The peripheral justice in the bishoprics of the Portuguese Empire (c. 1514-1755). Model roots, normatives, proceedings and geography of the network

Abstract

This article deals with the peripheral diocesan justice in the bishoprics of the Portuguese overseas empire, from the Atlantic world to Asia, between 1514 and 1755. It is grounded in a wide array of sources, mostly unpublished, of secular and ecclesiastical origins, produced by individuals and institutions either acting in the kingdom and/or in the empire. It uses perspectives from global and comparative history, suggesting insights that are not strictly confined by geographic and chronological boundaries, nor constrained by a rationale of local explanations. It provides a problematising view of the system's roots, the reasons which prompted its application, its action and the shape which the network has acquired in various dioceses. It will be argued that the system, which had adaptive capacity to the multifaceted scenarios where it was set up, it is an element that helps to understand that the royal patronage did not impose unsurpassable limits on the assertion of episcopal powers in the empire.