Change over Time in the Iberian World: Stabilization and Transformation of Law (16th–19th Centuries) / edited by Luisa Stella de Oliveira Coutinho Silva.

Format:

Book

Series:

Early Modern History and Modern History E-Books online, Collection 2026.

Early Modern History and Modern History E-Books online, Collection 2026

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (367 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill | Nijhoff, 2026.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book examines legal change in the Iberian empires by analyzing colonial experiences through the dynamic relationship between global and local processes. Drawing on case studies from Portuguese and Spanish imperial contexts, it challenges views of colonial law as a rigid system imposed from metropolitan centers. Instead, this volume shows how law was continuously reshaped through negotiation, adaptation, and contestation in colonial settings. Norms were transformed through everyday practices, jurisdictional conflicts, and interactions among diverse actors. By examining normative regulation, religious jurisdiction, legal practice, and criminal justice, this book highlights the local production of legal knowledge within imperial structures and reconsiders the relationship between law, power, and social practice in early modern colonial societies. Contributors are: Luisa Stella de Oliveira Coutinho Silva, Mariana Meneses Muñoz, Rômulo Ehalt, Ana Mafalda Pereira Lopes, Arthur Curvelo, Gustavo César Machado Cabral, Vanessa Massuchetto, Felipe Garcia de Oliveira, and Nathaly Mancilla Órdenes.

Contents:

Front Cover

Half Title

Series Informations

Title Page

Copyrights Page

Contents

Preface

Figures, Charts and Tables

Notes on Contributors

Chapter 1 Change over Time in the Iberian Empires

1 Change Over Time: Legal Change and Legal History in the Iberian Empires

2 Understanding Iberian Continental and Overseas Territories Through Legal Change

2.1 Types of Change

2.2 Actors of Change

2.3 Mechanisms of Change

2.4 Spatial and Temporal Dimensions of Change

3 Legal Change and the Understanding of Law in the Early Modern Period

Bibliography

Chapter 2 The Dynamics of Normative Change

1 Introduction

2 Dissemination of Internal Regulations, Communication and Local Decisions: Questioning the Centre and Periphery Relation

3 Solicitation, General Regulations and Local Impacts

4 Conclusions

Acknowledgments

Chapter 3 Ignorance Lost

2 Invincible and Probable

3 Gradual Revelation

4 A cloak for Sinners

5 Reformed Ways

6 Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Chapter 4 Negotiating their Lives

2 Women in Portuguese Legal History

3 A Fluid Status: Widowhood and the Changes in the Pombaline Period

4 Widows and Normativities: Cases Involving Inheritance and Property Disputes in Porto City, 18th and19th Centuries

5 Guardianship of the Children

6 Debt Litigations in Widow's Petitions

7 Conclusion

Chapter 5 Conveying Normativity to the Sound of Drums

2 Documents and Methodological Approaches

3 Towards a Normative Definition of Bandos

3.1 Lexical Definitions

3.2 Bandos as an Expression of Military Jurisdiction

3.3 Diplomatic Features of Bandos

4 Patterns of Normative Production of Bandos in the Portuguese Empire

4.1 The Territorial Reach of Bandos.

4.2 Routine and Occasional Bandos

5 Thematic Diversity of Bandos in the Portuguese Atlantic

5.1 Justice

5.2 Navigation, Trade and Commerce

5.3 Economic Production

5.4 Settling, Migration and Mobility

5.5 Moral and Behavioural Issues

5.6 Sanitary Questions

Chapter 6 Legal Changes and Royal Officers in Portuguese America

2 Local Law in the Portuguese Empire

3 Ouvidores and their Normative Powers

4 Analysing Correições during the 18th Century

4.1 Correição of the town of Curitiba (1721)

4.2 Correição in Aquiraz (1729)

5 Conclusions

Chapter 7 A Gendered Penalty

2 Recolhimentos in Luso-Iberian Worlds of the Modern Period, Women's Daily Lives and Legal Change

3 Adulterous and Seduced Women, Repentant andConverted Women

4 Penalisation, Normativities and Legal Change: Recolhidas Women, Degredadas Women

Chapter 8 Normativities of Freedom

2 The Legal Statuses of Enslaved People and the Possibility of Suing for Freedom in São Paulo in the 18th Century

3 The Argument that Masters had "Opened the Price":(Re)creating Normativities of Freedom

3.1 The Willingness to Sell in the Event of the Master´s Death

3.2 The Willingness to Sell using a Private Note in a Moment of Financial Crisis

3.3 The Willingness to Sell is Proved by the Master´s Inventory and Promises

Chapter 9 Dealing with the Normative Complexity of the Colony

2 Colonial law as Policey

3 Types of Regulation between 1729 and 1771

4 Local Problems and the Regiment of 1771 Against the Grain

5 From "Justice" to "Utility": New Meanings of Law in the Administration of the Diamond Demarcation

6 Conclusions.

Acknowledgements

Index

Back Cover.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9789004764422

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004764422 DOI