THE MIDDLE AGES IN BRAZIL

Abstract

This study aims to showing how Portuguese feudalism and its transplants that occurred in Brazil during the first phase of Portuguese colonization, permeated Brazilian culture at all its levels. We will try to point out some medieval residues found in many cultural manifestations of our country in the political, legal and economic spheres, but without forgetting that they are also present in medieval science and geography, in the persistence of the chivalric spirit and the mystical or religious spirit reflected in the culture of the people. In order to prove the persistence, that is, the residues of medieval Portuguese culture in that which came to be produced in Brazil after the arrival of Cabral, we will give a few examples (although hampered by the brevity of the occasion) based on celestial and teratological geography, in feudal and manorial transplants, in the spirit of chivalry, in building techniques, in urban configurations, in indigenous reductions, in mystical experiences, in ecclesiastical organization, in popular culture, in the legal and administrative regimes adopted by the colonizers, in the guidelines of the colonial economy and in the magic of science. Everything will be done with the valuable assistance of Luis Weckmann, Mexican, author of La herencia medieval del Brasil (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1993).