The new parameters of a global world in the early modern period gave rise to an expansion of movement that facilitated spatial and social mobility for women of different social ranks. Through their reexamination of archival documents and travel narratives, these essays investigate the opportunities for female mobility across the Spanish Empire, narrating the journeys of women who assumed new and unpredictable roles in distant environments. Some risked transoceanic journeys to hold positions of colonial power, while nuns traveled to found convents. Portuguese and Genoese women financiers and merchants traversed the Mediterranean to command enterprises in different cities. Breaking with tradition, the noblewomen considered in these essays exercised political agency as ambassadresses and diplomatic spies at various European courts. Still other women fled across borders from oppressive marriages or cross-dressed as soldiers to perform adventurous feats in support of imperial causes. Their frequently distorted histories, authored by men, have been revised and rectified by the authors of this volume.

Anne J. Cruz is Professor Spanish and Cooper Fellow in the Humanities Emerita at the University of Miami. She has published on Renaissance poetics, the picaresque novel, Cervantes, and early modern women. A corresponding member of Spain’s Royal Academy of History, she edits the series New Hispanisms: Cultural and Literary Studies.
Alejandra Franganillo Álvarez is Assistant Professor of History at the Universidad Complutense, Madrid. Her research focuses on early modern queenship and court patronage. Her recent book on Isabel de Borbón investigates the Spanish queen’s noble household; she is currently studying the political agency of female nobility.

Introduction: Early Modern Women’s Mobility - Anne J. Cruz and Alejandra Franganillo Álvarez
Part I. Transoceanic Crossings
Chapter 1. Inés Muñoz de Ribera: The Making of an Encomendera in Sixteenth-century Peru - Liliana Pérez-Miguel
Chapter 2. Isabel Barreto, Navigator of the South Seas and Governor of the Isles of Salomon - Mercedes Camino
Chapter 3. Founding a Convent in the Philippines: Discursive Keys to Travel Narratives of Early Modern Female Religious Communities - María D. Martos Pérez
Part II. Gender Transactions
Chapter 4. Cassandra Grimaldo’s Voyage of No Return: A Genoese Businesswoman in Habsburg Spain - Carmen Sanz Ayán
Chapter 5. Trade, Credit, and Marriage: The Mobility of Portuguese Conversa Merchants and Financiers - Cristina Hernández Casado
Chapter 6. Travel and the Illegible Body in Historia de la Monja Alférez: The Autobiography of Catalina de Erauso - Cortney Benjamin
Chapter 7. Hortense Mancini: A Life on the Run - J. Antonio López Anguita
Part III. Transnational Politics
Chapter 8. Seeking Support from the Spanish Monarchy: The Manly Flight of Mary Stuart O’Donnell, Countess of Tyrconnell - Montserrat Pérez-Toribio
Chapter 9. Marie de Rohan, Duchess of Chevreuse: Schemer, Spy, and Wartime Fugitive at the European Courts - Alejandra Franganillo Álvarez
Chapter 10. Mobilizing Female Relatives: The Countess of Berlepsch’s Strategies at the Habsburg Courts - Valentina Marguerite Kozák
Chapter 11. A Cosmopolitan Ambassadress on the Road: Anna Colonna, Marquise of Los Balbases - Andrea Bergaz Álvarez
Notes on Contributors