This October, the “Entail of the Month” initiative presents the Molelos morgadio, established in 1520 in Molelos by Henriques Esteves and his wife, Filipa Nunes. Appointing his second son, Henrique da Veiga, as the first administrator, the founders determined that the succession of the morgadio would continue in the descendants of Henrique’s first-born son and so on. They obliged future administrators, in addition to pious duties and payments to the royal granary, to reside at least two months a year in Molelos, and the administrator could only be excused from doing so if he was absent, in the service of the king. They left the responsibility of supervising the morgadio’s obligations to the judges of Besteiros, to whom they left a gilt of forty gilts and a pair of geldings, for this obligation, and stipulated that if they were unable to enforce it, they should ask the bishop of Viseu to did it. In the event of non-compliance by the administrators, the king should be asked to hand over the administration to the closest relative. Henrique Esteves died in September 1523. Shortly afterward, on February 7, 1525, his widow, Filipa Nunes, being ill, wrote an addendum to the will mentioned above, where she ordered her executors to have a silver cross made, of three marcos, which he left to the church of Molelos, on the condition that it would always remain in the custody and power of the morgadio administrator and his heirs. After the termination of the ties, the assets of the Molelos morgadio were diluted into several inheritances, with the Paço de Molelos still in the possession of descendants of the founders.

To find out more about this entail, visit the page with all the information about this month’s entail. You can also find out about the other entails available up to today, here.

You can also participate in this initiative by leaving your suggestions for future entails for the month and other information about links you have. To do this, you can contact the project at the email address: vinculum@fcsh.unl.pt.

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