Votes in favour of the Regalism in the High Clergy of Charcas (17th Century)

Abstract

In La Plata (nowadays Sucre, Bolivia), reflections on the best way of governing and harmonizing civil and ecclesiastical authority were of particular interest at the end of the 17Th century. The most important text of that time is a voluminous treatise written by the Sardinian Pedro Frasso, a public prosecutor of the Royal Audience mentioned above. Some of the highest personages of the city (among them five ecclesiastics) eulogized this jurist by means of letters published within the preliminaries to the two volumes of the treatise. I would like 1) to situate these paratexts with regard to the controversies about the regalismo; 2) to outline the profile of the authors; 3) to make their argumentation visible; and 4) to explain the motivations of their adhesion while others remained silent.