History, Law and Orientalism under Portuguese Colonialism in Eighteenth-Century India

The common narrative of the Portuguese state in India from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century is, following contemporaries like Manuel Godinho, that of the four ages of man. The development of the Estado da Índia runs from its birth during the discoveries, via its youth, the ‘golden age’ (ranging from roughly 1500 to 1520) through its maturity or, to stick with the age metaphors, its ‘silver age’ from c. 1520 to 1570 to senility, or ‘age of decline’. The decline is a long one though: now generally considered to start in 1570 and covering the following two centuries. And one may well wonder whether ‘ decadênria ’ is truly the appropriate way to approach such a long period.