A History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire: Volume 1, Portugal: From Beginnings to 1807 by Disney A. R

Author:Disney, A. R. [Disney, A. R.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2009-04-12T16:00:00+00:00

THE FATE OF LETTERS AND THE ARTS

In 1545 Damião de Goís returned to Portugal after an absence of over twenty years and was promptly invited by João III, whose patronage and friendship he had long enjoyed, to teach nine-year-old Prince João his letters. The king also asked the Jesuit superior, Simão Rodrigues, to instruct the prince in Christian doctrine. This could be seen as a judicious compromise – a distinguished Erasmian Humanist counter-balanced by a reliable conservative theologian. But not so to Rodrigues, who never wavered in matters of faith. In September 1546, he denounced Goís to the Évora Inquisition for alleged Protestantism, on the basis of comments made by the Humanist in Padua seven years earlier.57 The Inquisition initially dismissed the case for lack of evidence. But the king nevertheless withdrew his patronage from Goís, who returned quietly to private life. Five years later Rodrigues renewed his denunciation. Again the case was suspended, this time apparently on the intervention of Cardinal Henrique. Finally almost twenty years afterwards in 1569, when Goís was nearly seventy, the charge was revived yet a third time. Now no patron came to Goís’s protection, and he was duly arrested. Two years later he was formally convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment with confiscation of his property.

Against the background of Trent, the arrival of the Jesuits and the rapid consolidation of the Inquisition the Goís case suggests a progressive hardening of official attitudes. In 1545 Erasmianism still had some influence, although repressive forces were already closing in. Five years later Erasmian Humanists were clearly no longer acceptable, even if illustrious figures from an earlier era might still secure some protection. By the end of the 1560s, the remnant of these Humanists was in a hopeless position, with religious and intellectual reaction deeply entrenched. Erasmus himself had become the object of suspicion, and only a narrow orthodoxy was now tolerated. The errors of ageing Humanists committed forty years before could no longer go uninvestigated or unpunished.

Apart from the Inquisition, conservative orthodoxy in Portugal had two particularly effective weapons for imposing its views: the Jesuit education system and the censorship. Jesuit education had many strengths. It stressed personal discipline, proficiency in Latin, skill in Rhetoric and mastery of a carefully sanitised body of knowledge centred on Theology. For the Society’s own ranks it produced an elite body of men (for there were, of course, no women members), with extraordinary devotion to their ideals and great determination to propagate them. As linguists and students of exotic cultures the Jesuits excelled – always with the prime objective of achieving conversions. Unlike Erasmian Humanists they pursued knowledge and understanding in the service of God and not for their own sakes. Jesuits sought to shield their students and converts from any contact with the contaminating influence of unorthodoxy, believing that on the hard core of Catholic truth there could be no compromise. Their education system was widely appreciated, and all their colleges and schools were over-enrolled.58

The struggle between the Jesuit and

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.