The Brotherhoods in Brazil

Contribution to Church, Society and Culture

Abstract

Lay Brotherhoods, especially between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, constituted central forms of religious and social organization in the Luso-Brazilian world. Structured as associations of the faithful, they combined devotion, mutual assistance, and functions of regulating community practices. As spaces of sociability, they articulated ethnic, professional, and territorial identities, creating mechanisms of belonging and prestige. Among Black populations—free, freed, and enslaved—the Brotherhoods assumed particular significance, functioning as arenas of solidarity, cultural preservation, social mobility, and the negotiation of rights within a deeply hierarchical society. Beyond their spiritual dimension, they exercised an important assistential role, ensuring dignified burials, care for the sick, and social protection, thus establishing themselves as essential institutions within the urban and religious fabric of the colonial and imperial periods.