IEM researcher Filipa Lopes began her contract this month under the FCT Individual Scientific Employment Stimulus Competition (CEEC) to develop the project “Gatekeepers of Evidence, Memory and Power: Reconstructing Contexts of Lay Documents in Monastic Archives in the Northwest Portuguese Region (11th–14th Centuries)”.
The research focuses on the practices of document management and transmission among the lay aristocracy of Portucale and Portugal prior to the establishment of family archives associated with the formation or consolidation of lordships and entailed estates. The study concentrates particularly on the role of monastic institutions as privileged custodians of these documents, covering the Northwest of Portugal (within the territories of the former dioceses of Tui, Braga, Porto, Lamego and Viseu), between the 11th century and the early 14th century.
Drawing on the analysis of ecclesiastical collections (single documents and cartularies), the project seeks to reconstruct the contexts in which these documents were produced and used, examining how they reflected the power dynamics and social structures of the period. The patronage relationship between the aristocracy and ecclesiastical institutions emerges as a central interpretative axis, linking the management of written memory to the strategies of social and political affirmation pursued by the elites. The study will also address the custodial history of these documents, seeking to understand the criteria that governed their selection and preservation within monastic or other ecclesiastical archives.
With a duration of 36 months, the project foresees, among other outcomes, the archival description of this documentation using specialised software, the creation of a publicly accessible interactive map, and the organisation of an international workshop on lay and monastic archival practices during the period under study.