Agents of Orthodoxy : honor, status, and the Inquisition in colonial Pernambuco, Brazil / James E. Wadsworth.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wadsworth, James E., 1968-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Inquisition--Brazil--Pernambuco.

Inquisition.

Pernambuco (Brazil)--Church history.

Pernambuco (Brazil).

Brazil--Pernambuco.

Physical Description:

xviii, 269 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham, Md. : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, [2007]

Summary:

The Portuguese Inqusition is often portrayed as a tyrannical institution that imposed itself on an unsuspecting and impotent society. The men who ran it are depicted as unprincipled bandits and ruthless spies who gleefully dragged their neighbors away to rot in dark, pestilential prisons. In this new study, based on extensive archival research, James E. Wadsworth challenges these myths by focusing on the lay and clerical officials who staffed the Inquisition in colonial Pernambuco, one of Brazil's oldest, wealthiest, and most populated colonies. He argues that the Inquisition was an integral part of colonial society and that it reflected and reinforced deeply held social and religious values that crossed the Atlantic, re-created themselves in colonial Brazil, and became powerful tools for exclusion and promotion in Brazilian society. Agents of Orthodoxy places the men who ran the Inquisition in historical context and demonstrates that they were often motivated by social aspirations in seeking inquisitional appointments. Beautifully written and extensively researched, this book sheds new light on a long-standing institution and its participants.

Contents:

In the name of the Holy office

The inquisitoin at work in Pernambuco

Qualifying for office : procedures and costs

Qualifying for office : the problems of honor

Genealogical fraud and political reform

Nobility of blood

Coporate privileges

Coporate institutions : brotherhoods and militias

Impostors, abusers, and obstructers

Decay and decline.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 237-253) and index.

ISBN:

0742554457

OCLC:

70921344

Publisher Number:

9780742554450