14 Melo 2020, p. 50 and note 271; my translation. 15 Melo 2020, pp. 54−55. 16 These documents are currently deposited, along with the rest of the documentation, in two archives: the Portuguese National Archive Torre do Tombo, in Lisbon, and the Municipal Archive of Guimarães. In these testaments, the Collegiate was one of the beneficiaries (if not the only one), regardless of whether they were granted by a member of the community or by a layman, either male or female. We only worked with wills from the “Private documents” series, which do not include royal documents. For Portuguese royal wills, see the article by Saul António Gomes in this volume. 17 Ferreira 1997 is an example of a study of testamentary legacies of bedlinen and clothes mentioned in the wills of Guimarães in the second half of the 13th century. 18 As an example, we can refer to a will draw up in 1291: after the will’s text itself, written by the same notary public that drafted the will, it is stated “Estas son as devidas que Pero Meendiz dixe que devia”; this statement is followed by a list of those to whom he owed money. The Testaments of the Collegiate maria cristina cunha The Black Death in the middle of the 14th century greatly affected the Collegiate of Guimarães. The effects of this epidemic on the institution are made evident by the reference to the lack of clerics for liturgical services in the following decades. With the reduction in income, it was no longer possible to offer victuals after the recitation of the Hours, as had usually been done in previous times. This led to a progressive loss of importance for the Collegiate church among the population.15 At the same time, the high death rate of farmers led to the depopulation of the land, which resulted in lower revenues. As was mentioned, the circumstances surrounding the formalization of Master Fernando’s last wills were the motivation we had to investigate the testaments of the 13th and14th centuries that can be found in the archive of the Collegiate of Santa Maria da Oliveira de Guimarães.16 We are aware that, as an expression of a person’s last wishes, the medieval will was first and foremost the result of a religious process. The wills have a remarkable interest for other reasons too: they allow for a multiplicity of approaches that include aspects as varied as testators’ networks and relationships, social concerns (e.g. the poor, dowries, etc.), economic elements (the valuable goods that the testator possessed,17 what “is owed” and what “is to be received”18), as well as religious aspects 539
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