As Memórias Paroquiais (1758) do atual concelho de Vila Viçosa

Abstract

The article has three aims: to make the texts of the Memórias Paroquiais known, publishing them with modernised spelling but without changes in to the punctuation; to study the profile of the priests who wrote the answers to this survey of 1758; and to identify some of the specificities of the municipality of Vila Viçosa, based on the reading of the territory presented by its parish priests. We concluded that the House of Bragança was an important identity reference. The parish priests of Vila Viçosa, although many were only coadjutors in 1758, were almost all highly educated, almost all graduates of the University of Évora. Many mentioned that the patronage of their churches passed from the Order of Avis to the Ordinary in the past. Another change was the transformation of many properties (“herdades”) into pastures, thanks to the interest in the meat trade, but above all in wool, which was in demand on the regional and export markets