El Monasterio de la Concepción de Cuenca en el ámbito jurisdiccional de la Provincia Franciscana de Cartagena (1504-1835)

The present article analyzes the relations between the nuns from the monastery of the Immaculate Conception in the city of Cuenca (Spain), who belonged to the Conceptionist Order, and the friars of the Observant Franciscan Province of Cartagena in the period from the foundation of the aforesaid monastery in 1504 until the 1830s, when the suppression of the jurisdiction of regular superiors over women’s monasteries was decreed. The monastery of Cuenca, which constituted one of the first foundations of this Order, was under the jurisdiction of the Franciscan Order from the beginning, first that of the Observant Custody of Murcia and then from 1520 onwards the new Observant Franciscan Province of Cartagena. This article explains the nature of this jurisdiction, which was concerned above all in the observance of decency, the cloistered life, and the maintenance and increase of the temporal goods of the monastery. The Franciscan friars were also responsible for the confession and spiritual guidance of the sisters.