The purpose of this Database is to systematize and expand the work of more than 40 years of research developed by the eminent professor and researcher, João Francisco Marques (1929-2015), historian of culture, the Church and religious thought.
The information collected here was gathered from individual publications and sermon collections in the National Library of Portugal, the Public Libraries of Évora, Porto and Braga, the Ajuda and Academy of Sciences Libraries, the Mafra Library and the General Library of the University of Coimbra, along with that provided by the Bibliotheca Lusitana, compiled by Diogo Barbosa de Machado and by the Diccionario Bibliographico Portuguez, by Francisco Inocêncio da Silva.
This is a database susceptible to onomastic, geographical and toponymic, chronological research, generated from a vast corpus of Portuguese sermonaria printed until 1820, with potential to expand the production of knowledge, within the scope of Political History, Portuguese Culture, and Religious Thought.
Recognizing the role of preachers and preaching in Ancien Régime societies, this database will allow, in the future, through a thematic search, to enhance research in the areas mentioned above, but it will also provide information on the economy, collective sensitivities and even on climate and environment, by the data it provides on natural cataclysms and disasters, as occurs, for example, with the earthquake of 1755. To this end, it is essential to link it to the latest developments in information science and management, using digital media.
The database is also intended to trigger, in particular through the hyperlink to the full text of the sermons, a questionnaire aimed at other dimensions less treated from their contents, including sociological, anthropological, political or specifically cultural ones. This orientation brings to this project a pluri-, if not transdisciplinary dimension, from which it is hoped to draw indisputable scientific contributions, to be explored by present and future generations.