Thus, many B ishops and P opes spent the days of their episcopate trying to defend temporal assets and rights, when they should have used them ‘for the sanctification of their flock and the edification of the Church’ (p. 101). He goes on to list cases of ‘exorbitant claims by ecclesiastics’ (p. 106), as well as cases where the Pope resorts to ‘remedies not only extreme, but far beyond his legitimate power’ (p. 103). The author criticises the fact that the royal power was not always firm in ‘upholding the rights of the Crown and the usefulness of the people’, at times proving to be vacillating, which ACA condemns. The sound principles of upholding the rights of the Crown were ‘flashes of natural light’, although unfortunately not sustained by ‘a fixed system’ .

One of the greatest privileges that could be granted to vassals, if not the greatest, was ‘civil and criminal jurisdiction’ in their Lands, and the provision of Ministers to administer justice in them. However, as ACA states, this situation could not last for long without a reform of ‘such a great excess in alienating the rights of the Crown’; the Sovereigns ’ path was only one, which is why D. Fernando passed a law restricting and modifying these donations, a law that was later incorporated into the Ordenação Afonsina [Aphonsine Ordination] . Finally, Monarchs were also sovereigns of the people and, since ‘the main cause of the quietness of the people, and the conservation of the vassals, is the guardianship of the forums, and their exemplifications’, Kings granted privileges ‘in proportion to their merit’ to each Judicial District and each Municipality.

In short, the search for political rationality and the defence of the public good allowed in the first period of the Monarchy, as well as at the end of the 18 th century, the K ing to act in the name of his sovereignty, a concept of sovereignty that for ACA had little or no limitation on royal power. ACA thus provides the historical basis for the political theory that ‘gave the K ing greater room for manoeuvre to carry out reforms’, be them social, religious and/or political, in the transition from the 18 th to the 19 th century; in particular, it supported the ideas of subordination of the Church to the State or a certain anti-feudalism (see A. Hespanha, op. cit., pp. 42-43) .

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | (Pdf)