenth century.

All in all, it is not the nicest cathedral. Its most redeeming quality is clearly the Girola, a series of chapels behind the main alter in the walls of the apse. The red and brown sandstone makes the construction very impressive.

Murallas de Ávila

Ávila's most prominent feature is its completely intact set of medieval walls. The walls surround a fairly large area of the old city, and date from the twelfth century.

As the city's nicest feature, they charge for access. Four euros gets you an opportunity to walk the walls. Unfortunately, like everything else in Spain, they are under construction right now, so you can't actually walk the full circuit of the walls. Nonetheless, they are impressive.

One of the more usual features of the wall is that the apse of the Cathedral is built directly into them. It makes that part of the Cathedral something of a fortress.

Day in Ávila

I decided to spend Sunday in Ávila, a town to the northwest of Madrid (about 50 miles away). As I have mentioned before, generally I have enjoyed my time outside the city greatly. Moreover, I hoped to find more interesting churches, architecture, or historical details which might augment my research. Unfortunately, I did not really find anything of the sort. I did, however, have a relatively pleasant day in a very quaint town.

Getting to Ávila was a bit of a pain. Where Toledo and Segovia are served by the high-speed AVE trains, Ávila (and the entire NW) are served by regional commuter trains. They are not nearly as nice as the 120mph electric miracles from my earlier journeys. Some of these trains are slow electric trains that look like the subways. Others are weird little diesel trains that seem to have an engine in each car (rather than a single engine at the head of the train). They are bumpy, and they stop at small stations along the way. So while Ávila is no further away than Toledo, it takes a solid hour and forty minutes to get their from Madrid.

Once I arrived, I was lucky enough to stumble into the middle of their Corpus Christi Sunday procession, which I filmed and photographed.

Different Perspectives on the Apartment

After receiving some feedback on the apartment post, and how terrible it made my place here seem, I decided to add a couple of pictures to rehabilitate the reading-audience's perspective on Apartamentos Juan Bravos, 9E.

Above, Cervantes and El Toro judge my 75 cent bottle of wine in the kitchenette. Below, they contemplate why I wasted money at the Feria del Libro in the "living room" part of the apartment.