| Description |
1 online resource (xviii, 269 pages) : illustrations, maps |
| Contents |
In the name of the Holy office -- The inquisition 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 -- Corporate privileges -- Corporate institutions : brotherhoods and militias -- Impostors, abusers, and obstructers -- Decay and decline |
| Summary |
The Portuguese Inquisition 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 |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 237-253) and index |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Inquisition -- Brazil -- Pernambuco
|
|
RELIGION -- History.
|
|
Inquisition
|
|
Inquisição -- Pernambuco.
|
| SUBJECT |
Pernambuco (Brazil) -- Church history
|
| Subject |
Brazil -- Pernambuco
|
| Genre/Form |
Church history
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| ISBN |
9780742569652 |
|
0742569659 |
|
