1706. Carta de Manuel Carvalho Marques para Diogo da Silva de Gouveia e Abreu, juiz de fora.

Private letter from Manuel Carvalho Marques to Diogo da Silva de Gouveia e Abreu, judge.

The author gives the recipient some news about what is going on in his town and about the inquest that the archbishop of Évora had ordered against him.

The defendant in this case is Diogo da Silva de Gouveia e Abreu, judge in the town of Torrão, arrested by the Inquisition on February 22, 1707, for activities contrary to the Catholic faith. The judge had a lawsuit with the justice of Évora on matters of the finances and royal jurisdiction, causing the displeasure of a bishop who resisted justice. The situation resulted in his excommunication by the archbishop of Évora and the launching of an inquest against him by the Ecclesiastical Court, which charged him with fabricated crimes, using, as witnesses against him, people whom Diogo da Silva de Gouveia e Abreu had punished in the execution of the royal justice, and others who were summoned for that purpose. These witnesses accused him of mocking the excommunication and of ignoring it, continuing to go to mass, to say bad things about the archbishop of Évora and to declare that he would obey only the king. The letters found in his process were presented by the defendant as proof of what has been said in a petition he made to the Holy Office. The process contains no sentence.