THE
HISTORIOGRAPHY
OF MEDIEVAL PORTUGAL
(c.
1950-2010)
JosE MATTOSOdirector
MARIA DE LURDES ROSA, BERNARDO VASCONCELOS E SousA, MARIA JoAO BRANCO
editors
Edition
IEM - Institute de Estudos Medievais Co~edition
CEC- Centro de Estudes Classicos, Faculdade de Letras- Universidade de Lisbea CEHR - Centra de Estudos de Hist6ria Religiosa I Universidade Cat6lica Portuguesa CESEM - Centra de Estudos de Secielegia e Estetica Musical, Faculdade de Ciencias Sociais e Humanas - Universidade Nova de Lisboa
CHSC- Centra de Hist6ria da Sociedade e da Cultura, Faculdade de Letras- Universidade de Coimbra
CH~UL-Centra de Hist6ria I Universidade de Lis boa
CIDEHUS - Centre Interdisciplinar de Hist6ria, Culturas e Sociedade I Universidade de Evora CITCEM - Centre de Investigayao Transdisciplinar «Cultura, Espayo e MemOria)) I Universidade do Porto e Universidade do Minho
CL~ UL- Centra de Lingulstica I Universidade de Lis boa
CPS - Center for Portuguese Studies I University of California-Santa Barbara IF~UP-Institute de Filosofia I Universidade do Porto
The book has been supported by the Faculdade de Ciencias Sociais e Humanas- Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Fundayao Calouste Gulbenkian, Fundayao para a Ciencia ea Tecnologia, and Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade.
The Institute de Estudos Medievais at Faculdade de Ci€:ncias Sociais e Humanas- Universidade Nova de Lisboa is supported by the Fundayao para a Ciencia ea Tecnologia.
Title The Historiography of Medieval Portugal (c. 1950-2010) Director Jose Mattoso
Editors Maria de Lurdes Rosa, Bernardo Vasconcelos e Sousa, Maria Joiio Branco Edition IEM - Instituto de Estudos Medievais
Cover artwork Illustration by Rita Carvalho Collection Estudos 2
ISBN 978-989-97066-3-7 Layout Ana Pacheco DepOsita legal 338225/11
/
.. :·,
Intellectual History
and the Scholars
Jose Francisco MeirinhosThe beginning of the second half of the twentieth century saw the publication of the first volume of Antonio Jose Saraiva's Hist6ria da cultura em PortugaP, a work intended to be a new synthesis of Portuguese history from the perspective of culture as a social activity and product. Written with intentionally political undertones, not unrelated to the author's opposition to the dictatorial regime that gripped Portugal at the time, that history gave prominence to the connection between culture and power in an innovative way, highlighting the material conditions of cultural activity, which was understood in its widest sense. Culture was analysed in terms of the institutions ensuring its conservation and transmission, of the social position of its creative agents, and of the movement of ideas on a regional and international scale. It contended that the dialectical complexity that activates exchanges between tradition and renovation, within the constraints of religion and scientific postulates, can be fully understood only when considered together rather than in isolation, although, as the author admitted, little attention was paid to the plastic arts and music. The work expressly revises and updates that ofTeofilo Braga, author of the "sole attempt to integrate the body of Portuguese literary production into the social conditions that provided its environment". Book I, on "A Idade Media ate
a
crise social do seculo XIV" (The Middle Ages until the social crisis of the fourteenth century), offers a characterisation of the period, before moving1 SARAIVA, Ant6nio Jose, Hist6ria da cultura em Portugal, vol. 1, Lisbon, Jornal do FOro, 1950 (the two
350 THE HISTOR!OGRAPHY OF MEDIEVAL PORTUGAL (c. 1950-2010)
on to the social conditions of culture, with its institutions and agents, to primitive heroic poetry, to popular minstrelsy, to clerical culture and to that of the palace. The author draws extensively on recent historiography, which he carefully footnotes, especially when providing the context for particular events or achievements, thus emphasising the social and cultural continuum established between Portugal and other nations through the sharing of concepts and modes of thinking. Documental and literary sources are used to describe and analyse cultural institutions and the men involved in their functioning. Particular attention is given to books, libraries, religious orders and above all the university: its students and masters, curricula and degrees. Long sections are devoted to specific authors, among them Saint Anthony of Lisbon, Petrus Hispanus, Alvarus Pelagius, and Thomas Scotus. In subsequent decades, these would become the very central themes and authors capturing the best part of medieval cultural and intellectual studies in Portugal, albeit with successive inflections, greater attention to detail along with a shift of interest to sonorous and epic generalisations, tinged with epistemological prudence, and strengthened by a deeper and more direct knowledge of the primary sources and the proper ways of editing them.
In this chapter, as in this present work, due to the chronological and conceptual delimitation, the period predating the formation of the Portuguese nationhood is not discussed2•
1.
