Doações e aquisições : a expansão fundiária do Mosteiro de São Bento na Paraíba (Século XVII

Abstract

This study analyses the territorial expansion of the Order of Saint Benedict in the Royal Captaincy of Paraíba, from the Benedictines’ initial establishment in the late sixteenth century through the developments of the seventeenth century, with particular emphasis on the forms of donation and acquisition that underpinned the consolidation of the monastic house’s patrimony. Departing from the question of how a contemplative religious order became embedded in the agrarian and legal mechanisms of the colonial world, the research examines petitions, official rulings, and property records preserved in the Livros do Tombo of the Monastery of Saint Benedict of Paraíba, alongside Benedictine chronicles, and compares these materials with contemporary cartography. The findings demonstrate that the patrimony did not emerge spontaneously or on strictly devotional grounds, but rather through a systematic strategy that combined grants by local authorities, purchases with the Order’s own resources, public auctions, and judicial settlements. This enabled the monks to control strategic areas within the urban nucleus of Filipeia de Nossa Senhora das Neves and, above all, extensive rural lands along the floodplains of the Paraíba, Miriri, and Mamanguape rivers. By securing water resources, fluvial routes, and fertile lands, the Order articulated itself with the sugar economy, incorporating cane-growing holdings and mills, and establishing a material base dependent upon enslaved labour – thereby revealing a substantive gap between the Rule and the everyday practices of colonial administration pursued by the monks in Paraíba. The study also traces conflicts over possession and mechanisms of legal legitimation, showing how the Benedictines operated within the interstices of the royal system to expand and defend their rights, including in the aftermath of the Dutch incursions, when patrimonial losses intensified and subsequent disputes over the restitution of real property became more frequent. The study concludes that Benedictine territorial expansion in Paraíba functioned as an instrument of power, financial autonomy, and political intervention, integrating the Order into the dynamics of occupation and consolidation of the local colonial space.