The paper produces a story of vilancicos for Saint Gonçalo do Amarante, that are part of the Rio de Janeiro National Library Barbosa Machado Collection and presents reflections on the relation saint-devotees in the Portuguese Overseas Empire during the 18th century. The vilancicos are identified as a rhetoric poetic genre that reminds the saint and a religious practice that contrasted with others. It starts from a comparative perspective between the vilancicos and other evidences about the relation saint-devotee, and in particular, about the saint and his feast in a colonial and proslavery society. The article deals with the historiography centered in the notion of Empire, and with a bibliography of History and Social Sciences pointed to the relation saint-devotee, the holiness and the feasts.
sainthood; devotion; vilancicos