The latest “Entail of the Month” initiative presents the Pêro Viseu Estate located in Fundão. It was here that Luís Machado Freire, Prior of Pêro Viseu, drew up his will, approved by a notary on 24th November 1696. In a meticulous document reflecting the 17th century Portuguese social mentality, Luís Machado Freire instituted two trusts out of the extent of his estate. One of these was bequeathed to Maria Machada and the other to Isabel Machada da Cunha, both his sisters. However, these trusts were not destined to remain separate. It was the testator’s aim that his nephews, Diogo Dias Machado (Isabel Machada da Cunha’s son) and Maria Machada (Maria Machada’s daughter), would marry and thus unite the estates. However, what most impresses is the cultural and intellectual level of Luís Machado Freire. The testator ordered 1000 réis of his trust income be set aside each year for its owners to buy books and establish a library on the estate with “all the books that can be used in the kingdom of Portugal”, for which there would be an inventory and with the administrators responsible for its care, subject to penalties should any copies be lost or damaged. Similarly, Luís Machado Freire set aside 500 réis per year to acquire offensive and defensive weapons (swords, arquebuses, muskets, rifles, pikes, taffeta gibbons, chain mail, etcetera), also subject to inventorying. Already into the 19th century, through the marriage of Isabel Osório de Macedo, administrator, to Jerónimo Trigueiros de Aragão, Viscount of Outeiro and Count of Idanha-a-Nova, the patrimony of this trust was incorporated into the family but nevertheless ended up being dispersed in the wake of the 1863 abolition of entailment trusts in Portugal. However, its memories persist and are present today in the various buildings constructed by the descendants of Luís Machado Freire’s sisters across locations in Pêro Viseu and Chãos, including the manor’s chapel, first dedicated to St. Francisco Xavier, as determined by the founder, and later to St. Romão.

To find out more details about this entail, go to this page with all the Entail of the Month information.

Here, you may also find out about the other entails made available in the meantime, at:
https://www.vinculum.fcsh.unl.pt/entail-of-the-month

You can also contribute to this initiative by making suggestions for future entails of the month and any details you may be able to provide. To this end, please contact the project at: vinculum@fcsh.unl.pt .

The VINCULUM project is funded by the European Research Council (ERC) and led by Maria de Lurdes Rosa, Professor of NOVA FCSH and researcher at the Institute of Medieval Studies, awarded the first ERC Consolidator Grant to a Portuguese researcher in the field of History.