• 1 Jack Goody, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe, Cambridge, Cambridge University P (...)

1Jack Goody argued that the Church was interested in the weakening of family ties in order to enhance the possibilities of attracting inheritances, thus developing a series of prohibitions in order to reduce the number of marriages and thus limit the number of heirs.1 Like elsewhere in Europe, religious institutions in Portugal took a big share of such inheritances, but a set of confraternities, the Misericórdias, became particularly important beneficiaries of the failure to provide heirs on the part of ‘heirless’ testators and received the latter’s resources in return for the saying of masses or charity to the poor.

• 2 They survive today as important institutions in the Portuguese economic and political arena.
• 3 In spite of the recent wave of historiography on the Misericórdias, authored by Maria Antónia Lopes (...)

2The Misericórdias were the most important confraternities during the early modern period in Portugal; they were designed to cater for the poor through the practice of the fourteen works of mercy and would administer most local hospitals by the second half of the sixteenth century. The first Misericórdia was created in Lisbon in 1498, but many others, modelled on its example, were formed all over the Portuguese-speaking world. In spite of a general framework inspired by the various regulations (Compromissos) of the Misericórdia of Lisbon, the Misericórdias were independent from one another, adapting their own rules to local specificities and organizing their charitable services according to the post-mortem wills of the donors. By the eighteenth century there was a confraternity of Misericórdia in every concelho –a group of parishes liable to have a municipal council–, and they spread to all the territories under Portuguese administration in the overseas empire.2 They were under royal protection but their growth was possible only through donations of the pious and devout Christians. That is, the Misericórdias congregated private resources into institutions that were civil in their political nature, albeit religious in their practices and main purpose, which consisted in the salvation of the souls of either donors or recipients of charity. They thereby congregated many pious donations, although most of them did not intend to redeem donors through the practice of charity, but by the saying of masses and offices for the dead. Charitable practices included a wide range of services, which surpassed the enunciation of the fourteen works of mercy of the Catholic catechism, as they included the dowering of poor orphaned girls.3

• 4 Maureen Flynn, Sacred Charity: Confraternities and Social Welfare in Spain, 1400-1700, Ithaca and N (...)
• 5 Martina Deuchler, “Ritual and Economic Succession in Premodern Korea”; Kentaro Matsubara, “Death is (...)

3Liturgical obligations ranged from a small proportion of the donors’ heritage to its entirety. The ritual nature of such religious services extended also to charitable practices; as Maureen Flynn pointed out, the latter were also ritualized during the medieval and early modern periods.4 Liturgical celebrations on behalf of the souls of the deceased and charitable practices involving corporal and spiritual assistance shared the same salvific character and were expressed within ritual performances. In the case of the Misericórdias, it must be kept in mind that alms were sometimes given collectively, the poor gathering in large numbers in the vicinity or in the yards of their buildings. Donors could finance the upkeep of a lamp in an altar inside a church. The awarding of marriage dowries to orphaned girls included a ritualized ballot to choose randomly from the many petitions. Those who received them were to marry on the same day in the church of the confraternity in a conspicuous public ceremony. Poor patients in the hospital were to attend mass, and confess their sins, as well as receiving the last rites. If they died and were too poor to pay for a proper funeral, the confraternity made sure they received a burial in its cemetery, accompanied by a mass. Thus, the Misericórdias can be considered ritual heirs, to use Martina Deuchler’s expression; however, it has to be taken into account that they were institutions and not individuals, as seems to be the case in China or Korea.5

• 6 The transmission of inheritances within the Spanish empire was however organized differently, as it (...)

4As shall be seen, the fact that the Misericórdias were spread in the territories of Portuguese oceanic expansion made them liable to be the transmitters of wealth from those who died far from their place of birth and family, either in Asia or Brazil. During the Dynastic Union (1580-1640), this role even extended to Spanish America and the Philippines, and thus the Misericórdias received inheritances from cities in the Spanish empire.6

• 7 Maria de Lurdes Rosa, “Mobilizing Resources for the Defence of Corporate Family: The ‘Founder’ and (...)
• 8 Ordenações Afonsinas, Lisbon, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1984, Livro IV, Título XCVIII; Ordenaçõ (...)
• 9 Ordenações Afonsinas, Lisbon, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1984, Livro IV, Título CII; Ordenações (...)

