Graduate Student, History and Civilization
Thesis Title: The Portuguese cathedral clergy and the balance of powers (1580-1670)
Bartolomé Yun Casalilla
José Pedro Paiva
About
Thesis abstract:
The study I propose to develop, focused mainly in the Portuguese case, seeks to understand how the cathedral clergy participated in the process of changing the “field of powers”. A process that had started in the sixteen century and would be continuing during the following century.
Without neglecting the concerns of the historiography in the recent years (decades), for instance, in the field of political history -the construction of the "modern state" - or, in the field of socio-religious history - the “confessionalization” or “social discipline”-, my work mainly seeks to study the cathedral chapters and its clergy both as a "field" and "agents" of power (using the expressions of P. Bourdieu).
In the developing of my analysis, we can not forget that, first, when we talk about the Church we are referring to a body that is not uniform nor compact, consisting of various agents and interests that do not always coincide. Furthermore, we can not forget that the Church was an "international" body, with headquarters in Rome, whose representatives of the Apostolic See in Lisbon were more than just diplomatic representatives, because they exercised its jurisdiction under a number of Portuguese vassals, that is, those who belong to the clergy.
Aiming to overcome slightly the barriers of a so called "national history", and using sources from the Vatican Secret Archives, our project will always have this "international" aspect of the Catholic church over the various sections of the thesis. Moreover, the question of national barriers would have to be overcome, because along the period under study, the Portuguese crown was united to that of Castile. Thus, throughout the text we always will present the “local” (Porto, Évora, Coimbra…), the "national" (the crown and the Portuguese "church") and "international" (Lisbon-Madrid-Holy See).
Keywords: Clergy, Power, Counter-Reformation, Church History, Political and Social History, early modern state-building process.
Cathedral Chapters, "Restauração" War, Symbolic Power, Clientelism, Fiscality/Royal taxation/clergy, Habsburgs Monarchy, Portugal, Spain, Holly See.
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