Introduction¹ Abbreviations used: ANTT = Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo; AUC = Arquivo da Universidade de Coimbra; BNP = Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal; coord. = coordination; doc(s). = document(s); m. = maço (bundle); n. = number; OC = Ordem de Cister; p. = page(s); vol. = volume.

In this volume dedicated to the books, rituals, and spaces of the monastery of Lorvão during medieval times and the early modern period, a study of its documentation could not be overlooked, especially within the framework of a relatively recent discipline that has experienced significant development during the current century. This is Historical Archival Science, which sits at the intersection of History and Archival Science and, among other topics, studies the transmission of written documents through the centuries, the archival organisation of the past, and the creation of finding aids. ² In this respect, and mentioning only Portuguese bibliography, the multiple studies carried out within the framework of the post-doctoral project on family archives by Maria de Lurdes Rosa and the researchers linked to her stand out (Rosa 2009; Rosa 2017, especially the part of chapter 4 entitled ‘A Interrogação da Fonte e do Arquivo’, 145-153; Rosa y Nóvoa 2018). This paper focuses on two Early Modern inventories of muniments from the Cistercian nunnery of Santa Maria de Lorvão, the oldest known, which allow us to understand how its documentation was organised and transmitted to future generations.³ A first approach to this subject, including other manuscripts from Lorvão from the same period, was presented at the International Congress Um Reino de Mulheres: Expressões literárias, culturais e artísticas nas instituições monástico-conventuais femininas, held in Évora in 2019, in a paper entitled ‘Em busca das freiras encarregadas dos cartórios monásticos’ (= ‘In search of the nuns in charge of the monastic archive muniments’). The present study, focusing only on these two inventories, was prepared within the scope of the project Libros, memoria y archivos. Cultura escrita en monasterios cistercienses. LEMACIST II (HAR2017-82099P) and presented at the II Coloquio Internacional LEMACIST: Tiempo de memoria, which took place in León in 2021. Given the interest of the topic for the project Books, Rituals and Space in a Cistercian Nunnery. Living, Praying and Reading in Lorvão, 13th-16th centuries (FCT - PTDC/ART-HIS/0739/2020), it was also presented in the cycle of conferences organised by Luís Miguel Rêpas and integrated in this last project, which is at the origin of this publication.

The convent of Lorvão was the first female abbey of the Cistercian Order in Portugal. This obedience was adopted at the beginning of the thirteenth century, after several centuries of existence as a male community, first following one of the Hispanic monastic rules, then the Benedictine rule. ⁴ On the first centuries of this monastic institution and the adoption of the Cistercian rule, see the synthesis proposed by Rêpas 2021, 58-62, which includes reference to all the relevant bibliography on the subject. From then on, thanks to the patronage of Infanta Teresa, former Queen of León, to royal protection, and to the many people- especially noble ladies-who felt the appeal of Citeaux, Lorvão became an important abbey, with a vast estate whose maintenance and management required the existence of documents proving the nuns’ rights, which were kept in the monastery's archive.⁵ See Rêpas 2021, 270-297 on the development of Lorvão during the Middle Ages, and Santos 2001 on its estate. For the Early Modern Period, the most important study on Lorvão is Borges 2002. See Morujão 2016 on the importance of writing for the management of female Cistercian monasteries.

Information about this archive during the Middle Ages is very scarce, as no inventory from that period survived. It was housed on the first floor of the tower of the monastic building, where it remained until some major works were carried out during the eighteenth century. This construction campaign not only completely changed the appearance of the monastery but also endowed it with a new space for keeping its documents. ⁶ Borges 2002, vol. 1, 288. The earliest known inventory dates from the sixteenth century and is preserved in the Torre do Tombo National Archive.⁷ ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 326. It is one of the manuscripts studied in this paper, along with another inventory produced at the beginning of the following century.⁸ ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 329.

