A Farmhouse in Santo António and its Administrators: Contribution for the Study of Entailing Institutions in Madeira (16th-19th Centuries)

Abstract

To contribute for the knowledge of entailing institutions (“morgadios” and “capelas”) on Madeira island is one of the objectives of this study case. It begins with the funeral chapel established in 1569 by Domingos Braga and his wife Beatriz Nunes, imposed on their farmhouse located in Santo António Parish, Funchal.
In the first part, we try to understand social and economic implications, following through time the process of transmitting the legacy to its heirs/administrators, until its extinction, with a reform starting in 1860.
The analysis of the documentation, in particular wills, motivated another type of approach that appears in a second part of the study: the salvation of the soul. It allows to know the spirituality and religiosity lived and to observe motivations that have led men and women, for centuries, to link their goods, making them indivisible and inalienable. They involved, ad aeternum, brothers, children, nephews and other people of trust, overburdening them economically with testamentary provisions: alms, masses and other pious costs. Ways of acting and thinking understandable by fear, by deep religiosity. Because of soul salvation and eternal life.

Keywords

Madeira island; Entailing; “Morgadios”; “Capelas”; Salvation; Soul.