As mônicas no Vale dos Lírios: das santas fundadoras às freiras sublevadas do Monte Santo em Goa, de 1606 a 1738

Abstract

The present study analyzes the various aspects of the community of the Convent of St. Monica of Goa, from its foundation in 1606 to 1738, the year in which the conventual crisis ended, established from the conflict with Archbishop D. Inácio de Sta. Teresa. It tries to understand the cloistral population, their ways of life, their administrative and economic practices, their interests, their relations with the outside, and their sociability networks; to understand their resistance and confrontation in times of crisis. In order to build a bridge between the ideal of the religious created by the Augustines and the "real" nuns, it was observed the community from this less explored angle. This study brings to light a general idea of the diversified origin of those women who integrated the convent population and analyzes their way of life through the hierarchy and administration of the conventual patrimony. The influence of local customs on the experience of the mônicas is observed in the religious economic practices, as well as in the deviations observed during the crisis of the eighteenth century. With the study of the letters produced in that crisis it is possible to capture the personality of some of them and to understand the dynamics of the community and the point of view of other people involved in the long conflict with the prelate. Finally, this thesis realizes the participation of these women as agents who acted actively in the social, religious, cultural, economic and political dynamics of the Portuguese East. After all, the convent was not what it should represent: a community of silent, submissive and virtuous women. On the contrary, it was, in fact, a religious territory made up of women owners of their lives and their decisions.