1. The 1543 inventory

In 1543, the scholar Onofre Francisco, ⁹ His identity is revealed in the introduction to the inventory carried out in the seventeenth century (ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 329, f. [3v] of the unnumbered introductory part). It is surely the same Onofre Francisco who, on 12 April 1562, received the degree of Doctor in Law by the University of Coimbra (AUC, PT/AUC/ELU/UC-AUC/B/001-001/F/007763). procurator for the nuns in Coimbra, dedicated the result of his work of “report[ing] [on] the main titles of the archive” to the abbess Ana Coutinho¹⁰ Abbess between 1538 and 1549, according to information provided by Borges 2002, vol. 1, 648. . He decided to undertake this task because he found that looking for the deeds of Lorvão was very “arduous,” for they were “poorly organised,” and it could take more than fifteen or twenty days to find a document.¹¹ All this is explained in the introductory part of the inventory (ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 326, f. 1v). Quotations in Portuguese: “reportar as scripturas principaes do cartorio,” “trabalhosa,” “mal baralhadas.” What is more, he mentions the disappearance and theft of documents, resulting in losses to the nuns.¹² ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 326, f. 1v.

In an attempt to resolve the situation, this scholar adopted a system of storage so simple, he says, that the deeds could be found by anyone, even by a nun “que mal ler saiba” (“who can hardly read”). ¹³ ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 326, f. 2. He also recommended that the monastery henceforth keep a record of the loans with the date, name of the borrower, and identification of the deeds taken, and that, when returned, the documents be quickly put back in their proper place.¹⁴ ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 326, f. 3. In order to prevent any carelessness, the author even considers that a deposit, or pledge, in gold or silver, be demanded for the diplomas taken away.¹⁵ ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 326, f. 3v.

The inventory resulting from his work is in a very good state of preservation. It is composed of 163 paper folios, most of which written by Onofre Francisco, although there are many additions. ¹⁶ Several examples can be found in ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 326, ff. 7, 17, 30-30v, 45, 52v, 63-64, 102v-103, 136-137v, 162. Many pages were left blank, so that it could be updated.¹⁷ ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 326, ff. 7v-10v, 12v-14v, 31-39, 53-59v, 65-69v, 72v-99v, 103v-119v, 138-159v, 162v-188. Between ff. 186 and 187 is a written sheet that seems to be unrelated to this book, headed “Fazemda de dom Guarcia Coutinho capitãao que foy d’Ormuz” (= “Assets of dom Garcia Coutinho who was captain of Ormuz”) and the last folio of the manuscript (f. 188v) features notes written backwards with the title “Penas da Ribeira d’Arcos.”

The system designed by this scholar, based on the typology of the documents, was alphanumeric, combining a letter and a number. ¹⁸ Similar systems are known in other monastic muniments, such as that of the Cistercian monastery of Santa Maria de Sobrado: Suárez González 2022, 108. The letter corresponded to the initial of the document type in question (donation, purchase, privilege, etc.); each typology was kept in separate cabinets or bags, which were themselves numbered (A1, A2, C1, C2, etc.) (Fig. 1). On the outside of each cabinet or bag, the numbers of the deeds kept within were listed. Additions could easily be made by creating more bags, with new or the same letters, and more numbers to identify the documents they contained. On the back of the deeds, a reference code was placed, which can still be seen on many of the documents, albeit sometimes very faded.¹⁹ See, for example, the following documents: ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Antiga Colecção Especial, m. 1, n. 8 (reference code: d - XbIIIº); gaveta 4, m. 10, n. 8 (reference code: f - XI); gaveta 5, m. 1, n. 10 (reference code: a - XIIII); gaveta 5, m. 1, n. 16/1 (reference code: c - Xb). The summaries that accompany the reference codes were written in many different hands, varying from the one of the inventory itself;²⁰ Two of the documents referred in n.20 above can illustrate this. ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, gaveta 4, m. 10, n. 8 has the following description on its back: “Forall e tonbo de todo o que am de pagar os moradores de Tavoeira termo de Isgeira” (= “Charter and register of everything the residents of Tavoeira, in the vicinity of Esgueira, shall pay”); its description on the inventory runs: “Foral do que am de pagar os da Tavoeira” (= “Charter of what those of Tavoeira shall pay”) (ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 326, f. 70v). ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, gaveta 5, m. 1, n. 10 contains this description: “Confirmaçam da igreja de Treixedo appresentaçam do mosteiro de Lorvam” (= “Confirmation of the church of Treixedo, presentation by the monastery of Lorvão”); in the inventory its summary is: “Apresentação de reitor e confirmação da igreja de Treixedo que he do moesteiro de Lorvão” (= “Presentation and confirmation of the rector of the church of Treixedo, which belongs to the monastery of Lorvão”) (ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 326, f. 5v). at present, it cannot yet be affirmed if they are contemporaneous.

