Archaeology and religious identities: the example of the Évora Inquisition court (Portugal)
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2017-02-04

The origins of the Inquisition are related to the power that religion had in Medieval times, representing values as engines of collective lives. As a result, the Catholic Church and the Papacy took over, since the 12th century, the leading role in the fight against heresy. The Inquisition had its origin at that time, and its development through the Catholic world led to its official creation in Portugal in 1536, aiming the surveillance of the ‘purity of faith’, the suppression of heresy, and the discipline of religious beliefs and behaviors, essentially related with the Jewish presence in the Portuguese territory. In 2007/2008 an archaeological excavation took place in approximately 12% of the so-called Jail Cleaning Yard, the dump of the Évora Inquisition court. Having as starting point this archaeological excavation, this work aims to discuss several archaeological traces on how the Catholic Church developed mechanisms currently understood as radical to deal with the presence of religious minorities. Twelve adult individuals in articulation (3 males, 9 females) were recovered and a minimum number of 16 were identified from a commingled context. The absence of funerary ditches suggests that the bodies were deposited directly in the dump. Moreover, the variability of the orientation and position of the body and limbs, and the absence of grave goods are not in accordance with the procedures of a Catholic burial. These results are underlined by the fact that the individuals were recovered from a location that was not sacred. Also, the manuscripts from the Évora Inquisition allowed the identification of 87 prisoners who died during the period in which the dump had been in use (somewhere between 1658 and 1634), and showed that at least 11 (12.6%) of them were confirmed discarded in the dump, likely because they were charged of ‘Judaism, heresy and/or apostasy’. The archaeological traces, as well as the anthropological and historical contexts, are in accordance with the characterization of these individuals as unburied dead, that were not judge by the court of the Portuguese Inquisition and reconciled with the Catholic faith before they died. More than a penalty to the body, this was a punishment to the soul of the deceased. Nevertheless, we will never be certain if these individuals were really Jews, once it could happen that people made their accusations because they were afraid of being accused first. Also, the defendant never knew what crime he was accused or even who made the accusation. From this perspective, the archaeological findings have to be interpreted carefully, but also show us the climate of fear created in people’s everyday life. Even so, these individuals show a unique context which can be used in the future to help interpret other burials which do not fit within the usual scope of the Catholic burial rules in Medieval and Modern times.

Author - Magalhães, Bruno M., University of Coimbra, Jovim-Gondomar, Portugal (Presenting author)
Co-author(s) - Santos, Ana Lu sa, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal