The Spanish and Portuguese term cofradía (from Latin confraternitas) denotes a fraternity (or brotherhood) within the overseas colonial societies. These lay brotherhoods originated in early medieval Europe. With a few geographically and chronologically motivated variations, the system of brotherhoods developed in the Iberian Peninsula in much the same way as elsewhere in Europe. They played an especially important role in the Reconquista (the reconquest of the Islamicized portions of the Iberian Peninsula by Christians) and the associated rechristianization (Christiani…