5In Portuguese laws sons and daughters were in theory expected to inherit in equal shares, although the third part of the estate, the terça de alma, was allowed to be bequeathed freely to whomever the testator chose. It was especially designed to cover funeral expenses and provide for the transit of the soul from purgatory to paradise through the saying of masses or practices of charity. However, this portion could be used to favour an heir above the others, thus transforming the system into one of unequal partibility, and reinforcing the existence of indentured property, the morgadio, in which a chosen heir received the most valued part of family heritage, both in symbolic and economic terms.7 As to illegitimate offspring, they could receive the terça in case their father was a noble and wished to leave it to them, provided that he validated it in his last will; in the case of non-nobles, all children were to inherit equally, legitimate and illegitimate.8 Also, the number of mandatory heirs was limited: the condition of herdeiro forçado only applied to sons and daughters or parents, thus ensuring that only vertical lines benefited from the estate, meaning that brothers and sisters, together with cousins and their offspring, were left out of inheritances (unless the testator included them in their last will), however, the law was very clear about the terça, which the testator might dispose of freely.9

• 10 In the long run, padrões de juro indebted royal finances to the point of compromising the revenues (...)
• 11 Maria de Lurdes Rosa, “Mobilizing Resources for the Defence of Corporate Family: The ‘Founder’ and (...)

7The wealth that the Misericórdias received could be invested in the purchase of land or urban rents, but the overwhelming majority was used to buy public bonds (padrões de juro), whose interests were mainly destined to the saying of masses on behalf of the souls of the deceased.10 It was up to the donors to stipulate such perpetual obligations, either in their last wills or in the institution of chantries. Both specified a fixed number of masses or other Catholic rituals, but could also include the building of a chapel. The creation of morgadios (entailed properties) was generally accompanied by a chantry (capela).11 All such contracts had in common the stipulating of liturgical celebrations on behalf of the soul of the donors or their relatives and friends; they tended to take up a significant part of the revenues of the assets assigned to pay up for such rituals, thus relegating charity to the use of surplus funds.

• 12 Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, 2nd edition, London, Routled (...)

8This article focuses on the donors of the Misericórdia of Porto. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the city of Porto could be characterized as a “contact zone”.12 Although the ships of the India Run (Carreira da Índia) always used Lisbon as its port of departure and arrival, the city’s commerce was busy, its merchants numerous and active, and, above all, the city participated very heavily in overseas emigration, as its region –the Entre-Douro-e-Minho– was the most populous of the kingdom. The Misericórdia of Porto reflected the general economic climate of the city: there were numerous merchants among its members, although these confraternities separated noble –first class– from non-nobles, members of “second quality”, enjoying a subaltern status when compared to the former. As in other Misericórdias, noble members exerted political dominance in the confraternity; however, they needed the commercial skills of merchants, who, in spite of integrating the less powerful contingent of members, were required to negotiate bonds, or transfers of capital, very useful skills when it came to cash in the inheritances bequeathed by donors.

• 13 Isabel dos Guimarães Sá, O Regresso dos Mortos. Os doadores da Misericórdia do Porto e a Expansão O (...)

9In a previous study, I have carried out an analysis of the total number of donors (257) who ingratiated the confraternity with legacies or inheritances, covering the period from its foundation in 1499 to the beginning of the eighteenth century.13 Out of this group, 101 men and women (39%) stated in their last wills that they were free to bequeath as they pleased because they did not have mandatory heirs. As such, they designated the Misericórdia as their heir, in exchange for the care of their souls. Few donors specified direct charitable deeds towards the poor, preferring by large the institution of perpetual masses. As such, the confraternity was always in need of money to succour its poor, and had to finance charity with the leftovers of the donors’ revenues after the liturgical obligations were paid.

• 14 Isabel dos Guimarães Sá, “Património e Economia da Salvação”, in Inês Amorim, Isabel dos Guimarães (...)