Table 1 shows, in the first column, the nine letters that compose this inventory, corresponding to the initials of the 33 categories of deeds listed in the second column. The number of documents for each letter varies between 9 and 244, forming a total of 765 deeds, which seems a very small number compared with the known documentation from before the middle of the sixteenth century preserved in the fonds of Lorvão. ²¹ The fonds from this monastery are nowadays divided between the ANTT and the AUC. In the National Archive, where most of the oldest documents were incorporated, there are 564 books, 111 bundles with a variable number of documents and 9 rolls, according to the information provided at https://digitarq.arquivos.pt/documentMigrated/82151145a53a481fb9646fdcd9ef2313. Note that Ramos and Braga 2011, 41 indicate the existence of only 7 rolls. See also Braga 2010. Onofre Francisco's inventory clearly does not cover all the existing documents at the time, as half a year later the new inventory would include more than double the muniments, including many more bulls than the nine registered by Francisco.

His inventory presents other problems besides incompletion, some of which can be deduced from a brief analysis of the categories considered. The categories estromento, in letter E, and stromento, in letter S, are two different spellings of the same word, instrumento, from the Latin instrumentum, a vague designation that, strictly speaking, can cover any type of document drawn up by a public notary. ²² The definition proposed by the Vocabulaire international de la Diplomatique (Cárcel Ortí 1997, 21, n. 3) defines a written act (Latin: scriptum, scriptura, instrumentum) as a document where either the carrying out of a legal act, or the existence of a legal act, or any other act is consigned, as long as it is written in a specific form that assures its validity. Other categories also overlap, like transacção (= transaction), compra (= purchase) and escambo (= exchange), or contrato (= contract), prazo, emprazamento and aforamento (= lease).

Regarding this sixteenth century “alphabet book,” the author of the second inventory states that “it seemed [to him] even more confusing than the archive itself,” because “there are books containing several titles which could be registered under different letters,” ²³ ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 329, f. [3v] of the unnumbered introductory part. Quotations in Portuguese: “livro de alfabeto,” “pareceu ainda mais confuso que o mesmo cartório,” “ha quadernos que conteem diversas escripturas que podiam ser assentadas em diferentes letras.” and there was no way of finding the documents relating to a certain subject and place if one did not know to which typology they belonged. In his own words, “it would be difficult to find things relating to some land or property without knowing whether it was acquired by letter, donation, or will, or to learn everything about a thing and place.”²⁴ ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 329, ff. [3v-4] of the unnumbered introductory part. Quotation in Portuguese: “para se buscarem cousas tocantes a alguma terra ou casal sem se saber se estavam por carta, se por doação ou testamento, se não podiam achar com facilidade nem menos saber-se tudo o que ha tocante a uma cousa e logar.” Unfortunately, the system implemented by Onofre Francisco was not as effective as he had foreseen. Another organisation of the monastery’s muniments was needed, and that was carried out in the following century by the writer of the above-quoted lines, Sebastião de Torres de Almeida.

2. The seventeenth-century inventory

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Sebastião de Torres de Almeida oversaw the preparation of a record book with the demarcation of the monastery’s estate. ²⁵ It has not yet been possible to obtain information about this graduate, who informs that he was entrusted by the king with “making the registration and demarcation of the properties and lands of this convent” (in Portuguese: “fazer o tombo e demarcações dos bens e terras deste convento)” (ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 329, f. [3v] of the unnumbered introductory part). Faced with many difficulties in finding the documents that would allow him to carry out his task, he decided to reorganise the archive of Lorvão.²⁶ ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 329, f. [4] of the unnumbered introductory part. The same was being done in many other Cistercian houses: from the last third of the sixteenth century, many monasteries produced such registration books and cartularies, and for this purpose they had to prepare inventories.²⁷ Assumpção 1899, 97-105 and Borges 2002, vol. 1, 191-193.The reorganisation of Cistercian archives during the Early Modern Age has already been approached by several authors, as Herranz Pinacho 2017-2018; Piñeiro Pedreira 2022; Rodríguez Lopez 2022; and Suárez González 2022. “The proper production of such instruments of control presuppose the previous organisation of the fonds; before completely or partially registering each document, these should be put in order.”²⁸ Rodríguez López 1996, 460.

