The nobility devotions on the edifying writings of the colonial Brazil (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries)

• Grant number: 17/25162-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): May 01, 2018
• Effective date (End): August 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: Jean Marcel Carvalho França
• Grantee: Clara Braz dos Santos
• Supervisor: Jose Manuel Damiao Soares Rodrigues
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais (FCHS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Franca. Franca , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
• Associated to the scholarship: 17/01498-3 - Laud and distinction in Colonial Brazil (XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries), BP.DR

Abstract

In Brazil of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, clergymen and moralists made series of sermons, compliments and devotion books, which its main purpose was to moralize the costumes and edify the souls of the noble colonists. According to these writings, the renovation of the conduct of men and women prominent from the tropics, was necessary due to the presumption that many nobles possessed of having distinctions of being compared to nobility of court. Although it was indispensable to the nobles accumulate posts, means and honor to keep their privileges - once they were not tittled - the lettered of the time believed that the practice of devotion to the catholic faith was the most appropriate symbol of distinction to those who occupied the top of the hierarchy at the colony, because in this way they could spread their example of behavior devoted to the ordinary people. In view of this importance attached to the devotional conducts of the nobles in this edifying writings, the purpose of the present project, to be developed in Portugal, is to investigate which were the main devotions eccomended to the colonial nobility. Giving, therefore, continuity to the PhD thesis that has been being developed with the Post Graduation Program in History from Universidade Estadual Paulista, campus in Franca (process FAPESP 17/01498-3) and in the scope of the thematic project "Escritos sobre os novos mundos: uma história da construção de valores morais em língua portuguesa" (process FAPESP 13/14786-6) it is meant to map and consult the main Portuguese collections and libraries, during four months, other edificating writings and studies which approached the moral values considered appreciated to the nobility, and which are not available in the database of the group "Escritos".