Abstract
The structure of Portuguese society during the seventeenth century conformed with that found throughout most of western Europe during the early modern era. Organized into orders, or “estates,” European society was divided into three basic juridical categories: the nobility, the clergy, and the common people. Theoretically, the leadership of such societies was vested in national monarchies that, after centuries of combating papal pretensions to supremacy as well as fractious nobilities, had largely established their authority Toward the end of the seventeenth century, an equilibrium was achieved by which absolutist regimes began to emerge, being based on alliances between monarchies and privileged classes.
… sendo o principal fundamento do Estado e obediencia dos vasallos, o alicerce e eminencia da virtude do Principe… pois assim como os elementos e os corpos que delies se compoem, obedessem sem resistencia aos movimentos das spheras celestiaes, pela nobreza de sua natureza, e em os movimentos dos supperiores.
Friar Miguel Soares, Portugal Libertado (1658)
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Notes
Karl Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations, ed. Eric J. Hobsbawm, trans. Jack Cohen (New York: International Publishers, 1964), pp. 137—39.
Further discussion of the “crisis” that befell the aristocracy can be found in François Billacois, “La Crise de la noblesse européene (1550–1650): Une Mise au point,” Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 23 (1976):258–77
Charles Jago, “The Crisis of the Aristocracy in Seventeenth Century Castile,” Past and Present 84 (1979):60–90.
For a brief survey of the rise of absolutism in Europe, see Max Beloff, The Age of Absolutism, 1660–1815 (New York: Harper and Row, Torchbooks, 1966).
For a discussion of absolutism in Portugal, consult Eduardo d’Oliveira França, O Poder real em Portugal e as origens do absolutismo (São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras, 1946); and Serrão, ed., DHP, 1:8–14.
This summary account of the swearing-in ceremony is taken from the Auto do Iuramento que o sereníssimo Principe Dom Pedro Nosso Senhor Fez aos Tres Estados destes Reynos, de os Reger, e Governar no impedimento perpetuo d’El Rey Dom Affonso VI (Lisbon: António Craesbeeck de Mello, 1669), which can be found in BA 44-XIII-42, fls. 236–264v. Another description of the baroque splendor of the Paço da Ribeira can be read in John Villiers, “Portuguese Society in the Reigns of D. Pedro II and D. João V 1680–1750” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge University, 1962), pp. 91–93.
Descriptions of the seating assignments for joint sessions of the Cortes can be found in Alexandre da Paixão, Monstruosidades do Tempo e da Fortuna (1662–1680), 4 vols. (Barcelos: Companhia Editora do Minho, 1938–1939), 1:58–60.
Damião Peres, ed., História de Portugal, 7 vols. in 8 with supplement and indexes (Barcelos: Portucalense Editora, 1928–1966), 1:116–17.
Henrique Schaeffer, Historia de Portugal, 13 vols. (Lisbon: José Baptista Moranda, 1842–1847), 13:210–11.
Harold V. Livermore, A History of Portugal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1947), pp. 321–22.
Presently, there is but one book-length biography devoted to D. Pedor II, and that is a slim, unsatisfactory study. See Luís Chaves, D. Pedro II (Lisbon: Empresa Nacional da Publicidade, 1959).
António Caetano de Souza, Historia Geneologica da Casa Real Portugueza, 12 vols. (Lisbon: José Antonio da Silva, 1735–1748), 7:433.
“Memoire touchant le Portugal,” BL, MS Sloane 2294, fls. 1–5. This anonymous account is translated in A. D. Francis, The Methuens and Portugal, 1691–1708 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), pp. 26–28.
In at least two instances, D. Pedro also became involved with D. Maria’s ladies-in-waiting. See Afonso Eduadro Martins Zuquete, Nobreza de Portugal, 3 vols. (Lisbon: Editorial Enciclopédia, 1960), 1:559.
Pedro de Azevedo, Doença e Morte de Dom Pedro II (Oporto: n.p., 1911), passim.
An English diplomat of the period observed that D. Pedro II was the only modern sovereign for whom good sex caused so much suffering. See Edgar Prestage, Memórias sobre Portugal no reinado de D. Pedro II (Lisbon: Archivo Histórico de Portugal, 1935), p. 9, n. 3.
Quoted in Francis, The Methuens, pp. 27–28. Another contemporary portrait of D. Pedro II’s character can be found in Joaquim Verissimo Serrão, “Uma Relação do reino de Portugal em 1684,” Boletim da Biblioteca da Universidade 25 (Coimbra, 1962):83–86.
Discussion of corporatism in medieval and early modern Portugal can be found in Howard J. Wiarda, Corporatism and Development: The Portuguese Experience (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1977), pp. 15–17, 29–43.
Antonio Domíngez Ortiz, Las Closes Privilegiadas en la España del Antiguo Régimen (Madrid: Ediciones ISTMO, 1973), p. 27.
Earl J. Hamilton, El Florescimento del capitalismo y otros ensayos (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1948), p. 128.
Villiers, “Portuguese Society,” pp. 98–99. For one of various contemporary ge-neologies of the Portuguese nobility, consult Francisco Coelho, Thesouro da Nobreza (Lisbon, 1675), a copy of which exists in ANTT, Livraria (no. C3 E2 P7).
