Religion, social relationship and power - The Misericórdia of F. in its social religious context (19th-20th centuries)

Abstract

This article is meant to analyse, from an anthropological and historical point of view, the existing relationship between religion, social structure and power in a rural parish - a "freguesia" - of Beira, through a short essay on the local Misericórdia in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. This institution is, in this essay, considered while part of a system of social reproduction in its economical, political and symbolical dimension, which links its major leaders, the great owners, to the medium owners, to the peasants and to the rural day labourers, which, all together, are the elements it consists of.