A Peste Negra de 1347-53 é um evento singular na história humana por vários motivos. Entre eles, é habitual destacar-se a mortalidade muito elevada, a rapidez da sua propagação e um profundo impacto na memória dos sobreviventes e dos seus descendentes. Essa memória pode detetar-se de formas diversas, e uma busca intensiva na documentação coeva do Norte de Portugal revela a introdução de palavras e expressões intimamente ligadas a essa ocorrência traumática. Este capítulo é dedicado a um fenómeno desse tipo, relacionando a Peste Negra com a vulgarização do léxico da peste, sobretudo “pestilência”, entre os portugueses comuns da segunda metade do século XIV.

The first Portuguese Dynasty - Afonsina or Burgundy - is characterized by the warrior and reconquering personality of its kings as well as by the performance of these monarchs in the legal area. The period between the reigns of D. Dinis and D. Fernando was marked by the perfection of the judicial system, the official characterization of Portuguese as the language of the kingdom, the promotion of the arts and knowledge with the creation of the first university and the signing of the Treaty of Alcanizes (1279 ) that established the border with Castile. It was also a time of endless wars against the Castilian monarchy and other European kingdoms, plague epidemics and the dynastic crisis of 1383-85 that led to the enthronement of a new dynasty, Avis. The events that followed after the death of Don Fernando reveal a disturbance in the idea of continuity of power and the year 1383 definitively marks the end of the Afonsina Era. In this master's degree research in History, our purpose is to demonstrate how the phenomenon of death is inserted in the relations of power in the Low Portuguese Middle Ages. By means of the analysis of the wills produced by the king D. Dinis (government from 1279 to 1325), Afonso IV (from 1325 to 1357), Pedro I (from 1357 to 1367) and D. Fernando (from 1367 to 1383) we have had as objective in our research to examine how the elaboration of the image of death, the cult of these illustrious dead, the manifestations and funeral symbols represent the symbolic struggles for the permanence of the authority and the regal power, that is, as the manipulation of death appears as a strong element for the perpetuation of the power of the monarchs of the First Dynasty in Portugal. Thus, between bodies and graves, between the visible and the invisible, the funeral ritual served to legitimize the role of kings, head of the kingdom, before the rest of society. If the pluralist type of power was a feature of policy in the Middle Ages, the symbolic and ideological legitimization of the search for power was a constant effort of the monarchy. The structure of symbolic legitimation was always used as a way to consolidate the role of these monarchs as occupants of a prominent place in medieval Lusitanian society: real power imposes itself symbolically and through death we will show how this happens.

From documentary sources integrated by genealogies, chronicles and royal documents, this paper intend to broach the reign of King D. Dinis (1261-1325, king from 1279) and attitudes of D. Afonso, Lusitanian king's brother, and his daughters against this government. The sixth king of Portugal used their status of sovereign and supreme keeper of justice to undertake the process of control and attack to the rights of nobility intending to centralize the power of the Portuguese Crown. In the position of noble, D. Afonso was directly aggrieved by the royal policy and reacted to the attacks of their privileges with three riots started in 1281, 1287 and 1299. That also was part of strengthening political maneuvers of this infant: his marriage, and that of his daughters, with members of the Castilian nobility, aiming to expand alliances and thus his power against D. Dinis. Although D. Alfonso did not have obtained victories in their battles, or even may have blunted the momentum of the centralizing monarch Lusitanian, the infant started the revolt of this reign, whose end was marked by civil war of 1319-1324.

The aim of the paper is to systematize documental and chronological data about Pestis secunda, first plague outbreak that hit Europe after the famous Black Death, looking for an approximate chronology of the event in Portugal. A little more than a decade after its predecessor, this epidemic proved that the disease would become recurrent, and some exceptional sources allow us to dispute that the silence of the majority of the surviving documents means a minor impact in the lives of those who survived it.

Although the last decades witnessed major advances on the study of historical epidemiology, particularly the plague, the impact and consequences of the Black Death in Portugal remain largely unknown. This paper aims to propose a chronology of introduction and spread of the epidemic in Portuguese territory, offering a first attempt of reconstitution of infection routes and chronology. Although direct documentary references are scarce, they provide enough information to present a first draft destined to be improved, corrected, or contradicted by future research.

Some European historiographies, such as Spanish, Portuguese and Belgian, have made municipal power a privileged object of study. In Portugal, the municipal positions of small and medium-sized towns and the men who occupied them are still a promising field of analysis, but the documentary resources available do not always allow for their in-depth study, something that fortunately does not occur in the Algarve, especially in Loulé. Thus, I will study the organisational structure of this municipality, the elections and recruitment of municipal officers, the attempts of other powers to influence these practices and the sociological profile of the individuals who occupied these positions, in order to contribute to a better understanding of these realities in the small towns of medieval Portugal.

The visitation of the abbot of Clairvaux Pierre de Virey to the Iberian Cistercian monasteries in 1490-1493 left a written record shedding light upon his conception of the reform of the houses of the Cistercian Order in the peninsular kingdoms. The present paper, an examination of a recently discovered and hitherto completely unknown visitation, considers the different perspectives of that reform for the specific case of the monastery of Alcobaça at the end of the Middle Ages.

