Cleansing the honor and dispelling the fame: Candidates rejected by the Inquisition for being New Christians or for having the reputation of being so

• Autor(a) principal: Lopes, Luiz Fernando Rodrigues
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Temporalidades
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.ufmg.br/index.php/temporalidades/article/view/5775
• topic: Mobilidade Social; Candidatos rejeitados pelo Santo Ofício; cristãos-novos.; Tribunal of the Holy Office; New Christians; Social mobility

Based on the analysis of the petitions to work for or to marry a “familiar” of the Holy Office that were processed between 1660 and 1755 and ended without a favorable opinion, this article seeks to dimension some of the facets of the clash between the Inquisition, one of the most influential disciplinary institutions of the Portuguese society of the Old Regime, and the New Christians who sought to be a part of the inquisitorial staff and were rejected. The statutes of blood purity guided the policies of exclusion by birth, and sometimes the Holy Office denied the success of petitioners who had been proven to be descendants of forcibly converted Jews, and other times, of petitioners with the simple public reputation of being so. The achievement of minor qualifications, the omission of information, and the manipulation and fraud of their genealogy were constant strategies used by the rejected candidates in the effort to overcome the obstacles that barred them. Overcoming the macula represented, for them, the search for conservation and agency to scale the ramp of social mobility.