The Military Orders and the Portuguese Expansion (15th to 17th centuries)

Abstract

This book deconstructs the dominant thesis of a great involvement of the Portuguese Military Orders in the process of Expansion for North Africa and across the seas. These rich institutions from the fifteenth century onwards always refused to make war in a corporate way, despite appeals in this sense made by the kings and the papacy. The author demonstrates how the patronage of the Order of Christ on a vast part of the globe resulted from Portuguese diplomatic interests and was not very effective, even in the peak period of 1456 and 1514. The creation of the bishopric of Funchal (1514), which served as a model for other Portuguese overseas bishoprics, marked a rupture and transformed this pattern of the Order of Christ into a very limited presence. In the sixteenth century, when the overseas bishops received power to appoint clerics, this did not mean, however, that the clergy born in the colonial space had many opportunities to obtain a post of vicar. The struggle to achieve it was intense and began in 1513 and was extended until the eighteenth century. The patronage of the Order of Christ was only maintained because the kings, who were the Masters of the Order from 1495 onwards, had a strong interest in overseas tithes. With them they paid many expenses in addition to the ecclesiastical ones. With the end of the closed sea policy, the Iberian patronages suffered strong competition through the missionaries sent by the Roman Congregation of Propaganda Fidei. This dispute helped to maintain the Portuguese pattern of ecclesiastic patronage characterized by the nominal presence of the Order of Christ. It subsist but was not more than a nominal presence.