The Blessed Sacraments and the main churches in the 18th century in Minas Gerais

construction, residence and renovations

Abstract

Religious associations of lay people were very present in the villages of the Captaincy of Minas Gerais, gaining greater expressiveness throughout the 18^th century. In this context, the Brotherhoods of the Blessed Sacrament gained prominence when the foundations of towns and places were created, with the main attributes being the cult and promotion of the Consecrated Host, carrying out the Corpus Christi and Holy Week processions and, the focus of this work, the construction and maintenance of parish churches. Therefore, the objective of this study of Santíssimo contributed to the process of colonization and socio-spatial organization of Minas Gerais villages in the 18th century. In this sense, we considered the relationships established with local and metropolitan administrative bodies to carry out the various works undertaken during the century, and, above all, which corporation had members of the local elites as affiliates. To this end, we used the documentation present in the collections of the Minas Gerais Public Archive, the Overseas Historical Archive/Minas Gerais – Resgate Project and the Casa dos Contos Museum Archive. As considerations based on the documentation analyzed, which referred to communication between the members of the Santíssimos mineiros with local and metropolitan authorities, we highlight the participation of members of the local elite in assistance to materialize the construction, renovations and beautification of main churches to house and perform the worship of the consecrated Host, administer the sacraments, hold celebrations on specific dates for the association and, mainly, those that reinforced the connection between the colony and the metropolis.