intimate life. Therefore, the importance of this documentation lies not only in its content, but also in its rarity, especially for older periods. In these circumstances, the social status of the testator is also a relevant factor, as studies regarding diplomas relating to royal and ecclesiastical personalities and members of the nobility have been subject to well-known research.5 However, our documentary collection gives us a glimpse of the medieval lay men and women, among citizens, sailors, merchants, knights, and squires. We shall focus particularly on some last wills and testaments formulated by the notaries public of Porto from a diplomatics point of view. Of the exact total of notarial documents analysed (1353), only 44 of them are testaments. This may seem a low figure, but the wide variety of information contained in them deserves a thorough investigation of the content, such as diplomatic formulas, the various actors portrayed, and the specific stipulations of their last wishes close to the time of death. The first testament dates from 21 October 1260 and the last one from 13 August 1500.6 The use of testaments was widespread in the medieval period; they were seen as documents with a strong eschatological content (underlying the entire document) and religious content (usually manifested in the initial formulae), thus presenting a particularly spiritual endeavour.7 This type of documentation has a strong notarial component, and according to Hermínia Vilar, “materialised in the use and juxtaposition of stereotyped clauses and formulas, constitutes an element of filtering and distancing in relation to the testator and their capacity for individual intervention”.8 5 Pizarro 1999, pp. 219-234. 6 Arquivo Distrital do Porto (ADP), São Domingos, Resumo das Collecções, fl. 64v-72, published in Seabra 2018, pp. 290-98. 7 Vilar 1995, p. 55. 8 Vilar 1996, pp. 165–66; my translation. The formulae of the testaments ricardo seabra 519
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