Prestígio, poder e hierarquia: A “elite dirigente” da Venerável Ordem Terceira de São Francisco de Assis de Vila Rica (1751 – 1804)

Abstract

This study seeks to create an analysis of the men who were members of the Administrative “Mesa” of the Venerable Third Order of Saint Francis of Assisi from Vila Rica, in the period between the first elections of the “Mesa” which occurred in 1751 until the year of 1804. We seek the identification of the men who formed the ruling elite of that institution trying to create a prosopographic profile of those men, combined with the analysis of their trajectory, trying to observe their participation in other institutions which conferred prestige and power in that “old regime society”. We try to prove that the participation and especially the occupation of leading position in the Third Order of Saint Francis of Assisi worked as another criteria to help the social hierarchisation, offering prestige and visibility, and working as a way of local legitimization to achieve social ascension.