A Inquisição Barroca: Particularidades de uma fase institucional do Tribunal do Santo Ofício (1681-1760)

Abstract

The Portuguese Inquisition, over its 285 years of operation, passed through for some institutional phases. These changes took place, generally, gradually and conservatively, shaping themselves to the broader scenarios through which the Kingdom of Portugal was passing through. The impacts caused by the Alcácer-Quibir disaster, the Habsburg domain, the 1640 Restoration, the D. Afonso VI seclusion and the consolidation of the Bragança Dynasty somehow affected the functioning and institutional model of the Holy Office. Despite the changes, the institutional prominence of the Faith Tribunal in relation to others institutions in the Kingdom or in the overseas domains remained in all these key moments of the Portuguese Ancien Régime. Our article intends to demonstrate the particularities of one of these moments of reconfiguration of the Holy Office, called the Baroque Inquisition (1681-1760), and its relationship with the consolidation of the Bragança Dynasty. For that, we organize our arguments presenting in a summarized form the antecedents of the baroque phase of the Inquisition, the particularities of that phase and its relations with the Crown and the political ambitions at different levels during the Johannine reign.