FOREWORD

The Revista Brasileira de História, launched in 1981 in order to provide an outlet for the dissemination of works by Brazilian professors and historians, is proud to release issue 63. Beginning with issue 59, RBH, which is published on a semiannual basis, became entirely digital and began offering an English translation of the magazine. The purpose of these innovations was to broaden periodical's range of circulation, allowing a reading public unfamiliar with Portuguese to have access to our work, while streamlining consultations of new and old issues. A tally of the Internet hits for the last ten issues of RBH has demonstrated the scale and scope that our publication can reach online. There were over 20,000 hits per month (more than 240,000 per year) for these last ten issues, a level of penetration that would be unthinkable for the printed magazine, confirming the importance the Internet as a precious tool that allows us to disseminate the contents of the magazine and increase access to historiography produced in and about Brazil.

For this issue, the Editorial Board chose the theme of "Church and State" for the dossier, which has been significantly expanded. In the past, RBH presented a dossier with approximately five or six articles and a miscellaneous section with a similar number of articles. However, there has been a growing interest in publishing works in the magazine from within the community of historians and social scientists, and each issue has seen the number of submissions steadily rise. For our two most recent issues, we received more than two hundred articles, many of which were peer reviewed, which led us to expand not only the dossier, but also the quantity of miscellaneous articles. The desire to publish Brazilian historiographical work in outlets capable of reaching an international audience is a welcome change, yet it also presents many challenges for RBH, indicating a need to not only increase the size of our issues but also the frequency of our publication. As such, this issue contains a total of 18 articles.

Ten articles were selected for this dossier, focused mainly on religious issues in Portuguese America. There are also three articles set in Independent Brazil (Empire and Republic) and articles focused on conceptual and historiographical discussions. We begin with the text by Vinicius Miranda Cardoso, "The City of St. Sebastian: Rio de Janeiro and the commemoration of its patron saint in Jesuit writings and rites, c.1585", which analyzes the Jesuit's ceremonial practices and discourses relating to the arrival in Rio de Janeiro of a relic of St. Sebastian, within the context of a Jesuit visit that took place between 1584 and 1585. Based on several sources, it also focuses on the collective and sacramental remembrance of St. Sebastian's protection of the founders Rio de Janeiro and the consecration of the saint, who is commonly depicted being shot through with arrows, as the city's patron saint. In "Cross and Crown: Church, state and jurisdictional conflict in colonial Maranhão", Pollyanna Gouveia Mendonça Muniz examines eighteenth century jurisdictional conflicts between the Church and state, when the Marquis of Pombal came into power with a regalist policy that increasingly sought to secularize the Portuguese state. The author accompanies the conflicts and motives behind this jurisdictional dispute and analyzes the contempt with which ecclesiastical immunities were treated in Maranhão. In his article "In the arena of the sacred: political power and religious life in the Goiás mines", Fernando Lobo Lemes analyzes the conflicts and clashes between secular and ecclesiastical authorities in that region of Brazil. In the text ""Your Grace in our feelings": devotion to the Virgin as a guarantee of salvation of souls in an eighteenth century devotion manual", Eliane Cristina Deckmann Fleck and Mauro Dillmann analyze the manual Mestre da Vida que ensina a viver e morrer santamente, published during the first half of the eighteenth century. The main focus of the article is an analysis of the orientations that the believers should follow in their worship and devotional practices. The analysis includes recent historiographical discussions regarding reading practices, including the many forms of appropriation and reception of texts, inserted in their contexts of production and circulation. Ana Rosa Cloclet da Silva's "Politician priests and their solidarity networks: an analysis of role of priests in the 'sertão' of Minas Gerais (1822 and 1831)" examines the profile of Brazilian priests who uniquely allied their pastoral and intellectual formation with political action in favor of their private interests, seeking to take advantage of their social networks in order to resist the norms imposed by the state following its declaration of independence in 1822. The next article, "Republican modernity and diocesanization of the Catholicism in Brazil: the relationship between state and Church in the Brazilian First Republic (1889-1930)" by Maurício de Aquino, deals with the effects of the Proclamation of the Republic and the end of the padroado, which led to the implementation of a process of ecclesiastical reform and reorganization whose core consisted of the creation of dioceses and similar jurisdictions, which could be referred to as diocesanization. In "Gustavo Corção: guardian of the 'linha-dura'", Christiane Jalles de Paula aims to analyze the participation of lay persons from the Catholic Church in the legitimization of the military coup of 1964. The author seeks to show how the arguments of Gustavo Corção sought to legitimize the anti-democratic foundations of the military regime's "democracy."