11Two examples of donors to the Misericórdia of Porto shall be analysed with some detail, because they epitomize the situation where there were no mandatory heirs. In both cases competing heirs, real or fictive, took the Misericórdia to court; they lost their cases. They also depict the role of the confraternity in ensuring continuity to their lineages through the perpetual saying of masses and charitable deeds, although, as we shall see, one of them did not have the opportunity to specify them. These two examples, chosen randomly, and without having the pretence of comparing between them, exemplify the many donors where we can sense tensions between eventual heirs among kin and the Misericórdia, an institution devoted to the performance of charitable or liturgical rituals on behalf of eternal salvation. In both cases, the conflicts between these two instances would have to be solved in court; especially when large inheritances were at stake, a large number of last wills were contested, compelling the Misericórdia to invest in legal skills through the hiring of solicitors and organize its presence in court by ordering two of its members to record procedures. Another common issue shared by these two donors is their connection to overseas expansion, the first through the possession of transoceanic objects and animals; the second is the typical successful emigrant enriched through emigration to Asia. Previous studies have demonstrated that the confraternity relied on overseas inheritances to accumulate wealth, and that the inhabitants of the city from the upper and middling social scale were in possession of artefacts, substances, and enslaved men and women of transoceanic origin.14

• 15 The administrative process relating to this donor is Arquivo Histórico da Santa Casa da Misericórdi (...)
• 16 See Felgueiras Gayo, Nobiliário de Famílias, Braga, Pax, 1938-1941, v. 10, p. 183.
• 17 Pedro de Brito, “O comércio portuense de vinho no séc. XV”, Boletim da Câmara Municipal do Porto, 2 (...)

12The case of Álvaro Vieira Dinis, who died circa 1612, illustrates a case where relatives were despised as heirs.15 He did not have legitimate successors; he did not either trust other members of his family or believe in marriage. Álvaro was a rural nobleman, although many of his family members were based in the city of Porto. He came from a noble line that included some aldermen (vereadores) of the city. He was the first son of Dinis Vieira, owner of Quinta da Conca, and his wife, Isabel Leme. His grandfather, Álvaro Vieira, lived in the Rua Nova do Porto during the reigns of King Manuel I (r. 1495-1521) and João III (r. 1521-1557), and served the municipality as a vereador for several years.16 However, Álvaro seems to have preferred his Quinta da Conca to city life. This farm, if accessed by land would be a day from Porto; however, its privileged location on the banks of the river, disposing of an embarkation point, meant that not only travel to Porto could be faster, but also that its agricultural products could be easily transported to the city. Álvaro left all his assets to the Misericórdias of Porto and Mesão Frio, the latter being at the time the last important town accessible by the river Douro (it can be navigated much further up at present).17

• 18 Nuncupative testaments were the only ones that admitted female witnesses. On the typology of testam (...)

13Álvaro’s provisions for his afterlife were to infuriate his kin, and caused the confraternity to wait until 1615 to take possession of his assets. He had died with a nuncupative testament, which implied that witnesses had to be summoned in order to confirm his last wishes. Oral testaments were used in cases of emergency in danger of death, and if the testator survived, she or he was to have a proper last will validated by the notary.18

• 19 The existing sources from the convent do not have information about nuns and other inmates, thus ma (...)

14As previously mentioned, Álvaro was not married and his parents had both died. Genealogies ascribe him an illegitimate son, Gaspar, but the sources kept by the Misericórdia also register an indeterminate number of illegitimate daughters entrusted to the convent of the Poor Clares of Porto.19

• 20 Arquivo Histórico da Santa Casa da Misericórdia do Porto (AHSCMP), Serie J, Banco 3, Livro 1, fl. 6 (...)
• 21 AHSCMP, Serie J, Banco 3, Livro 1, fl. 68v.
• 22 Ordenações Filipinas, Livro 2, Titulo 35 § 12. Pascoal José de Melo Freire, “Institusições de Direi (...)

