Couto, Sebastião do

Born in Olivença (a city now under Spanish administration) in 1567, Sebastião do Couto probably died near the Portuguese southern city of Borba (Montes Claros) on November 21^st, 1639. He reportedly lived his childhood in Olivença’s “Rua da Pedra” (“Stone Street,” known from 1936 on as “Calle Cervantes.”) Together with his brother Estêvão do Couto (1554-1638), Sebastião do Couto took part in the riots of Montes Claros (1637), a political uprising against the monarchy of the Philips celebrated as “revolta do Manuelinho” (see Melo 1660: 36 and Mendeiros 1969). His efforts against the Spanish Dynasty were later acknowledged by the future Portuguese King John IV (Oliveira 1991: 211). Reading a particular passage from Couto’s Commentary on Dialectics (On Interpretation I c. 1, q. 3, a. 3, p. 34), one of the titles of theCoimbra Jesuit Aristotelian Course, as a subliminal mention of King Sebastian, is not impossible. Recall that King Sebastian’s tragic death in 1578 near Ksar-el-Kebir (Africa) put an end to the Portuguese Dynasty. Sebastião do Couto joined the Society of Jesus in December, 8^th, 1582; he studied humanities in the Jesuit University of Évora until 1587, philosophy from 1587 to 1591, and theology from 1591 until his work in Lisbon as Pedro da Fonseca’s aid interrupted his studies in 1593. Notably, 1593 is the year four important titles of the Coimbra Jesuit Aristotelian Course were published in Lisbon: Meteororum, Ethica, De Caelo, and Parva Naturalia. After going back to Évora, Couto continued his theological studies and completed the M.A. in January 16^th, 1596. In 1597 he was sent to Coimbra to teach Philosophy in the Jesuit College, which he did until 1601, the year in which he went back again to Évora. While in Coimbra he may have composed the entire commentary on the Dialectica for the Coimbra Jesuit Aristotelian Course (Carvalho 1991: 653) and, sporadically, lectured in theology. While the details of his time in Coimbra are unclear, he definitely returned to Coimbra briefly in 1605/06 when the volume on Dialectica was on the verge of being published, coming back immediately to Évora to teach Moral Theology until 1610 and the First Chair (Prima) of Theology until 1620. He spent most of his academic life (1605/20) in Évora, first completing his doctorate in Theology on January, 23^rd, 1605 before becoming a professor – a manuscript by Couto on “de Verbo divino” dates from 1606 and several manuscripts on the Summa theologiae II^a-II^ae may also go back to that period of time – and later the university chancellor. For reasons not yet fully explained, his appointment to the Vice-Rectory of the College of the Purificação in Évora (1609) provoked an uprising of some civil and ecclesiastical authorities. Understandably, most or even all of the extant theological manuscripts by Couto date from this period in Évora and allow us to follow the subject matters of his teaching career (see paragraph below). During the fifteen year period in which he read Theology in Évora, he stayed in Lisbon during a short period (1612/13), “occupied with the revision and reform of the volume on Physics” of the Coimbra Jesuit Aristotelian Course (Carvalho 1991: 653). Since Couto alludes to two more of his unknown titles, De Caelo and De Anima III, it is possible that, besides, Physica, he had the task of revising Góis’s entire work in order to produce a second and duly revised edition of the Coimbra Jesuit Aristotelian Course. On June 19^th, 1619, he preached in Évora an “auto-de-fé” (Abrantes 1948; 200), and again on March 14^th, 1627 in Lisbon (Manso 1994). Between 1620 and 1627 he was again in Lisbon at the Jesuit Household (College of São Roque), and during this time he took a short voyage to Madrid where on 26^th September, 1623 he approved the publication of Serafim de Freitas’ De Iusto Imperio Lusitanorum Asiatico (Freitas 1625: 97) on behalf the Supreme Portuguese Council From March 1627 until 1630, he served as Rector of the Jesuit Household of Braga (the College of São Paulo), after which he spent some years in Coimbra and finally in Évora and its surroundings from 1637 until the tragic last day of his life on November 21^st, 1639.