Mens sana in corpore sano. Sobre la educación del cuerpo en la Contrarreforma española, siglos xvi y xvii

The genealogy of physical education and modern sport has a civilizing and pedagogical foundation. This was forged through the disciplinary codes of Catholic morality that used the classic aphorism: Mens sana in corpora sano. In Spain, Counter-Reformation used education with the purpose of building a solid Catholic state. Methodologies used, characterized by the sense of eutrapelia and emulation, were devices that acted in the modeling of corporal docility and the Christian gentleman. In this way, different social uses of corporality appeared, both in education, as in military training, recreation and people‘s work and their religious life. From this an ethical and bourgeois conception arose that, through play, emulation and eutrapelia, based the foundations of a capitalism and a new way of imagining the world. The analysis of this conception and sense of corporality in the Counter Reformation (xvi and xvii centuries) is the object of study in this work. The methodology has been based on the analysis of the main primary sources, which have been contextualized with subsequent works that contribute to create a certain hermeneutic vision to the study. It’s concluded that education of body at this time was an excuse to promote a national, patriotic and servile ideal to the Spanish homeland.

Abstract licence: CC BY-SA

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