15Álvaro’s case is also, among others that could be mentioned, a good source in order to study the strategies of fundraising implemented by the confraternity. First, as soon as its members heard that he intended to bequeath his assets to the Misericórdia, they sent informants to his farm when he was still alive to enquire in secret about his intentions, before “God took him without speech” (“antes que Deus o levasse sem fala”).20 He was obviously very sick at the time, and there was no question of a written testament; the confraternity worried that he became unable to speak. Second, the Misericórdia did some research on the status of his illegitimate son Gaspar, who had aspirations to be the leaseholder of lands owned by his father. Although as a nobleman the donor was not forced to leave anything to his illegitimate offspring unless he wanted to, the Misericórdia managed to make enquiries, and ascertained that Gaspar’s mother was a married woman whose husband was absent in Brazil.21 This fact, although superfluous in juridical terms (because Álvaro had not nominated him in his will), was most convenient, since the carnal conjunction between a married woman and a single man transformed the child into the offspring of “damned coitus” (coito danado), and thus gave him the status of spurious son. Thus Gaspar was a more sinful child than a natural son, whose parents saw no impediment to an eventual marriage and subsequent legitimation. In the case of a spurious child, legitimation had to be given by the king, and thus be required to the central institutions in Lisbon.22 It was not Gaspar’s legal situation, and as such the Misericórdia had nothing to fear except his nomination as the tenant of the farm, a situation that was thereby avoided.

• 23 A thousand cruzados were equivalent to 40.000 réis, the average sum of dowries awarded to poor orph (...)
• 24 AHSCMP, Serie D, Banco 8, Livro 4, fl. 264v [13 February 1619]. At least one of his daughters was n (...)

16At least eight first cousins, from both Álvaro’s mother and father lines, allied themselves to dispute his last will. In the case of three female members of this group, their husbands showed up to apply for a share of the inheritance. It is interesting to note that his illegitimate son, although married and with children, did not form part of this large group of objectors, probably because he had no legal rights to contest his father’s inheritance because his father was a nobleman. Also, it is possible that his ‘legitimate’ relatives wanted to put him aside. Two of Álvaro’s illegitimate daughters claimed dowries of a thousand cruzados each; however, the matter did not go further than this, which indicates that they gave up.23 The available sources do not confirm if they were the ones secluded in the Poor Clare convent, because it is possible that Álvaro had other daughters.24

• 25 One of the first cousins of Álvaro Vieira Dinis was the deceased Grácia Vieira, who was represented (...)

17The leader of the many litigators was Francisco Baião de Magalhães, then scribe to the municipal council, who expected to inherit through his wife, Maria Vieira, Álvaro’s second cousin. Had he not been in political disgrace, because he had sided against Philip II in the process that made the latter King of Portugal, maybe the outcome of the legal suit would have been different. In 1580 the troops of the loosing candidate, D. António Prior do Crato (1531-1595), had stayed for a few weeks in the city, before the Spanish ones took over, and as a consequence Francisco Baião was expelled from his post at the municipal council, in which he would later be reinstated. However, he was bankrupt when he died in 1617, a fact that may help to explain why he was so eager to inherit from his wife’s cousin.25

• 26 One witness declared that Álvaro had said he would not marry (“dizendo-lhe ele porque não casava re (...)
• 27 This sentence can be read in AHSCMP, Serie H, Banco 1, Livro 46, fl. 1v onwards.

18The final sentence of the court of appeal states several interesting issues, such as Álvaro’s proclaimed refusal to marry, and his dislike for his relatives, as he had been heard saying that the Misericórdia alone would take care of his soul and assets.26 When contesting the testament those relatives understandably alleged that the Misericórdia had bought the testimony of some witnesses. In any case, inheritances devoted to pious causes such as this were privileged in court, and the Misericórdia won the case, probably against the interests of some of Porto’s outstanding elites of the time, who were relatives of the deceased and claimants to his inheritance.27 Interestingly, Francisco Baião was himself a member of the Misericórdia. It was not rare that individual and collective interests of members of the brotherhood and their families collided with those of the confraternity; after all, both members and donors were part of the same elites of the city and its hinterland.

• 28 By 1562, his mother, Isabel Leme, was already a widow, but appears in several notarial contracts ac (...)
• 29 On cosmopolitan material culture, see Beverly Lemire, Global Trade and the Transformation of Consum (...)

