Abstract
During the early years of D. Pedro II’s reign, the predominantly New Christian mercantile class made a concerted effort to obtain relief from the activities of the Holy Inquisition. The struggle that ensued lasted for more than a decade and was finally resolved in favor of the status quo. Though issues of race and religion characterized the debate that raged between pro- and anti-New Christian factions, class conflict lay at the root of the struggle. Conflict between the merchants and the privileged classes had gone on for centuries in Portugal and was to continue long after the death of D. Pedro II, but the suppression of the mercantile class during the first third of his reign marked an especially important victory for the established order. Nearly a century was to pass before the mercantile class again presented a significant challenge to the stability of the Old Regime.
Those that favour the Jews pretend to do it for the good of the commonwealth, those that do not, for the good of the Church.
Francis Parry, English envoy in Lisbon (1675)
Aqui se diz pùblicamente que em Portugal e melhor ser inquisidor que rei.
António Vieira, S. J., writing from Rome (1673)
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Notes
William Bromley, Several Years Travels through Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, Prussia, Sweden, Denmark and the United Provinces (London: A. Roper, 1702), p. 6.
Roque Monteiro Paim, Perfidia judaica, Christus Vindex, Manus Principis Ecclesiae ab Apostatis liberata (Madrid, 1671).
The standard work on the founding of the Portuguese Inquisition is Alexandre Herculano, History of the Origin and Establishment of the Inquisition in Portugal, trans. John C. Branner (New York: AMS Press reprint, 1968).
I. S. Révah, “Les Marranes,” Revue de Etudes Juives, series 3, tome 1, vol. 118 (1959–1960):53–55.
Further discussion of the nature of Marrano belief will be found in Cecil Roth, “The Religion of the Marranos,” Jewish Quarterly Review 22 (1931): 1–33.
Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition (New York: New American Library, 1965), p. 138.
A scholarly study of the financial operations of the Portuguese Inquisition has yet to be written, but an auto-da-fé was certainly its most expensive ceremonial activity. The cost of the 1646 Lisbon auto-da-fé, for which there is a detailed breakdown of expenditures, ran to 208,664 reis, about 522 cruzados. António Baião, Episódios Dramáticos da Inquisição Portuguesa, 2nd ed., 3 vols. (Lisbon: Seara Nova, 1936–1938), 3:210–14.
John Stevens, The Ancient and Present State of Portugal (London: W. Bray, 1713), p. 136.
Michael Geddes, “A View of the Court of the Inquisition in Portugal with a LIST of the Prisoners that came forth in an Act of the Faith Celebrated at Lisbon, in the Year 1682,” Miscellaneous Tracts, 3 vols. (London: printed for A. and J. Churchill, 1702), in vol. 1, pp. 389–448.
The best available discussion of the antagonism between Jesuit and inquisitor can be found in I. S. Révah, “Les Jésuites portugais contre l’Inquisition: La Campagne pour la fondation de la Compagnie Générale du Commerce du Brésil,” Revista do Livro (Rio de Janeiro) 3–4 (1956):29–53. The most convincing argument for inquisitorial opposition to the Restoration is in Serrão, ed., DHP, 3:621–24.
C. R. Boxer, “A Great Luso-Brazilian Figure, Padre António Vieira, S.J., 1608–1697,” Diamante 5 (1957):4.
The venerable but still most satisfactory biography of the illustrious Jesuit is João Lúcio de Azevedo, História de António Vieira, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Lisbon: Livraria Clássica, 1931).
The origins of sebastianismo, the belief that young King Sebastião, who had perished in battle against Moslems in North Africa in 1578, would one day return, are examined in João Lúcio de Azevedo, A Evolução do Sebastianismo, 2nd ed. (Lisbon: A. M. Texeira, 1947). Also see Serrão, ed., DHP, 3:810–17. For a discussion of Bandarra, consult ibid., 1:288–89, and the sources listed there. Vieira’s Quinto Imperio do Mundo can be found in his Obras Inéditas, 3 vols. (Lisbon: Seabra and Antunes, 1856), 1:83–131.
For a discussion of the origin and development of Vieira’s prophetic thought, consult Robert Ricard, “Prophecy and Messianism in the Works of António Vieira,” The Americas 37 (1960):357–68
Raymond Cantei, Prophétisme et Messianisme dans l’Oeuvre d’Antonio Vieira (Paris: Ediciones Hispano-Americanas, 1960).
Jesuit loyalties remained divided in the following century. See Magnus Mörner, ed., The Expulsion of the Jesuits from Latin America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Borzoi Books, 1965), p. 21.
Juan Lopes Sierra, A Governor and His Image in Baroque Brazil: The Funeral Eulogy of Afonso de Castro do Rio de Mendonça, ed. Stuart B. Schwartz, trans. Ruth E. Jones (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1979), pp. 50–52. anti-New Christian edicts that followed, largely conformed to measures advocated by the 1668 Cortes. Azevedo, História dos Cristãos Novos, p. 289.
Smith, “The Mercantile Class,” p. 247. The brief life of the first company was thoroughly examined in A. R. Disney, Twilight of the Pepper Empire: Portuguese Trade in Southwest India in the Early Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 71–148.
Also see Chandra Richard da Silva, “The Portuguese East India Company, 1628–1633,” Luso-Brazilian Review 2 (1974): 152–205.
Manuel Pinheiro Chagas, História de Portugal, 14 vols. (Lisbon: Livraria Moderna, 1899–1909), 6:119.
Azevedo, História de António Vieira, 2:145. In a letter to his friend and confidant in Paris, Duarte Ribeiro de Macedo, Portuguese ambassador to France and mercantilist writer, António Vieira suggested that the Holy Office had a part in the conspiracy. António Vieira, Cartas, 2nd ed., 3 vols., ed. João Lúcio de Azevedo (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional, 1971), 2:658.
Vieira, Cartas, 3:143–44. Also see António das Chagas, Obras Espirituais do Espiritual, e Veneravel Padre Frey António das Chagas (Lisbon: Miguel Deslandes, 1701).
Gerhard Lenski, Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), p. 255.
Eric J. Hobsbawm, “Class Consciousness in History,” in István Meszaros, ed., Aspects of History and Class Consciousness (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), pp. 8–9.
José Antonio Maravall, La Cultura del Barroco: Anális de una estructura histórica (Barcelona: Ariel, 1975), pp. 71–74.
Visconde de Santare, Quadro Elementar, 18 vols. (Paris: J. P. Aillaud, 1842–1854; Lisbon: Academia Real das Sciencias, 1858–1876), 4 (pt. 2):672.
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Hanson, C.A. (1981). The New Christian Challenge to the Established Order. In: Economy and Society in Baroque Portugal, 1668–1703. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05878-5_4
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