Judging Maria de Macedo: A Female Visionary and the Inquisition in Early Modern Portugal

Preface

vii preface As you know, Your Holiness, little in this life turns out as we expect. —Cardinal Altamirano to the Pope, in The Mission (1986) A s is, I suppose, the case with many manuscripts, this project began as something quite different. When I first arrived in Lisbon in September 2001, I would never have guessed that my research would lead me to microhistory. I had originally intended to seek an answer to a fairly basic sociopolitical question: During the period of Hapsburg control of Portugal, had the Portuguese Inquisition prosecuted the nationalistic (if I may use that term loosely) believers in the lost king Sebastian? All the indicators—the Inquisition ’s general suspicion of messianic movements and visionaries, its suspicion of anything with converso roots, and its generally favorable attitude toward the continued union with Spain—seemed to favor a policy of prosecution. I had hoped that, once I had examined the specific cases of this seemingly inevitable campaign against the sebastianistas, I would be able to use those records to create a preliminary sketch of the social composition of the sebastianista movement, an issue that has yet to be addressed in a systematic manner. It was at this point, though, that the original project broke down because, after I reviewed many pages of inquisitorial correspondence and many case files, it seemed clear that the Inquisition had not conducted an organized campaign of prosecution against the sebastianistas during the Hapsburg period. Since I could find no evidence explaining the Inquisition’s lack of interest in the sebastianistas , I was faced with the prospect of trying to salvage some project that was possible to complete in the remaining time of my Fulbright grant. While reading Jacqueline Hermann’s No reino do desejado, I ran across the case of Maria de Macedo. Although I now take issue with certain aspects of Hermann’s understanding of the case, I was intrigued by the brief summary she gave of it and decided to read the original case for myself. I was immediately struck by the level viii preface of detail and elaboration in Maria de Macedo’s story and thought the pamphlet she had dictated to her husband about her experiences was ripe for examination by someone using microhistorical techniques. It did not take me long to decide to take on that project. I have continued to wrestle with the issues ever since, in the intervening time refining my analysis and revising my work in the hope of making it what a study of this subject should be. I think the study that follows, for all its imperfections, does shed real light on the messianic phenomenon of Sebastianism, and popular beliefs more generally , in early modern Portugal. Ironically, Maria de Macedo’s case also provided some clues related to the question of why the Portuguese Inquisition did not systematically prosecute the sebastianistas. This study is an attempt to understand the mental world of Maria de Macedo, and the mental world of her inquisitorial judges, through a close examination of her vision and her trial; it will be up to the reader to decide whether that attempt has been successful. There are many people who deserve thanks for their help and support in the long years it has taken to bring this project to fruition. First, I want to thank Geoffrey Symcox, Carlo Ginzburg, John Dagenais, and especially Teo Ruiz, whose continued support for and interest in this project I deeply appreciate. Second, I wish to express my appreciation both to the Fulbright Program and to the Commissão Cultural Luso-Americana in Lisbon, which provided funding for the initial phase of my research for this book. I am also grateful to the Office of the Dean of Research at Pepperdine University for funding that made possible the second round of research in Lisbon in the summer of 2006. I would be remiss if I did not thank the staff members at the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo and at the Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa for the very practical aid they provided that allowed me to conduct research in their institutions . And I am grateful to the University of Toronto Press and the Portuguese Studies Review for their cooperation in allowing me to reprint previously published material that appears in chapters 1, 2, and 6 in this book. Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family, who have supported me through this long process. [18.216.94.152...