Os conflitos surgidos no reino de Portugal, nos finais da Idade Média, em torno do pagamento das conhecenças ou dízimos pessoais, levaram à constituição de autênticas "listas de conhecenças" por alguns dos poderes responsáveis pela sua perceção. Depois de uma breve contextualização histórica da cobrança desta exação, proceder-se-á à caracterização desta tipologia documental, de modo a avaliar as suas potencialidades e os seus limites para a compreensão da organização dos mesteres em Portugal no final do período medieval.

Great cultural and ideological change occurred during the medieval period in Portugal, with the emergence, coexistence and departure of various Islamic, Jewish and Christian populations. Historical documentation generally focuses on main events, while the more nuanced aspects of multicultural interaction, identity and origins have often been overlooked. By studying populations from different urban centres, prospering diachronically at different rates (Santarém, Palmela and Lisbon), this research has aimed to facilitate better understanding of inter-cultural exchanges from the Islamic conquest onwards within “melting-pot” communities. Skeletal material (bones and teeth) from Christian/Jewish and Islamic necropolises provides direct evidence of behaviour and movement, through anthropological and biogeochemical analysis. Dietary habits and choices (such as consumed plant-types and protein sources) and mobility patterns (individual and/or population movement) are archived in the chemical composition of skeletons throughout life. In this study, stable carbon (d13Ccol, d13Cap), nitrogen (d15N) and sulphur (d34S) isotope ratios were analysed in bones, and stable oxygen (d18O), carbon (d13Cen) and radiogenic strontium (87Sr/86Sr) isotopes were analysed in tooth enamel from selected skeletons from Avenida 5 de Outubro #2-8 (Santarém: 8th – 10th century), Castelo de Palmela (Palmela: 12th – 13th century) and Rua dos Lagares #74 (Lisbon: late-15th – early-16th century). The dietary and mobility patterns discerned through the biogeochemical analysis, in combination with historical, archaeological and anthropological information, have provided improved understanding on behaviour influenced by environmental and/or cultural aspects (which may also be linked to socio-economic factors). Medieval Portuguese diets were predominantly C3-based with greater exploitation of marine/aquatic resources after the 12th century. Non-locals were identified in each site, which likely furthered the prevalence of cultural interactions. The results obtained from this research have facilitated greater knowledge of behavioural patterns in each context and, subsequently, more detailed insight into the character and composition of Portuguese multi-cultural urban communities between the 8th and 16th centuries; CONTEMPLATE: Interculturalidade das comunidades urbanas em Portugal medieval: Uma investigação multidisciplinar do dieto e da mobilidade em esqueletos muçulmanos e cristãos de Santarém, Palmela e Lisboa - Resumo: Grandes mudanças culturais e ideológicas ocorreram durante o período medieval em Portugal, com o surgimento, coexistência, e partida de várias populações islâmicas, judaicas e cristãs. A documentação histórica regista principalmente os grandes eventos, enquanto aspetos mais subtis, relacionados com a multiculturalidade, identidade e origens têm sido frequentemente descurados. A partir do estudo de populações de diferentes centros urbanos (Santarém, Palmela e Lisboa), que prosperaram diacronicamente a ritmos distintos, este projeto procurou aprofundar o conhecimento sobre a interculturalidade em comunidades “melting-pot” desde a conquista islâmica. Análises antropológicas e biogeoquímicas realizadas a material osteológico e dentário de necrópoles cristãs/judaicas e islâmicas facultaram evidências sobre comportamentos e mobilidade. Os hábitos alimentares (p.e. tipos de plantas e fontes de proteína consumidos) e os padrões de mobilidade (individuais e/ou populacionais) ficam registados na composição química dos esqueletos ao longo do tempo. Neste estudo, determinaram-se as razões isotópicas de carbono estável (d13Ccol, d13Cap), nitrogénio (d15N), e enxofre (d34S) em ossos, e foram analisados isótopos de oxigénio estável (d18O), carbono (d13Cen) e estrôncio radiogénico (87Sr/86Sr) no esmalte dentário de esqueletos selecionados provenientes de três sítios arqueológicos: Avenida 5 de Outubro #2-8 (Santarém: sécs. VIII-X), Castelo de Palmela (Palmela: sécs. XII-XIII) e Rua dos Lagares #74 (Lisboa: finais do séc. XV - início do séc. XVI). As tendências de dieta e mobilidade determinadas pelas análises biogeoquímicas, complementadas pela contextualização histórica, arqueológica, e antropológica permitiram aprofundar a compreensão sobre comportamentos influenciados por fatores ambientais e/ou culturais (que podem também estar relacionados a aspetos socioeconómicos). As dietas medievais portuguesas eram predominantemente baseadas em C3 plantas, com uma maior exploração de recursos marinhos/aquáticos após o século XII. Foram identificados não-locais em cada sítio, o que provavelmente contribuiu para a prevalência de interações culturais. Os resultados obtidos a partir do material osteológico dos três sítios arqueológicos referidos, possibilitaram incrementar o conhecimento sobre padrões comportamentais em cada contexto, e consequentemente, alargar a atual noção sobre o caráter e constituição das comunidades urbanas multiculturais em Portugal entre os sécs. VIII e XVI.