The new arrangement of the archive started during the government of Leonor de Noronha, who was the first abbess in the new three-year rotation regime, between 1605 and 1608. ²⁹ Leonor de Noronha, born in Lisbon, had been prioress for 30 years before her election as abbess for the three-year term of 1605-1608 and again for the years 1613-1616. She died in 1618 (Borges 2002, vol. 1, 189 and 649, and ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 310, f. 1v). However, the work was only completed in 1611 or 1612 and was dedicated to the then head, Maria da Silva,³⁰ Maria da Silva is identified as bolseira (bursar, that is, in charge of the financial management of the monastery) in 1605 and was abbess between 1611 and 1612; see Borges 2002, vol. 1, 577 (doc. 62) and 649. to whom the inventory is dedicated (Fig. 2). It is a manuscript on paper, mostly in good condition, comprising four unnumbered folios containing a preamble, 98 numbered folios with the inventory and a set of protocols to help the redaction of certain documents,³¹ These protocols can be found at ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 329, ff. 94v-98. and another 20 unnumbered sheets containing indexes and, at the end, some very difficult if not impossible to read documents because of the ink soaked through.

Torres de Almeida conceived a very different organisation of the deeds, based on geographical and typological or thematic principles. As shown in Table 2, the documents were divided into eleven titles, corresponding to equivalent bags. These were organised by place name, following a logic of proximity to the monastery, from near to far. Each bag contains a variable number of bundles organised by subject or typology.

The contents of the first bag, concerning the village of Lorvão (Table. 3), will act as a sample for analysis. It was composed of nine bundles, with six to 45 charters each, adding up to 197 deeds in total. These were grouped according to their subject-for instance, bundle 1 contained the documents relating to the friars, to Infanta Teresa, and to the entry of the nuns in the monastery-or to their typology, such as bundles 3 and 4, which include papal bulls and apostolic privileges, or bundles 6 and 7, consisting of royal privileges.

By the end of this restructuring, the muniments had been arranged into 88 bundles, which all together counted 1600 documents, as shown in Table 2, above. The organisation established by Torres de Almeida proved to be so effective that it lasted until the monastery’s extinction, even earning praise from the celebrated nineteenth-century historian Alexandre Herculano, who specifically noted in his travel journal the “tidiness and immaculacy” of that archive. ³² In Portuguese: “arranjo e asseio.” Herculano 1973, 150, quoted by Borges 2002, 289.

However, by the time he went to Lorvão, the monastery’s archive was no longer the same. The major construction campaign carried out in the convent buildings during the eighteenth century, including an immense structure for a new dormitory, forced the monastic archive to be relocated. The archive and the library were now installed in two large rooms next to each other (the larger with a fireplace, plus three small filing cabinets) on the first floor of the building which held the gatehouse and the infirmary. ³³ Borges 2002, 288. In addition to this study, essential to understand the remodelling carried out during the Early Modern Period, reference should also be made to the contribution to this subject by Antunes 2013.

Nelson Correia Borges-who brought to light most of the information now available on the renovation of Lorvão-found, in the monastery's expense books, entries relating to the acquisition of wood, hardware, window-panes, and shelves for the archive between 1755 and the beginning of the nineteenth century. ³⁴ Borges 2002, 289. During this last century, the growing number of books and documents necessitated the expansion of the storage space, which probably justified the acquisition of the shelves recorded in the expense book.

