“For the Good Order and Decorum of my Court” Decorum in Portuguese 18^th Century Political Vocabulary

In this text, I intend to present a discussion about the use and the meanings of the word “decorum” in the context of the Portuguese literate culture of the 18th century, considering the hypothesis that the vocabulary of a given society allows access to the historical reality of that same society. From a varied documentation and bibliography on the subject, I adopt a methodological perspective that takes in consideration who used this word - decorum -, in which situations and with what intent. Likewise, the notion of representation is seen as part of the strategy to achieve the meaning attributed by different agents to that word. With that, I was able to find a new relationship as a rhetorical precedent of adequacy (or Latin decorum), present in Cicero and other authors of Ancient History, whose works circulate in an intellectual context, reaching mainly the domain of politics, as it was manifest in the expulsion episode of the Society of Jesus from Portugal and its domains.

Keywords:
Enlightenment; Portugal; Decorum