19When the confraternity finally took hold of Álvaro’s mobile possessions, an inventory was drawn, and the things were auctioned in the yard of the confraternity’s building. His belongings can be identified as those of a rural landowner (agricultural instruments, horse trappings, raw wool, flax, cereal that his cottiers were to deliver to the Misericórdia, etc.). Álvaro owned not only Quinta da Conca where he lived, but also several parcels of land that both his father and mother acquired during the 1550s and beyond, to which Álvaro added his own acquisitions.28 This attests to the prosperity of the family during these years, although we do not know where it derived from. But other Álvaro’s mobile possessions suggest that either he, or someone in his family might have been to India. They included objects that made part of royal and princely collections such as bezoar stones or rings with Ceylon rubies, among several other exotic pieces of jewellery and textiles, thus transforming Álvaro, who probably had never been to Asia, in a material cosmopolitan.29

• 30 Arquivo Distrital do Porto, 4º Cartório Notarial do Porto, Notas para escrituras diversas, fl. 98v- (...)

21Our second case study is Manuel Fernandes de Calvos, who wrote his testament by his own hand in 27 august 1582, and had it approved by the notary the following day. He lived in the city of Hormuz, and was a native of Vila Nova de Gaia, a town in the south bank of the river Douro facing the city of Porto. A notarial document kept in the archives in Porto gives more information about this family. His father had seven children with his first wife, but only two daughters were alive in 1578. As they did not have news from Manuel Fernandes since his departure to India 25 years before, they had to go to the notary to make a deposit of the circa 51 thousand réis their brother had inherited both from his mother and father.30 This non-negligible inheritance places this family in an intermediate social level, as it testifies to a case where plebeian status was accompanied by a certain degree of economic wellbeing.

• 31 António da Silva Rêgo (ed.), Documentação para a História das Missões do Padroado Português do Orie (...)
• 32 For a description of Hormuz in the second half of the sixteenth century, see António Tenreiro, Itin (...)
• 33 Boyajian refers to a Manuel Fernandes who fled to Chaúl to escape prosecution from the Holy Office (...)

23Afonso de Albuquerque had conquered the island where the city was located in 1515, and the Portuguese kept the fortress until 1622, when they lost it to an Anglo-Persian force headed by the East India Company. Its location at the entrance to the Red Sea was strategic, and commerce prosperous, although the island was in practice a desert, with a salt mine, and unbearable hot temperatures. A Jesuit missionary wrote that the Portuguese spent the hot season in water basins, day and night, covered in water up to their chin.31 In practice, there were two administrations, the Portuguese and the Islamic, as the city was home to many Muslims; there also was a Levantine Jewish community.32 James Boyajian affirmed that Fernandes made part of the pool of New-Christian merchants that made business in the Estado da Índia; however, the sources do not confirm his Jewish ancestry.33

• 34 AHSCMP, Serie J, Banco 3, Livro 1, fl. 119v.
• 35 AHSCMP, Serie H, Banco 5, Livro 4, fl. 147v.

25Manuel Fernandes had become enormously rich in India, judging from the fortune that made its way from Asia to Lisbon and then to Porto. However, the sources do not refer to the businesses he engaged in. A narrative kept in the Misericórdia archives describes his life style: he possessed horses in his stables, and participated in collective horse rides together with the fidalgos of Hormuz. He also had filled the prestigious post of purveyor of its Misericórdia. Also, he is said to have lent money to the king in order to pay soldiers.34 As we shall see, he would continue to finance the king’s endeavours after his death, albeit unwillingly, as he stated in his testament that he did not want royal officials to interfere with the transfer of his wealth to Porto.35

• 36 In a minute of a meeting of the board of the Misericórdia, it is reported that its members decided (...)

26By 1594 the purveyor and brothers of the Misericórdia of Hormuz complained bitterly to the Santa Casa of Porto that they were not able to gather Manuel’s inheritance and send it to Lisbon because powerful men in the city were delaying the restitution of the money they owed to the inheritance. No doubt Manuel Fernandes had powerful debtors: one of them was one of the main authorities in the Muslim community of Hormuz, the guazil; another document states that the Portuguese captains of the fortress passed on the money to one another to invest in business. They were so powerful that the brotherhood in Hormuz recommended that the Misericórdia of Porto should send as soon as possible two respectable men or ecclesiastics with wide delegated powers from the pope as well as from the king in order to cash in the money.36

• 37 Historical Archives of Goa, Livros das Monções, Livro 2B (1595-1601), fls. 363, 381, letter from Ph (...)
• 38 AHSCMP, Serie D, Banco 4, Livro 9, fls. 309-310.

