Religious men in arms: The riot of the Augustinians of the East India Congregation (Goa, 1638)

Abstract

This paper analyzes the movement of independence and autonomy of the East India Congregation and the attempt of rupture with the Mother House of the Portuguese Augustinian Province in the year 1638. The use of weapons by religious men highlighted the violence of the upheaval. The decade of 1630 corresponded to years of tensions for the Augustinians of the East, with repercussions in the centers of royal and ecclesiastical powers in Goa, Lisbon, Madrid and Rome. The reading of a codex with extensive documentation, generated within the bureaucracy of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide in Rome is the starting point, in addition to a set of missives between the viceroyalty of the Estado da Índia and Madrid. The approach unfolds in three segments: the Augustinian missionary activity in the East, the imperial conjunctures of the 1630s and the Augustinian institutions in Goa, and the June 1638 uprising.