Falas Nefandas: inquisição, blasfêmias e proposições heréticas no Brasil colonial (XVI-XVIII)

Abstract

Most studies carried out on the Modern Inquisition subject occur substantially on two perspectives: through the analysis of legal formalities of the Holy Office and, from another point of view, through the investigation of transgressions that were persecuted. This paper is part of the second type of perspective, where I will try to examine the criminal proceedings of the defendants who were tried for the crimes of blasphemy and heretical propositions coming from Brazil, which was under the jurisdiction of the Lisbon Court. After a distinction between the two offenses - which are easily confused because they are related to speech - I will seek an analysis that shows how blasphemies were rooted in the colonist's culture in Portuguese America. Expressions that were part of the daily life of men and women, young or old; discourses that were crude, jocular, rustic, not aimed at attacking, offending, but expressing a momentary dissatisfaction. As for the heretical propositions, I will present the historical agents of this crime, who were usually people of faith who knew how to read and write. Opposed to blasphemies, the propositions were intended to break, to attack, to generate new ideas and to propagate them as much as possible. The analysis conducted in this dissertation about the persecution of crimes of blasphemies and heretical propositions will serve as an aid in the search for comprehension of the social reality lived by the settlers of the New World against the policies of intolerance of the Portuguese Holy Office, as well as its unfoldings.