27However, king Philip I of Portugal (Philip II of Spain) would decide otherwise. In 1597 he wrote a letter to the viceroy where he gave instructions to seize Fernandes’ inheritance from the Misericórdias of Goa and Cochin, in order to buy pepper to send to Portugal on the return fleet.37 He referred specifically to the astronomical sum of 20,4 million réis (51 thousand cruzados) that belonged to a certain Manuel Fernandes; he mentioned that he knew about this money from an envoy of the Misericórdia of Porto who was in Lisbon at the time.38 That is, the latter had unwillingly caused the seizure of Fernandes’ inheritance, which was never to arrive to Portugal.

• 39 AHSCMP, Serie H, Banco 6, Livro 8, fl. 61v. On Henrique de Sousa and his absence in Madrid, see Fra (...)

29In Porto the Misericórdia had to wait long periods for both the news and the money. The confraternity knew about the inheritance in February 1594, but the copy of Fernandes’ last will arrived only in October 1596. In the meantime, a letter from the Misericórdia of Hormuz suggests that they had received a letter from Porto complaining that they had not sent a copy of Fernandes’ last will immediately. This fact was not certainly accidental. Two things might have happened: either the misericórdia of Hormuz was not interested in giving immediate knowledge of its contents, as it is stated that one of its purveyors was using the money, or the sea captains who were above the judge (ouvidor) prevented the latter from issuing a copy of the testament to be sent to Lisbon. Information was often contradictory, as the Misericórdias in Asia and those in Portugal took uninformed decisions, on account of intended misunderstandings such as this and the time that correspondence took to arrive to Porto. Meanwhile the brothers of the Misericórdia were spending large sums to cash the inheritance, and deploying huge individual and institutional efforts to negotiate it. They had to send emissaries to two political and administrative arenas: Lisbon, whose Misericórdia would receive the money on arrival of the India Run, and the Spanish royal court in Madrid, and eventually Valladolid. The confraternity sent letters and representatives to all those locations, but a register dated 1609 written by Baltasar Pinto Aranha, a brother who followed the process since the 1590s, states that the agency of the governor of the Relação do Porto, Henrique de Sousa, also a member of the confraternity, was decisive in order to get a bond from the king, as he was transferred to Madrid where he integrated the Consejo de Portugal.39

• 40 AHSCMP, Serie D, Banco 8, Livro 3, fl. 346v.

30All the documentation pertaining to Manuel Fernandes de Calvos is witness to the setbacks of bureaucracy and the heavy tolls it took to those who had to deal with it. It is also significant that the date of his last will, 1582, is abundantly referred to in the sources, but the date of his death was never stated in any of the nearly 80 registers that were surveyed regarding this donor. The notary where the testament had been drawn was required by the local judge (ouvidor) to issue a copy only in late 1592. Who knows if Fernandes had long been dead? As we shall see, everybody seems to have desired a share of his inheritance. This explains the delays in communicating the testament to the Misericórdia of Porto, its transformation into a public bond, and also the several juridical disputes it originated. And, last but not the least, the enormous efforts deployed in several Portuguese factories in the Estado da Índia in order to gather his fortune; as happened with other merchants in Asia, their trade connections extended to a vast geographical area. As far as 1609, the Augustinians in Goa were writing to the Misericórdia warning that the inheritance was still not entirely collected. They proposed to cash it in, if the Misericórdia gave half of the sums to be gathered to finance the building of the new Carmelite convent in Porto.40 Manuel Fernandes’ case is a good measure of the collective avidity inheritances aroused, especially with two oceans between donors and heirs.

• 41 AHSCMP, Serie H, Banco 5, Livro 4, fl. 165 [September 1598].

