A Women Moralising Crusade in the Peninsular War: Bishop Menéndez de Luarca and his Visit to England

Abstract

The Bishop of Santander, Rafael Tomás Menéndez de Luarca, was an enthusiastic representative of the High Catholic Church in Spain between 1784 and 1819. As a declared enemy of France since the Revolution, the Napoleonic troops’ advance into Northern Spain forced him to flee into Asturias in November 1808. In May 1809 Menéndez de Luarca managed to escape to Britain, a country he considered ‘heretic’. His stay there marked a watershed in the moralising campaign he had started at the beginning of his bishopric. Back in Spain, the progressive loosening of traditional Catholic morals he found in Cádiz had, in his opinion, a negative impact on the Spanish struggle against Napoleon. Menéndez de Luarca’s concern for what he had viewe as women’s outrageous fashion while in England increased in the Andalusian city. This article aims to analyse the impact of the bishop’s English experience on the peculiar campaign he began in Cádiz in 1809 to ‘improve’ women’s conduct. His personal crusade ended up with the publication of a work with an eloquent title, Las descamisadas o envenustadas modernas españolas (1812). A critical revision of this text includes a brief socio-linguistic analysis of the term ‘descamisadas’. This study is completed with an evaluation of the civil authorities’ acceptance of the measures suggested by Menéndez de Luarca, together with their social impact.