Pious voices: Blind Spanish prayer singers

This essay aims to provide an overview on the topic of street singers in Early Modern Spain, addressing issues such as the different categories of performers, their multiple repertoires and their publics and reception. It also focuses on a characteristic Spanish figure: ciegos copleros . The role played in Spain by the blind as sellers of prints and reciters of ballads since the 16th century is well known. Spanish literature has described very often these characters, and research carried out by authors such as Pedro Cátedra, Jean‐François Botrel or Joaquín Díaz, among others, has shed light over the topic. However, there is a fundamental aspect which has been almost ignored by historiography: since the 14th century, Spanish blind people started to associate themselves in brotherhoods. Thanks to this corporate tradition, the blind succeeded in obtaining, in the 16th century, the monopoly over the reciting of prayers in streets. This essay aims to analyze this activity, highlighting how it was organized by these brotherhoods as if they were real guilds. By doing so, we try to deepen our understanding over the role played by the blind as cultural mediators.