The hospital and the Misericórdia of Lisbon during the government of Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo

Abstract

Founded long ago in the late 15th century, All Saints Hospital and the Misericórdia [House of Mercy] of Lisbon were united on June 27, 1564, after the confraternity accepted the invitation from the kingdom s regent, Cardinal Infante D. Henrique, to govern his esprital de todos os sanctos da dita cidade como convem ao serviço de nosso Senhor e ao meu [All Saints Hospital in said city as befits the service of our Lord and mine] (Pereira, 1998, p. 252). Two centuries later, on January 31, 1775, secretary of state of the kingdom Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, the future Count of Oeiras and Marquis of Pombal, proclaimed the restauração e nova fundação da Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa e dos hospitais dos enfermos e inocentes expostos [restoration and new foundation of the Lisbon Misericórdia and of the hospitals for the sick and foundlings] (ANTT, Ministério do Reino, Livro 376, f. 16), imprinting his mark of reform upon the two institutions that continued to dominate relief work in the country, by then symbolically installed in the buildings of the Society of Jesus: the church and house of São Roque and the College of Santo Antão-o-Novo. The new stage in the life of the hospital and Misericórdia had been set to coincide with the beginning of the year according to the secretary of state s wishes, beginning with the transfer of the sick from All Saints to Santo Antão, but it was postponed until April due to delays in the works (ANTT, Ministério do Reino, Livro 376, fs. 79-79v.; Hospital de São José, Livro 944, n.º 5). However, it was not in fact a reunification, as suggested by Victor Ribeiro (Ribeiro, 1998, p. 124), because the confraternity had not been dispossessed of the hospital. Rather, it was a decisive moment in a transformation underway since the 1755 earthquake, a project completed the following November, with the abolition of the Misericórdia of Lisbon s 1618 constitution. In this article, we intend to reflect on the evolving relationship between All Saints Hospital and the Misericórdia of Lisbon during the government of Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo as secretary of state of the kingdom. At a time characterized by state control, we intend to outline the secretary of state s policies regarding these two institutions and evaluate their effectiveness. To this end, we use some information from previous studies (Abreu, 2013, pp. 28-43) on the financial organization of the new relief structure that dictated the end of All Saints and, in light of the documentation produced by the hospital,reanalyse the Breve Memorial [Brief Memoir] by the chief nurse, Jorge Francisco Machado de Mendonça Eça Castro Vasconcelos and Magalhães (Mendonça, 1761).