Pastoral visits in the Ecclesiastical Archives, sources for historical research: The example of the Ecclesiastical Archives of Mérida-Badajoz

Abstract

The main purpose of the work presented below is to identify and analyse the documentation relating to pastoral visits kept in ecclesiastical archives, as a fundamental resource for the development of various historical investigations, given that the analysis of pastoral visits will bring us closer to an in-depth knowledge of the populations in which these visits were carried out. Not only the ecclesiastical aspects (number of parishes, priests, parishioners, etc.), but also the demographic, economic, educational, cultural, heritage, artistic, etc. realities of each of these populations; thus allowing, based on this documentary analysis, the subsequent development of historical investigations of various kinds that are supported by archival documentation. For the development of this task we will take as a reference the Ecclesiastical Archives of Mérida-Badajoz, an ecclesiastical institution that preserves a significant volume of documents related to pastoral visits and therefore allows us to draw up a model that can be extrapolated to a large number of archives.