PhD Program in Historical studies
The Holy Week processions in Seville
In Seville, for each day of Holy Week, from Palm Sunday to Easter, a processional shift takes place, during which up to a maximum of nine fraternities march. In total, there are more than a hundred pasos and they are accompanied by about sixty brethren.
The brothers involved in various capacities of the rites of Easter are called Nazarenes (a term first used to refer only to those who imitated Christ in the Via Crucis and then extended to all the others). They wear a tunic (often white) and parade with their faces covered by a cap or a hat (of various colours). The Nazarenes are distinguished from each other by the role they play during the holy procession. The allegados are the devotees that do not belong to associations but that follow the procession with a tunic without the emblem of the confraternity. Today, even the Sevillian women participate in the processions: the only role that they cannot perform is that of the costaleros (the carriers that bear the weight of the pasos during the procession). Among the other figures who take part in the ceremony, we highlight the acólitos (the altar boys carrying large candlesticks and censers), accompanied by Pertigueros (sextons).
The most important and popular procession (almost one million people) is that which takes place between Thursday night and Friday morning: the Madrugada. Each procession, accompanied by the poignant notes of the band, is opened by a Cruz de Guía (the Cross Guide, introduced in the symbolic repertoire of Holy Week in the late eighteenth century), flanked by two lanterns. The Cruz de Guía precedes the Senatus, the hallmark of the Roman legions, on which the famous Latin formula SPQR is inscribed, in remembrance of the role played by the soldiers of Rome in the last days of Christ’s life. Afterwards, the Banderas de pasos (flags with the colour of the confraternity), the Estandarte (the standard, the symbol of the confraternity), the Bocinas (funeral trumpets) and the Libro de reglas (the Statutes of the confraternity) appear. Among other insignia, we also recall the Simpecado (the banner of the Immaculate Conception).