Censores em cena: atores dentro da Mesa do Desembargo do Paço na Corte Joanina

Abstract

The present work aims to analyze the censorship during the the reign of king D. João VI and to understand its norms and practices, highlighting the role attributed during the process to the censors, the men responsible for the analysis of the requests sent to Mesa do Desembargo. The licenses present in the documentation of the Mesa do Desembargo do Paço, in the National Archive of Rio de Janeiro, will be used to explain how the censorship was performed by the Court in charge of the inspection of the printed works. It seeks to present censorship through a new perspective, analyzing it as a space that enabled the formation and intensification of networks of sociabilities amongst the involved actors, appropriating the concept of Michel Bertrand. It also tried to demonstrate how it is possible to identify, through the practices of these actors, the characteristics of a court society according to the concept of Norbert Elias. The censorship will also be explored through a comparative analysis of law and practice, presenting the divergences between what was defined by the Censorship Act and the practices found in the proceedings. The objective is to present the problems faced by those who were subject to the supervision of the Mesa do Desembargo and also the difficulties that the censors themselves found, always through identification of cases that demonstrated the failure of censorship to regulate and prohibit access to forbidden works. As well as the period of the censorship, its suspension will be highlighted with the purpose of demonstrating permanencies and changes identified by the actors involved. Finally, with censorship written opinions as the main source of work, it was intended to identify differences of opinion as a tool used by these men to stand out in front of the monarch D. João. Thus, power relations, the dispute over prestige and the search for power will be the last point of analysis of the present work.