The regular clergy facing the first Bourbon reform (ca. 1700-1750): between immobility and slow adaptation

Abstract

The objective of this paper is the study of the attitude of the regular clergy in the face of the criticism received in the first half of 18^th century. By reviewing a varied number of sources (economic-political literature, documentation from Spanish-Roman relations, and various texts written by members of religious orders) this work analyses the positions of the professed clergy in the face of three controversies, namely the accusation of encouraging the depopulation of the kingdom, the attempts at fiscal reform in the 1740s, and the reception of the Apostolici Ministerii bull (1723). Among the most outstanding contributions to this article, it is important to highlight the study of the Manifiesto del recibo de rentas (1743), a rather unknown work by Father Sarmiento. This text is crucial to understand the Benedictine’s intellectual profile and the opposition of the regular clergy to Bourbon reformism in fiscal terms. The plurality of attitudes detected oscillates between immobility and gradual adaptation. Although the religious orders managed to avoid the imposition of far-reaching reforms, the analysis of the disputes that existed between 1700-1750 is essential to understand the attacks that were to come about in the subsequent decades