hewills of the kings of Portugal, a kingdom consolidated in the 12th century and in a context of crusade warfare in the Iberian West, were diplomatic acts of primarily legal significance produced by the royal chancellery, notably to ensure legitimate succession to the throne; they are also of course of political and historical interest. The texts bear witness to the eras of their dissemination, and present a range of information on daily life, religious sensitivities, and cultural levels and practices in the courts of the kings of Portugal. The comparison of the wills of the nine Portuguese kings of the first dynasty (AfonsoI (1128–1185) until FernandoI (1367–1383)) also allows us to verify the diplomatic evolution of this typology of document issued by the royal chancery, involving their formulas (notably the arengae or sanctions), languages (at the beginning Latin but also the old “GalicianPortuguese” language already in 1211 with the will of AlfonsoII, and later Portuguese already fully modern), and methods of validation, transmission, and archival conservation of acts. T saul antónio gomes 237 Abstract
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