Ecclesiastical normativity and particularism in the New World: the regulation of baptism in the Synod of Salvador da Bahia (1707) and its practice in the Freguesia of Fortaleza (18th century)

Gustavo César Machado Cabral

doi:10.5380/hd.v2i2.80532

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute with the study of ecclesiastical normativities in Portuguese America, mainly after the enactment of the First Constitutions of the Archbishopric of Bahia (1707). By analyzing baptism, which is regarded as the first Catholic sacrament, this text focuses on the creation of norms for particular spaces and how this process incorporates juridical and theological traditions. At the same time, the text confronts this analysis with the baptismal records of the freguesia of Fortaleza during the 18th century, in order to verify if this formal regulation actually was put into practice.

Highlights

RESUMO Este artigo pretende contribuir com o estudo das normatividades eclesiásticas na América Portuguesa, principalmente a partir da edição das Constituições Primeiras do Arcebispado da Bahia (1707)
By analyzing baptism, which is regarded as the first Catholic sacrament, this text focuses on the creation of norms for particular spaces and how this process incorporates juridical and theological traditions
The text confronts this analysis with the baptismal records of the freguesia of Fortaleza during the 18th century, in order to verify if this formal regulation was put into practice

Summary

Introducing the problem

The First Constitutions of the Archbishopric of Bahia is one of the most important documents on the History of Church in Colonial Brazil, and the growing interest on the Constitutions, in the last two decades, explains the publication of papers and books such as “A Igreja no Brasil: normas e práticas durante a vigência das Constituições Primeiras do Arcebispado da Bahia”, edited by Bruno Feitler and Evergton Sales Souza (Feitler & Souza, 2011). Adopting a concept of law that is not purely state-dependent, recognizing non-state actors as legislators, and acknowledging the existence of other jurisdictions and normativities in parallel (and in communication) with the statal one, characteristics which, together, constitute a perspective that has been widespread amongst legal historians, this text aims to contribute with this debate by discussing ecclesiastical normativity and by examining a very specific part of the First Constitutions, namely the sacrament of baptism In doing so, this text puts into perspective the close connections among canon law, moral theology and secular law during the Early Modern period. It was a huge parish, with chapels located more than one hundred kilometers from the main church

The Synod and the law-making process

Examining the space: the freguesia of Fortaleza

Ruling baptism in theory and in practice

Baptizing enslaved

Final Words

Literature