Honorable Mention for the Association of American Publishers Professional and Scholarly Publishing Awards for Sociology and Anthropology

The Penitente brotherhood of New Mexico soared in popularity during the early nineteenth century. Local chapters of the brotherhood, always exclusively male, met in specially constructed buildings (called moradas) to conduct their business and engaged in a variety of religious rituals, including flagellation. The traditional view, still very much accepted, is that Penitente spirituality was a continuation of pietistic practices brought to the New World from Spain by Franciscan missionaries in the sixteenth century.

In this book sociologist of religion Michael Carroll argues that the movement in factdeveloped much later. There is in fact little evidence that Hispanos in pre-1770 New Mexico were particularly religious, and indeed the usual hallmarks of popular Catholicism —such as apparitions, cults organized around miraculous images, or pilgrimage–are noticeable by their absence. Carroll traces the rise of the Penitentes to social changes, including the Bourbon reforms, that undermined patriarchal authority and thereby threatened a system that was central to the social organization of late colonial New Mexico. Once established, the Penitentes came to incorporate a number of organizational elements not found in traditional confraternities. As a result, Carroll concludes, Penitente membership facilitated the "rise of the modern" in New Mexico and—however unintentionally—made it that much easier, after the territory's annexation by the United States, for the Anglo legal system to dispossess Hispanos of their land.

Michael P. Carroll is a professor of sociology at the University of Western Ontario. He is the author of The Penitente Brotherhood: Patriarchy and Hispano-Catholicism in New Mexico; Irish Pilgrimage: Holy Wells and Popular Catholic Devotion; Veiled Threats: The Logic of Popular Catholicism in Italy; and Madonnas That Maim: Popular Catholicism in Italy since the Fifteenth Century, all published by Johns Hopkins.

Michael P. Carroll's profile page

• Commended, PROSE Award for Best Book in Sociology and Anthropology

"A richly circumstantial, well-presented, and interesting account of the New Mexico Penitentes... The Penitente Brotherhood offers readers looking for a historical introduction to this Hispanic confraternity a generous account... I highly recommend reading the book."

Catholic Southwest

"A book that requires a careful read in order to acknowledge its full impact... It raises new issues and perspectives that future Penitente scholarship will have to address as we struggle to interpret this critical history."

Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses

"In the popular mind, the Penitentes are a late medieval revival and a quaint and irrelevant example of popular religiosity. For anyone who wants to know the real story, this controversial book—with the hallmarks of academic scholarship and the narrative line of a novel—might fit the bill."

"Carroll's multifaceted recounting of Hispano Catholicism in historic New Mexico is well written and compelling."

"Carroll is a storyteller... He creates a convincing narrative from the primary sources and the logic of scientific theory available to him."

Church History

"A gifted, lucid writer and a great narrator of fiction... Carroll's approach refreshes the literature."

Catholic Historical Review

"Innovative and lasting contributions."

Sociology of Religion