Entre a insegurança dos territórios protestantes e a segurança dos reinos católicos : mobilidades à luz de fontes hagiográficas e biográficas devotas em Portugal (séculos XVII-XVIII)

Abstract

The progressive advance of the Protestant Reformation in several European territories, from 1517, provoked a fracture in western Christendom. As it is known, the Reformation imposed the abolition of the religious orders, obliging their members to opt for other «solutions of survival»; in this context, many of these religious sought asylum and protection in Portugal from the 16th century onwards, as several texts of a hagiographic and biographical devout nature edited throughout the Modern Age show. Against this background, this study seeks to draw attention to the ways in which these works of hagiographical and biographical nature were highlighted and valued, not only the cases of these religious but also of lay people from the Reformed territories - England, Northern Europe - who sought asylum in Portugal, which can not be dissociated from the counter-reformist offensive and the attempt to build a history of the sanctity of the kingdom of Portugal.