ON MISERIA AND MISERICÓRDIAS IN PORTUGAL IN THE 14TH AND 15TH CENTURIES

• Grant number: 23/00734-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: February 01, 2024
• Status: Discontinued
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Ancient and Medieval History
• Principal Investigator: Susani Silveira Lemos Franca
• Grantee: Eduardo Lima de Souza
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais (FCHS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Franca. Franca , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/03643-4 - GOVERNING EXPENSES IN PORTUGAL BETWEEN THE 14TH AND 15TH CENTURIES, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

Between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, recommendations on merciful exercises circulated in the Christian kingdoms based on a significant and heterogeneous set of texts, such as moralizing treatises, confession manuals, synods, legal works and confraternity commitments. In Portugal, specifically, the intensification of the assistance practice occurred mainly as a result of the great plague of 1348, the famine resulting from the agricultural crisis, the conflicts with Castile, the frequent natural catastrophes, among other disastrous situations that motivated the union and help between people. Taking as a starting point this phenomenon in the Portuguese kingdom, between the beginning of the fourteenth century and the conclusion of the assistance reform - marked by the foundation of the Royal Hospital, by D. Manuel, between 1502 and 1508 -, the objective of this research is to investigate the main circumstances in which acts of mercy were recommended to laymen and clergy, as well as the main recipients commonly identified as deserving mercy for their miseries: miseries due to guilt; miseries by nature; and miseries for fortune. In other words, we will try to examine both the particularities of the experience of mercy, in its double dimension - spiritual, which comes from God, and earthly, which focuses on the neighbor -, and the profile of the miserable in the Portuguese kingdom at a time when there was a commitment on the part of scholars, rulers and confreres to justify - in pastoral, doctrinal works, legal works and commitments of Portuguese confraternities - care for others.