Ofelia Rey Castelao

Ofelia Rey Castelao is a Full Professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela, affiliated with the Department of Medieval and Modern History within the Faculty of Geography and History. She obtained her Doctorate from the same institution in 1983 with a thesis on The vote of Santiago in modern Spain, supervised by Dr. Antonio Eiras Roel. Her research focuses on social dynamics, gender roles, and institutional history in early modern Spain, with particular attention to migration patterns, religious organizations, and legal practices.

Her work integrates quantitative and qualitative methods, analyzing archival documents to explore topics such as female economic agency, military recruitment resistance, and the cultural significance of religious patronage. Key contributions include studies on the Venerable Third Franciscan Order’s role in social integration, the impact of migration on Galician family structures, and the symbolic contestations surrounding Spain’s patron saints.

Her publications reflect interdisciplinary engagement with themes like book diffusion in Cervantes’ era, cathedral financial systems, and the socio-legal treatment of illegitimate children. She has collaborated on collective volumes examining urban identities in the Hispanic monarchy and methodologies in modern Spanish historiography.