Heterodoxos en cautiverio: de Cipriano de Valera a los protestantes del norte de África

• Published in: Hispanic review Vol. 80; no. 1; pp. 21 - 40
• Main Author: Ohanna, Natalio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Pennsylvania Press 01.12.2012
• ISSN: 0018-2176; 1553-0639; 1553-0639
• DOI: 10.1353/hir.2012.0008

This article explores a rare Early Modern work on captivity in Islamic lands: the Tratado para confirmar en la fe cristiana a los cautivos de Berbería (1594), by Cipriano de Valera, addressed to the Spanish Protestant community with forced residence in North Africa. In this work, Valera exploits the captivity treatise model of the period, but rather than promoting Islamophobia, he introduces, for the first time, the ideological struggle of the Reformation in Islamic lands. In so doing, he asserts that the main threat to his readers' faith comes not from the Turkish-Berber milieu, but rather from sharing space with fellow Christian captives who are followers of the Roman Catholic Church. In this way Valera subverts the discursive configuration of Europe based on the notion of irreconcilable religious opposition to an enemy that is both external and culturally other.