The discourses about the “Minas decay” and the “greed of the clergy” and the religious taxation (1711-1789)

Abstract

The present work aims to present the question of the “conhecenças” (“desobriga” of Lent) as a starting point for comprehending the context of the social events of the capitania mineira from the point of view of the matters pertaining to the Church, her administration and powers in face of the population of this region. In that view, the themes referring to the debate about the legality or illegality of the “conhecenças” and to the exorbitance in its charge can lead us to an analysis of a jurisdictional kind related to the “Padroado” policy and the relations between the Church of Minas Gerais and the Portuguese Crown, thus providing us with the means for comprehending the facts related to the “Inconfidência Mineira” from another social point of view: the one of the relations between the civilians and the Church of Minas Gerais. These debates and clashes delineated by the social agents above mentioned can provide an apparatus for discussing, for example, the question of the applicability of the discourses about the “Minas decay” and the “greed of the clergy” by the “Povos” of Minas in comparison with the economic and social issues of the capitania’s diverse regions. We aim, from the arguments elaborated by the “Povos” of Minas, with representations and petitions mediated by the assembly and the people’s agent, to understand some questions about the ecclesiastical corpus of the bishopric of Mariana and its relations with the Minas community.