The relocation of the archive implied changes in the organisation of the deeds, as testified by the marginal notes on the seventeenth-century inventory. On the first page of the manuscript, it is stated that “the order of this inventory has already been perverted” but “it still serves very well” ³⁵ In Portuguese: “a ordem deste inventário está já prevertida,” “ainda serve muito bem.” ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 329, f. 1. (Fig. 3). On the left-hand side of the same page, it is explained that “there are no bags anymore,” only “the order of the bundles” was kept.³⁶ In Portuguese: “já não há sacos,” “a ordem dos maços.” These were divided into drawers, with the first containing not ten bundles, as prescribed, but only nine.

The most significant change, in fact, concerns the replacement of the eleven bags with six drawers, where the documentation was certainly now kept. Table 4 shows the correspondence between the Torres de Almeida system and the one established during the second half of the eighteenth century. It is unclear how the division of the ordens (“orders”) would materially correspond-single, first, second or third ordens might be boxes, folders or even dividers within the physical space of each drawer.

As the differences only concerned reference codes, a new inventory was not immediately produced. The seventeenth-century inventory was maintained with notes added in the margins referring to the changes and occasionally commenting on the contents of the bundle. ³⁷ Later, new inventories were made, which have not yet been studied. They have the following reference codes: ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livros 327, 328, 354, 361, 363, 365; BNP, Alc. 223. For instance, besides the aforementioned comments, the first page contains a note in red, stating that missing documents were signalled in the margin with a correspondingly red f. This f appears on several pages of the inventory, such as on f. 6, by document no. 8 (“privilege by which the vicars will always be presented by the monastery”³⁸ In Portuguese: “privilegio per que os vigarios sempre serão presentados pello mosteiro.” ) (Fig. 4), and on f. 19, by document no. 2 (“letter of confirmation from the church of Santo Andr锳⁹ In Portuguese: “carta de confirmação da igreja de Santo Andre.” ), thereby noting their absence. Some other notes register the addition of documents to the bundles or the change of location of diplomas.⁴⁰ See, for example, the notes in ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 329, f. 10v: adds five documents to bundle 7; f. 64v: indicates that one of the listed documents “is from Esgueira and is in the 4^th drawer” and that the remaining “are all in a little bundle;” f. 68: adds two books to bundle 4, one of which was made in 1725, has a binding and is on the shelf; f. 84v: informs that “the charter is on the shelf next to those related the most to the monastery;” f. 89: adds two documents to bundle 5. Still others correct errors in the description, as can be seen on the margin of f. 1v, referring to a document summarized as a papal injunction for the brothers of Lorvão to leave the monastery to Infanta Teresa and move to the monastery of Pedroso (Fig. 5).⁴¹ ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 329, f. 1v. The comment informs that the description is wrong, as the parchment contains merely a statement by the Archbishop of Compostela about an order from the pope for the Abbot of Lorvão to be returned to the monastery and then excluded in the same way as the other monks.

This example shows how documents were presented in the new inventory, which, in fact, did not differ much from the practices of the previous “alphabet book.” ⁴² In Portuguese: “livro de alfabeto.” For each document, there is a short summary of its contents, generally without the names of the intervening parties. In the case above, there is an express reference to Infanta Teresa, but the pope and the Archbishop of Compostela are not named. The summaries of royal charters rarely identify the king,⁴³ See, for example, ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 329, f. 7, which mentions a document from King João, without specifying which one, and a privilege confirmed by “His Majesty” without naming the king. Other descriptions in the same folio, on the contrary, clearly identify Kings Filipe I, João II, and Manuel I, confirming that there is no rule without exception. and never are the dates of the documents given-at most, the description will say whether it is a modern, a very old, or an ancient charter,⁴⁴ ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 329, f. 6: “outra bulla mais moderna;” f. 6v: “processo antigo;” f. 9: “alvara antigo del rey;” f. 11: “hum livro e quaderno antiquíssimo” and “outro pergaminho antigo.” without specifying the year or even the century.

Such an imprecise identification practice gave rise to situations such as that found on f. 16 (Fig. 6): the same entry includes twelve “old” leases and one modern, which can only be told apart by the number assigned to them on the bundle; further down the same page, five other rental contracts, both “ancient” and “modern,” are recorded together. If all the documents were properly stored, the charters in question would be easy to identify -if not, however, or if they indeed were missing, the elements contained in the summaries would not be enough to recover the information therein.

