The VINCULUM project is advancing with this initiative, inaugurated at the end of last year with the case of the Salvador do Mundo Estate, founded by Duarte Gomes da Silveira in Paraíba, Brazil in 1639.

The property represents a testimony on how the entailment practice extended beyond the Middle Ages and underwent replication on other continents. This second “Entail of the Month” deals with an entailment bond only identifiable through consulting later documentation in the absence of the original documents, lost in a conflict with another European empire.

This entailment is notable for having already been established prior to the period of Dutch occupation of the Capitanias do Norte (1630-1654), before a Portuguese notary, which suggests the Dutch maintained a certain recognition of Portuguese institutions and normative order.

The known documents reveal entailment practices corresponding to those existing in the same period in Portugal but with marked adaptations to the world that was then being built on the other side of the Atlantic. You may learn about this Entail of the Month in detail, as well as more about the previous Entail of the Month, on the VINCULUM project website, at: www.vinculum.fcsh.unl.pt/entail-of-the-month.

By reading and sharing these monthly entails, you will be engaging with the work of this international project so this field of study remains under development and capable of reaching as many people as possible. Additionally, if you would like to participate and leave your suggestion for future entails of the month, as well as any other information about possible entails you may have, you can contact the project at the project email address: 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.