The second group of articles in the "Church and State" dossier features reflections on the concept of holiness and Christian royalty in the Middle Ages, as well as analysis of the relationship between these two spheres. Igor Salomão Teixeira's "Time of sanctity: reflections on a concept" presents an analysis of the canonization of Thomas Aquinas (1323-1274). The author explains how the concept of sanctity, as it is presented, becomes a collectively constructed social phenomenon. In "The king and the kingdom under the eye of the preacher: Vincent of Beauvais and the concept of Christian kingship in the 13th century", André Luis Pereira Miatello uses Vincent of Beauvais's De morali principis institutione to discuss the criteria, the institution and the social function of Christian kingship in the thirteenth century. The aim is to contrast the ancient figure of the royal pastorate with the idea of reasons of state. Writing his treatise for the Capetian King Louis IX, Vincent of Beauvais contrasted the ordinary situation of the political and historical government to the social model called ecclesia, a supernatural reality. Finally, in "Churches and State", Olivier Abel provides the reader with a bibliographic overview that includes different situations and different authors related to the relationship between these two powers.

The miscellaneous section includes eight articles. In "Luso-Brazilian Correspondence: a narrative of an intercultural transit", Clara Maria Laranjeira Sarmento e Santos explores the intercultural experience between Portugal and Brazil, during the early nineteenth century, of two families from the landed gentry of northern Portugal, with particular attention paid to the intercultural journey of the women involved. The work articulates the concrete contexts and clearly situates its object of study, in order to build an understanding of different historical moments, rationalities and worldviews. Eduardo Munhoz Svartman's "Professional and political education at Realengo Military Academy" analyzes the first stage of the professional training given to Brazilian Army officers who began their careers in the 1920s. Focused on an institution that aimed to train 'apolitical' officers, the author calls attention to the creation of a politicizing space within the school. In "A Cultural Diplomacy Project for the Republic: Revista Americana and the building of a new continental vision", Fernando Vale Castro seeks to analyze the publication as an tool of Itamaraty's strategy to draw Brazil and the rest of South America closer together, highlighting the role of diplomacy in the recently proclaimed Republic. Cleber Santos Vieira's "Civism, the Republic and textbooks" analyzes aspects of civility at the dawn of the Brazilian Republic, with particular attention paid to two school textbooks: História do Brasil ensinada pela biografia de seus heróis, by Silvio Romero (1890), and A História de São Paulo pela biografia de seus nomes mais notáveis (1895), published by Tancredo Amaral. On the one hand, the article shows the nuances of Historia Magistra Vitae present in these objects of material culture; on the other, it highlights the extent to which these history books were punctuated by disagreements about education or civic instruction, the affirmation of regional civism, as well as being the site of conflicts between the protagonists of São Paulo republicanism. Lucília Siqueira's "Hotels in São Paulo City in the first decade of the 20^th century: diversity in their size, location and services" analyzes three hotel establishments of different sizes, highlighting their heterogeneity. Using the post-mortem inventories of the hotel owners, the article displays the variety of equipment and services available at the time, as well as the diversity of people who owned such establishments. In the text "When the dragon takes the horse's place: a post-colonial character in Xul Solar's criollo painting", Maria Bernardete Ramos Flores analyzes how this artist, who represented the vanguard in Argentina, developed the belief that America, with its myths and belief systems, revealed a spiritual space in which a new humanity would develop, using the dragon to subvert the flow of colonization in the New World. Antonio Maurício Dias da Costa's "Festivities and urban space: music broadcasting and dance parties in 1950s Belém" discusses the use symbolic references, from memories and printed periodicals, ascribed to the socio-spatial context of orchestral and sonoro balls in Belém, at the so-called 'social clubs' and 'suburban clubs.' Raquel Varela's ""One, two, three MFA...": the rise and fall of Portugal's Armed Forces Movement (MFA)" analyzes the April 25, 1974 military coup that put an end to 48 years of the Estado Novo dictatorship in Portugal. It seeks to explain the rise and fall of this movement of Army officers, how it won popular support and the reasons behind its collapse.

This issue also includes four reviews: Rodrigo Patto Sá Motta analyzes João Goulart: uma biografia, by Jorge Ferreira; Lívia Lopes Neves discusses Leituras, projetos e (re)vista(s) do Brasil (1916-1944), by Tania Regina de Luca; Cristina Ferreira reviews Cláudio Manuel da Costa: o letrado dividido, by Laura de Mello e Souza, and Luciana Fernandes Boeira examines Présent, nation, mémoire, by Pierre Nora.

Once again, we invite our readers to consult the Anpuh and SciELO websites and download to their computers or digital readers the articles of interest to them.

Marieta de Moraes Ferreira

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  28 Aug 2012
• Date of issue
  2012