The relationship between the General Police Office and the peripheral royal magistracies: the case of Óbidos (1780-1806)

Abstract

The increasing monopolization of the judicial system by the State culminated with the creation of the Intendência Geral da Polícia da Corte e do Reino (General Police Office ) in 1760, an institution that was articulated with the peripheral royal magistracy to punishing crimes and shape social relations according to patterned values seen as rationalist. In this article, and based on the analysis of the intense exchange of correspondence between the Intendência and the peripheral royal magistrates, namely the Magistrate of the Judicial District of Alenquer and the royal magistrate of Óbidos, in the period between 1780 and 1806, it is intended to examine the areas of the Intendency's performance in the space under analysis, as well as the relationship between it and the royal magistracy of Óbidos at the end of the Ancient Regime.

 We have observed a strong intervention by the Intendency in areas such as the maintenance of public order and tranquillity, in the shape of moral behaviour, military recruitment, never abandoning its disciplinary and control function, as well as a coarctation of the relative autonomy that peripheral royal magistrates enjoyed until its creation, becoming, from now on, diligent executors of the orders of an Intendant who has received policing, but also judicial powers.