Many documents still display on their back the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century’s reference codes. Figures 7 and 8 show two examples which illustrate how these codes were presented.

In each case, the reference code is accompanied by the name of the place to which the deed relates and a description, different from the one in the inventory. ⁴⁵ The descriptions of the documents reproduced in Figs. 7 and 8 can serve as example. Fig. 7, on the back: “Sentença que o mosteiro ouve contra certos lavradores de Esgueira para lhes pagarem as reções e foros que dantes pagavam a São Christovão de Lafões por hum escambo que delles fez o de Lorvão por outros bens em Lafões” (= “Sentence handed down by the monastery against certain farmers from Esgueira demanding payment of the fees that they previously paid to São Christovão de Lafões by reason of an exchange that Lorvão made for other assets in Lafões”); in the inventory: “Sentença que Lorvão ouve contra certos lavradores de Esgueira pera lhe pagarem os foros e reções que dantes pagavão ao mosteiro de São Christovão de Lafões por bem do escaymbo entre elles feito” (= “Sentence handed down by Lorvão against certain farmers from Esgueira demanding the payment of the fees they previously paid to the monastery of São Christovão de Lafões in satisfaction of the exchange made between them”) (ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 329, f. 52v). Fig. 8, on the back: “Carta e sentença de rei dom Dinis sobre contenda de bens em Midões que corria entre o mosteiro de Lorvão e hum homem em Besteiros cujo teor anda em outros pergaminhos” (= “Letter and sentence from King Dinis on the dispute over assets in Midões that was going on between the monastery of Lorvão and a man in Besteiros, the matter of which is contained in other parchments”); in the inventory: “Carta e sentença del rey dom Dinis sobre a contenda que Lorvão trouxe com hum homem de Briteiros por rezão de bens e terras em Midões” (= “Letter and sentence from King Dom Dinis on the dispute that Lorvão had with a man from Briteiros over assets and lands in Midões”) (ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 329, f. 72v). Below the description is the number of the bundle, and above it the order number. These are the seventeenth-century elements, which do not include the title nor the bag where that bundle was stored. The other elements are the number of the drawer and that of the charter inside, which correspond to the changes made during the eighteenth century.

3. The incorporation of the documents of Lorvão into the National Archive

It was said above that the restructuring by Sebastião de Torres de Almeida and the eighteenth-century organisation of the drawers were maintained until the monastery’s extinction. In fact, both survived well beyond that. The Liberal Revolution of 1820 put an end to the Ancien Régime in Portugal, and following that religious orders were extinguished by decree in 1834. ⁴⁶ On the process of extinction of religious orders and the nationalization of their assets, see Silva 1997 as the main in-depth study. Their archives were incorporated into the Torre do Tombo Archive,⁴⁷ The process of incorporating monastic muniments into State archives after the extinction of the religious orders still awaits an in-depth study equivalent to the one carried out for monastic libraries by Paulo J. S. Barata (Barata 2003). The more important works are Erdmann 1927, Costa 1980, and Ribeiro 2003, 323-355. which, in the meantime, had been transformed from a royal archive into a national one, gathering fonds from all over the country.⁴⁸ On this topic, see essentially Ribeiro 2003. In the face of this immense mass of documents, with few people to organise them, it was decided to gather a selection considered to be the most important or significant from within the different fonds into one collection, without consideration for the basic archival principles of provenance and respect des fonds. Thus, the Colecção Especial (Special Collection) was created, which includes pontifical and apostolic documents, royal and ecclesiastical charters, and private deeds.⁴⁹ On this collection and the attempts to return the documents to their original fonds, see Erdmann 1927, 51-52; Azevedo 1943; Ribeiro 2003, 404-410.

