History

This study has two main goals. The first part intends to analyse the marriage strategies developed in the 17th and 18th centuries in urban and rural communities in the southern region of Portugal, highlighting the specificity of their demographic behaviours in comparison to other Portuguese populations, particularly in the north of the country. We will analyse temporal variations in the seasonality of marriages, the evolution of the mean age at first marriage, and the spatial model of spouse selection. To achieve this, we have employed micro-analytical procedures based on the characteristics of the demographic and genealogical databases at our disposal, built from the application of the parish reconstitution methodology (Amorim, 1991). The basic sources used to build these databases were the birth and marriage parish registers, from which the information was collected and organised into family records through systematic nominative linkage.
The second part of this study intends to identify the marriage strategies adopted by a privileged class of society – the familiares of the Holy Office. The sources employed in this approach were the processes of genealogical investigation and of pure blood inquiry the Portuguese Inquisition conducted on the familiares. These documents refer to members of the local nobility in the city of Évora and the rural elites of a neighbouring parish (Divor), including also detailed information on the ancestor generations of the individuals under investigation, on the lineage of their brides, as well as the corresponding places of birth and professions. This information was crossed with the family records that were incorporated in the demographic databases, which served to identify differentiated behaviours in this specific social group, in comparison with those observed in the general population.

Urbanization, poverty and clothing are central concepts for the comprehension of the societies of the Modern Age. The power of the elites was becoming visible through the signs and coded messages emanated and received. On this system, clothing is the central element, having been monitored and controlled throughout modern age. The relation of power summarized by clothing was made with the body of the individual and from it to other bodies, entailing competition between powers, limiting different social frameworks. Market availability, namely, supply and demand of specific goods, conditions or boosts ways of dressing and seem/pretend. The city affirmed itself as the preferred scenario for the practise of charity work, sharing with fashion the same competition context between diverse groups and their powers. Poor and rich establish, on cities’ streets, material and symbolic communication mechanisms.
Santas Casas, brotherhoods of immediate royal protection, asserted themselves, in Modern Portugal, as framing centres of the local elites through charitable practices inspired by the 14 works of mercy, on imitatio Christi and commitment to the salvation of the soul. Unmarried and widowed women, orphans of father and mother or craftsmen are groups who received great attention by charitable institutions due to their vulnerability to economic crises.
With Accounting Books of Santa Casa and the spending with clothing, we undertake an analysis and problematisation about gender, situation and state of the poor assisted by Misericórdia de Braga between 1650 and 1750. We also analyse which clothing typologies better adapt to the beneficiary of charity and to the specific market conditions which restrict choices. We want to contribute to the historiographic discussion around urban poverty and the role of Santas Casas for the maintenance of social order and stabilization of the prevalent family system.