Ibid., p. 114. Villiers noted, however, that in the eighteenth century restrictions on induction into military orders, particularly that of Christ, had become so lax that commoners with pretensions to noble status, including merchants, surgeons, and others had attained membership. Ibid., p. 115. For a highly favorable view of the Order of Christ, see Vieira Guimarães, A Ordem de Cristo (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional, 1936).
A far more useful discussion of the order can be found in Francis A. Dutra, “Membership in the Order of Christ in the Seventeenth Century: Its Rights, Privileges, Obligations,” The Americas 27 (1970):3–25.
Angel Sánchez Rivero, ed., Viaje de Cosme de Medicis por España y Portugal (1668–1669) (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Históricos, 1933), p. 254.
Serrão, ed., DHP, 1:425–26. Two years earlier, the crown had demonstrated its regard for the young marquis by exempting him from payment of the décima militar, an extraordinary tax on both nobles and commoners levied by the Cortes in 1641. See José Justino de Andrade e Silva, Collecção Chronologica da Legislação Portugueza (1603–1702), 10 vols. (Lisbon: F. X. de Souza, 1854–1859), 6:316; and Serrão, ed. DHP, 1:788–89.
Virginia Rau, “Large Scale Agricultural Enterprise in Post-Medieval Portugal,” in Contributions to the First International Conference of Economic History (Stockholm) (Paris: Mouton, 1960), p. 430.
Professor Rau noted in this study that she was preparing a larger work on the Melo family and its landed property, but apparently it was not completed before her death in 1975. Her pioneering scholarship is outlined in Charles Verlinden, “Virginia Rau and the Economic History of Portugal,” Journal of European Economic History 4 (1975):243–45.
For short biographical sketches of D. Nuno (who, like D. Pedro II, awaits a biographer), consult Serrão, ed., DHP, 1:425–27; and J. M. Esteves Pereira and Guilherme Rodrigues, Portugal: Dicionario Historico, Biografico, Bibliografico, Heraldico, Chorografico, Numismatico e Artístico, 7 vols. (Lisbon: João Romano Torres, 1904–1915), 2:590–91. A brief evaluation of Melo’s influence is in Francis, The Methuens, pp. 32–33.
Francis A. Dutra, “Duarte Coelho Pereira, First Lord-Proprietor of Pernambuco: The Beginning of a Dynasty,” The Americas 29 (1973):415.
C. R. Boxer, Salvador de Sá and the Struggle for Brazil and Angola, 1602–1686 (London: Athlone Press, 1952), pp. 139–40.
Virginia Rau, “Fortunas ultramarinas e a nobreza portuguesa no século XVII,” Revista Portuguesa de História 8 (1959):5–7.
Additional information on Teles da Silva can be found in Boxer, Salvador de Sá, passim. A useful prosopographical study of colonial governors, which showed that most were drawn from the nobility of the sword, is Ross L. Bardwell, “The Governors of Portugal’s South Atlantic Empire in the Seventeenth Century: Social Background, Qualifications, Selection and Reward” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1974).
For a brief discussion of the attitude of contemporary Spanish nobility toward commerce, consult Jaime Vicens Vives, Historia Social y Económica de España, 4 vols. in 5 (Barcelona: Editorial Teide, 1957–1959), 3:292–94.
Rau, “Fortunas ultramarinas,” pp. 7–8. Moreover, the stigma placed on noble involvement in commercial activity, even in Spain, was fading by 1700. Henry Kamen, The Iron Century: Social Change in Europe, 1550—1660 (New York: Praeger, 1972), pp. 135–36.
Charles Jago, “The Influence of Debt on the Relations between Crown and Aristocracy in Seventeenth-Century Castile,” Economic History Review, 2nd series, 26 (1973):233–34.
C. R. Boxer, The Golden Age of Brazil, 1695–1750 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), p. 282.
Stuart B. Schwartz, “Free Labor in a Slave Economy: The Lavradores de Cana of Colonial Bahia,” in Dauril Alden, ed., Colonial Roots of Modern Brazil (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), p. 178.
Fortunato de Almeida, Historia da Igreja em Portugal, 4 vols. in 6 (Coimbra: Imprensa Academica, 1910–1922), 3 (pt. 1):521–22.
Aurélio de Oliveira, A Abadia de Tibães e o Seu Domínio (1630–1680) (Oporto: Faculdade de Letras do Porto, 1974).
It should be noted that Oliveira’s work is well complemented by a recent study of a Brazilian convent. See Susan Soeiro, “A Baroque Nunnery: The Economic and Social Role of a Colonial Convent: Santa Clara do Destêrro, Salvador, Bahia, 1677–1800” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1974).
For a discussion of the church at Tibães, see particularly the following two works by Robert C. Smith: Cipriano da Cruz: Escultor de Tibães (Oporto: Livraria Civilização, 1968); A Igreja de S. Bento da Vitória a Luz dos “Estados” de Tibães (Oporto: Fernando Machado, n.d.).
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Hanson, C.A. (1981). Privilege and Property. In: Economy and Society in Baroque Portugal, 1668–1703. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05878-5_2
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