At first, this collection encompassed only documentation from male monasteries. The female communities had not been immediately extinguished, instead being barred from taking in new nuns. As the last nuns passed away, those communities closed their doors and their muniments were incorporated into a central archive. The first documents from Lorvão entered the custody of the State in the 1860s, divided among several institutions, including the Portuguese National Library. ⁵⁰ Braga 2010. In 1912, two years after the establishment of the Republican regime in Portugal, the deeds kept in the National Library were taken to the Torre do Tombo National Archive and became part of the Colecção Especial. From 1939, thanks to the pioneering work by Rui de Azevedo, an immense task began, aiming to reintegrate the documents from this collection into their original fonds.⁵¹ Azevedo 1943. Today, several bundles of documents from Lorvão are still part of that collection; there are, however six drawers organised by Torres de Almeida, and a series of thirty other bundles whose origin has not yet been analysed.⁵² Braga 2010; Ramos and Braga 2011. As seen, the fonds of this monastery are immense, and studying the reference codes on the back of the documents will require the work of a team.

4. The archivist-nuns

Torres de Almeida thought so too and relied on the collaboration of two nuns, Sister Maria de Mendonça and Sister Isabel de Noronha, who held the offices of bolseiras (bursars) and cartorárias (archivists). ⁵³ This is how they are designated in ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 329, f. [4] of the unnumbered introductory part. See Borges 2002, vol. 1, 192 and note 14. The specific tasks they carried out are unknown, but it is reasonable to assume that they participated in collecting, ordering, and organising the documents, as well as in their accommodation and in raising awareness among the community of the need to keep the archive orderly and the deeds duly safeguarded. Some casings of seals and parchments dating back to the Early Modern Period have survived until this day. That is the case of a letter on parchment referring to Infanta Teresa, the patron of Lorvão, which is rolled around a wooden cylinder lined with red silk, and then wrapped in a piece of the same fabric.⁵⁴ ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, gaveta 1, m. 1, n. 36, reproduced in Morujão 2016, 102. To protect seals, cloth bags were made, some simple,⁵⁵ See, for instance, ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, gaveta 3, m. 11, n. 27; gaveta 5, m. 1, n. 9. others more sophisticated, such as one in the shape of a small shoe decorated with tiny beads on the top that preserves what is left of a royal seal.⁵⁶ ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, gaveta 1, m. 1, n. 17. Reproduced in Morujão 2016, 102; and Morujão 2022, 137.

Looking at these casings, it is difficult not to speculate that they were made by feminine hands, namely those of the nuns, not necessarily the aforementioned sisters, but others who dedicated their “talent and curiosity” exclusively to the archive, as Torres de Almeida had recommended. ⁵⁷ ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 329, f. [3] of the unnumbered introductory part. Quotation in Portuguese: “talento e (…) curiosidade.” The data collected by Nelson Correia Borges on the cartorárias of Lorvão shows that the first nuns known to exercise this function were the two who collaborated in the organisation of the archive.⁵⁸ Borges 2002, vol. 1, 193. About these women, it is known that Maria de Mendonça was elected abbess for three years in 1616,⁵⁹ Borges 2002, vol. 1, 192 (note 4) and 649. Maria de Mendonça was the abbess in 1617 when, in her absence, the nuns opened the tomb of Infanta Teresa (see Borges 2002, vol. 1, 203-204). She was buried in the cloister, alongside other superiors of the monastery, see Borges 2002, vol. 1, 559, doc. 50. and that Isabel de Noronha died in 1644, having held the office of prioress for several years, and declining the superior office due to her humility.⁶⁰ Borges 2002, vol. 1, 192 (note 4); on p. 198, the author mentions Isabel de Noronha as a great practitioner of meditation and contemplation, following the information conveyed by the monastic obituary. Her death on 4 August 1644 is registered in ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 310, f. 2 (published by Borges 2002, vol. 1, 506, doc. 18), as well as in a list of the monastery's tombs elaborated for the Academia Real da História (Royal Academy of History) in 1722, published by Borges 2002, vol. 1, 558-559, doc. 50, which states that she was buried in the choir, on the side of the Gospel, and identifies her as daughter of the counts of Odemira and descendant of the dukes of Bragança. She is documented as bolseira in 1621 and 1624 (Borges 2002, vol. 1, 234 and 261) and in 1636 as prioress (Borges 2002, vol. 1, 503-504, doc. 15).

