From Idolatry to Gentilidade
Assessing Local Christians' Religious Offences in the Goa Inquisition (17th Century)
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4313457 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Miguel Rodrigues Lourenço (0000-0002-0432-3240, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 12 |
| Pages | 1498 |
| Publication date | 2023-12-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Religions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/rel14121498 |
| OpenAlex | W4389307453 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 11 |
During the first half of the 17th century, the Goa Inquisition increased its focus on religious offences committed by the so-called Cristãos da Terra (local Christianized populations). Many of these perceived offences occurred in connection with rituals, practices and behaviours stemming from Asian cultural and religious settings, leading the inquisitors in Goa to assess a variety of external features and performances ("signs") in order to determine the seriousness of the offence and the penalty to impose. While these actions were primarily labelled as "idolatry", during the 1620s, inquisitorial personnel in Goa suddenly adopted a new designation-that of "gentilidade"-to refer to a type of offence that involved apostasy from Catholicism in favour of the "Law of the Gentiles." In this paper, I will analyse the context that led to this epistemic change in labelling religious offences, while also comparing the extant Goa Inquisition trials and summaries with later catalogues of cases where offences first began to be designated as "gentilidade." I will argue that during the 1620s such changes in classifying religious offences were the outcome of a debate that, even though it was external to the Goa Inquisition, incidentally questioned some of its procedures and prompted its inquisitors and prosecutor to repurpose an already existing term into a broad category denoting heresy and apostasy, thus reinforcing the legitimacy of the tribunal's judicial practices
Ancient history · Apostasy · Context (archaeology · Heresy · Idolatry · Islam · Legitimacy · Persecution · Pilgrimage · Political science · Religious persecution · Seriousness · Tribunal · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Hispanic-African Historical Relations · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies · Sephardic Jews and Inquisition Studies
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |