the wills of the kings of portugal between the 12thand14thcenturies tugal and the Algarve, we adore and firmly believe and confess and believe in the holy Church and mother and head of all faithful Christians”), entering into a harangue in which he dwells on death and the final judgement: This is followed by long recitals of a biographical-political nature: an argument that leads the monarch to disinherit a group of his family members from the throne, and to affirm the nullity of his father’s marriage to Inês de Castro, his “barregã” (a mistress), in favour of his daughter Beatriz. Like that of Kings AfonsoIVandPedroI, the will of Fernando I is literarily rich and is from the pen of a notary or public notary, not from the chancellor-in-chief or his officials. The harangue we cited deals with spiritual matters, and does so with a beauty of spiritual considerations and arguments, designed for a real will, like the previous ones drawn up at a time when notaries were recognized in Portugal as good writers and cul252 44 Arnaut 1959, pp. 291–295. Considering we, the king, that nothing is more certain than death and none more doubtful than the time in which it will come, and fearing the most fearful judgment of that very high heavenly king and prince and lord of all kings, in which he will come judge all those he created in the world, but trusting in his very great and infinite mercy, for which he descended from heaven to earth and gave birth to a human body in which he suffered a very cruel death for the remission of sinners. And waiting for how after bodily death man can no longer speak, nor show himself anything of his desire, nor of his will. And considering how the illness of the body causes the understanding and reason that man must dwell and darken, it is because of the pain he suffers that he suffers not only temporal things but himself and his nature makes him forget. But in the health of our body and sanity of our understanding, which our Lord God gave us through his goodness, willing and desiring to be ready for that time and hour, which is a natural debt that every man is obliged to pay, out of necessity, in time of our health and that the understanding and mind of man uses and is powerful to use reason more fully can provide judgment and ordering of posthumous will better and more fully we make and establish and order our testament and declaration of our posthumous will in this which follows. Firstly….44
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