Two more archivist-nuns are known for the seventeenth century. In 1617, Sister Madalena de Vasconcelos e Silveira, born around 1584, ⁶¹ Borges 2002, vol. 1, 193 (note 16); Madalena de Vasconcelos e Silveira’s date of birth was calculated from the age she had at the time of the inquiry mentioned in the note below. wrote a report on the opening of the tomb of Infanta Teresa, in which she reveals a great facility in writing and even some literary skill.⁶² BNP, Manuscritos, Alc-305, ff. 356-358. Sister Madalena was one of the witnesses called to testify in the inquiry carried out in 1634 to prepare the beatification of Infanta Teresa and her sisters. A copy of this inquiry can be found in this same manuscript. She was probably followed by Sister Isabel de Melo, who held this charge for forty years and used the information from the documents to prepare an unfortunately lost chronicle or history of the monastery.⁶³ ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 309, published by Borges 2002, vol. 1, doc. 62 (reference to this nun and her work can be found on f. 4, transcribed on p. 578).

Six nuns are known to have been in charge of the muniment collection during the eighteenth century. Since the position was often held for long periods of time, it is likely the list-shown in Table 5-is complete. ⁶⁴ This table was prepared based on information provided by Borges 2002, vol. 1, 193 (note 16). The information on these women is very uneven, ranging from the mere name and a date when they were in charge to other positions held, their age, the date of their death, or even some character traits. As the table shows, several of these nuns held different responsibilities throughout their lives in the monastery: keeper of the granary, sacristan, mordoma, mistress, and, in the case of two of them, abbess. One of the nuns is said to have been a scribe and had a special talent for playing the organ and teaching plainchant. The documents show that Sister Maria Caetana Francisca de Almeida, who died in 1777, was cartorária (registrar) for many years and copied and corrected musical manuscripts. Her name appears linked to the commission of a new index of the monastic documents, which was carried out not by a nun, but by a graduate.⁶⁵ See below, note 70. Six years later, in 1783, another cartorária, Sister Mónica Isabel de Melo Corte Real, died, to whose zeal the good order reigning in the archive was ascribed, according to the nuns’ obituary.⁶⁶ ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 319, f. 94.

The last archivist-nun mentioned by Nelson Correia Borges is Joana Delfina de Albuquerque de Lemos e Vasconcelos, who took the office in the first decades of the nineteenth century and produced an impressive account of what happened in the monastery during the Napoleonic invasions. ⁷⁴ This account, which is part of the manuscript known as Book of the Abbesses (Livro das Preladas) (ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 309), was summarized by Assumpção 1899, 116-122 and published by Borges 2002, vol. 1, 593-596. Sister Joana Delfina was the daughter of Diogo da Fontela Pinto and Ana Joaquina Pereira de Vasconcelos, sister of an inquisitor of Coimbra; she died on 16 January 1820 (ANTT, OC, Mosteiro de Lorvão, Livro 319, f. 155). Her death record says that she was “very accurate” (“muito exata”) in carrying out her functions as an archivist.

Conclusion

Throughout this paper, we have analysed the two oldest inventories of the documents from the convent of Lorvão. We examined the reasons for their creation, their organisation, why it was necessary to produce a new one half a century after the first, and the long lifespan it was intended to enjoy.

We also sought to identify the individuals responsible for compiling these catalogues-always men-and the nuns who worked under their orders or whose duties involved the custody of the documentation. The names of several of these archivist-nuns have survived to the present day, and we searched for information about them.

These women, as well as others whose names are unknown, preserved the memory of this monastic house by taking care of its archive muniments. This memory has also been kept to the present day by the inventories analysed here, which were fundamental guides to finding the right path in the labyrinth of this archive.

Hopefully, this work will inspire new studies in Historical Archival Science that may be able to reconstitute the contents of this monastery’s archive, analyse its losses, and virtually restore the organisation it held for several centuries.

Declaration of competing interest

The author of this article declares that she has no financial, professional or personal conflicts of interest that could have inappropriately influenced this work.

Funding sources

The publication of this article was made possible by the Centre for the History of Society and Culture - University of Coimbra (CHSC), which received funding for a strategic project from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology - FCT (UIDP/00311/2020).

Authorship contribution statement

Maria do Rosário Barbosa Morujão: conceptualization, formal analysis, research, methodology, writing - original draft, writing - review and editing.

Bibliography