Ceremonial eclesiástico en el Portugal del siglo XVII

Abstract

The use of ritual as a form of comunication wasn´t a language exclusively managedby the monarchies and court society. The Church, through different paths, also used ceremonials-not only in its lithurgical dimension- as tools of political comunication, power assertion andsocial legitimation. This essay, assuming the validity of the previous interpretations, coversthe analysis of a set of public ceremonies promoted by the Church or in which clerics took part (synods, pastoral visitations, episcopal solemn entrances and processions), on seventeenthcentury Portugal, stressing the importance of deciphering the morphology of those rituals andthe eruption of conflicts as key factors in order to understand their deep meaning.