32There was also a chapel to be built, but this was another long process. António Machucho, his cousin and second executor, was a canon in the cathedral of Porto (a position that also documents the relative wellbeing of Fernandes’ family). Machucho was in charge of making decisions about the chapel. First, the authorities had to intervene in the arbitration of the amount to be spent in its construction; then, Machucho had to decide where it should be built. He chose the main chapel of the church of the Jesuit college of S. Lourenço, after refusing the possibility that the Misericórdia built it in its premises, either in the yard of its headquarters or in its hospital.41 Altogether, the saying of masses and the construction of the chapel represented only a small part of the transferred inheritance. The building of the chapel would cost four million réis –the total inheritance amounted to 46 million–, and the masses represented a mere 2,2% of the annual income provided by the bond. Furthermore, the administrators of the chaplaincy were under the scrutiny of the Misericórdia. Should they fail to provide for the saying of the masses, the confraternity could withdraw the annual rent. Both Machucho and Fernandes’ sister must have resented the enormous power of the Misericórdia held over their relative’s fortune. In fact, the confraternity was to receive and manage the bulk of the inheritance on behalf of the poor, leaving them with a small fraction of their relative’s fortune. As such, no wonder they were not willing to pass complete control to the confraternity, were Fernandes’ chapel to be built in the Misericórdias’ premises.

• 42 AHSCMP, Serie D, Banco 8, Livro 4, fls. 265, 276, 338v; AHSCMP, Serie D, Banco 4, Livro 12, fl. 163

33For reasons so far unknown, the Jesuits did not build the chapel, and transferred their contract to the new Barefoot Carmelite convent that was under construction outside the city walls. The Misericórdia was very displeased, because it did not have a saying in this new agreement, although the local judge had sanctioned it. Moreover, the confraternity did not deem the lateral chapel of the new convent where it was to be built worthy of the sum they had given to the Jesuits on the presupposition that it would occupy the main chapel of their college. The confraternity signed a new contract with the Carmelites only in 1621, on the condition they would use the main chapel of its church for the location of the chapel.42

• 43 AHSCMP, Serie J, Banco 3, Livro 1, fl. 119v.

34Manuel Fernandes’ inheritance was to be also entangled in court with various court cases. The most significant one lasted nine years from 1610 to 1618. A Venetian man, by the name of Marco Molina, claimed the inheritance for his wife, Ana Fernandes, whom he stated to be Manuel Fernandes’ daughter. According to the lawsuit, one of the latter’s slaves discovered to be pregnant after his death. Already in 1609, before the court case opened, the confraternity prepared the trial by summoning five jurists who were to prepare its defence. The Misericórdia also deployed a huge effort in gathering the testimony of witnesses in order to obtain information about Manuel Fernandes and this purported daughter. Some of them lived a long way from Porto; they were undoubtedly people who had got back from Asia or had heard information about the donor from hearsay. Thus, the Misericórdia recorded in its registers that the mother was a slave that a Portuguese man had brought to Fernandes.43 As was the case with Álvaro Vieira Dinis, the chances of illegitimate children were few in such disputes. The mores of Ana’s mother were discredited in court on the grounds that she had a past with several men. The court decided in favour of the Misericórdia, which received all the inheritance. Manuel Fernandes de Calvos was to be considered one of the main donors of the confraternity, which honoured him by having his portrait painted, one of the oldest that the Misericórdia of Porto keeps in its collection.

• 44 As is the case with several donors whose trajectories are reconstituted in Isabel dos Guimarães Sá, (...)

36The confraternity enjoyed privileged status; its work on behalf of the poor made it very difficult for any private person to win in court, no matter how serious his or her reasons. Especially in the case of illegitimate children, to whom the law did not favour except if they belonged to the non-privileged groups, the chances of winning proved insignificant. Both Álvaro’s and Manuel’s inheritances were contested by illegitimate children (and Álvaro’s also by his relatives); the confraternity refused all claims on moral grounds, discrediting their mothers through the allegation of unruly sexualities. This is certainly in contradiction with the confraternity’s goodwill in the acceptance of inheritances from persons who could not have enjoyed a good reputation in the community, such as moneylenders. Also, sexual mores were never discussed concerning donors, either male or female.44