Intellectuals in the Middle Ages
Revealing the preeminent role it attributed to the Latin-speaking clerical culture, one of the sections in A. ). Saraiva's Hist6ria is suggestively entitled: "A vida intelectual em Alcobac;a" (Intellectual life in Alcobac;a)'. Unfortunately, the concept "intellectual" is not discussed, but clearly what is described there is simply one aspect of monastic life, that concerning books, their circulation and conservation, and 1 As a research guide for the sixth to eighth centuries, one should consider SOUSA, Pio Alves de, Patrologia galaico-lusitana, Lisbon, Universidade Cat6lica Editora, 2001, which contains a detailed
description of the latest knowledge and along with a bibliography on the life and works of: Potamius of Lisbon, Aetheria or Egeria, Ithacius of Faro, Bachiarius, Balconius, Avitus Bracarensis, Orosius, Ithacius Aquae Flaviae, Profuturus, Apringius Pacensis, Martin of Braga, Pascasius Dumiensis, Johannes Biclarensis and Fructuosus Bracarensis. On the little that can be known on the period between the nineth and eleventh centuries, a study of particular interest was that made of the religious books left in the will ofMumadona Dias (dated 959) to the monastery of Sao Mamede in Guimariies, which she founded, cf. FERREIRA, J- A. Pinto,
Livro de Mumadona: cartuldrio medievo existente no Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon, Academia
Portuguesa da Hist6ria, 1973; CARDOZO, Mii.rio de Vasconcelos, "0 testamento de Mumadona, fundadora do mosteiro e castelo de Guimaraes na segunda metade do seculo X", Revista de Guimariies, vol. 77, nos. 3-4
(1967) pp. 279-298.
3 SARAIVA, Ant6nio Jose, Hist6ria da cultura em Portugal ... , pp. 232-246.
INTELLECTUAL HISTORY AND THE SCHOLARS 351
the knowledge that was transmitted through them, be it scientific, philosophical, literary or religious. The "intellectual man" would therefore emerge through the reading and writing of books, and other aspects of monastic life such as the monks' activities in prayer or divine service) were understood to remain outside the realm of "intellectual life".
The concept "intellectual" was introduced to medieval historiography, at the end of the 1950s, through a conscious and daring anachronistic retrospection by jacques Le Goff in a small but innovative textbook. In Les intellectuels au Moyen
Age, the French historian meticulously followed the birth of that social character from the twelfth to thirteenth centuries, opening up a whole field of research that combined sociology and the history of ideas'. The expression itself does not occur in medieval sources, and intellectualis, a philosophical and psychological term describing the activity of the intellect, had within the medieval lexicon a very different meaning from that which it has come to assume in contemporary public life. An indispensible concept was thus created as the centrepiece of intellectual history providing it with a subject, the "intellectual", who could be a cleric or a lay person', described through his work and social function. Le Goff's book shows how a new, exclusively masculine group, professionalised itself and constituted a typology within the university community in the thirteenth century. We may say that, following this work, intellectuals began to be one of the social categories that medievalists are authorised to describe.
T11e university master, who lived from his intellectual work, corresponded mainly but not exactly to the scholastic and was normally a philosopher or theologian, although he could also be a jurist or a theoretical physician. In its fullest sense, the "intellectual" was primarily a magister, a university scholar who engaged in intellectual activity in the course of his professional duties and, being equipped with adequate resources, methods and instruments, was involved in the transmission of that scholarly expertise and its contents. In a stricter sense, the intellectual was someone who put the training he received into practice and,
4 LE GOFF, Jacques, Les intellectuels au Moyen Age, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1957 (2nd ed., 1985);
Portuguese translation: Os intelectuais na Idade iVIedia, translated by Luisa Quintela, Lisbon, Estudios Cor,
1973 (2nd ed., translated by Margarida Servulo Correia, 1984), and English translation: Intellectuals in the Middle Ages, translated by Teresa Lavender Pagan, Oxford, Blackwell, 1992.
5 This conceptual pair is indispensible to understanding Christian-Latin medieval literary culture,
in which the clergy affirms and retains a monopoly on science and formal learning, until at least the final centuries of the Middle Ages, in which the Church's power is progressively disputed by the emerging state and its new class of functionaries oflearning, who in increasing numbers are lay. Cf. LE GOFF, Jacques, "Chierico/ laico", in Enciclopedia Einaudi, vol. 2, Torino, 1977, pp. 1066-1086 (translation: "ClCrigo!leigo", in Enciclopedia Einaudi, vol. 12, Lisbon, IN-CM, 1987, pp. 370-391); SCHMITT, Jean-Claude, "Clercs et Lalcs'', in LE GOFF,
Jacques, and SCHMITT, Jean-Claude, Dictionnaire raisonC de l'Occident Medieval, Fayard, Paris, 1999,
352 THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF MEDIEVAL PORTUGAL (c. 1950-2010)
being largely indifferent to knowledge as an end in itself, used it profitably in other activities, such as diplomacy and advocacy, tutoring or as an ecclesiastical officer'. Being engaged in his function of creating and transmitting knowledge, the "intellectual" was no mere employee who got his post as a result of skills acquired at the university. For this reason, intellectual history deals above all else with the creation and transmission of thinking, of the social methods and functions of learning, of the professional functions and symbolic positions of its agents as well as the dimension of work involved in the life of the intellect rather than its social uses. This is why it was possible to identify the intellectual, that professional figure born in the nniversity in the thirteenth century, with the philosopher'.
The entry for "intellectual history" in a recent encyclopaedia of the Middle Ages defines the term as "a field of study sometimes also called the history of ideas, including, once most prominently, the history of philosophy, but now often the history of culture itself as a system of understanding or meaning". Taking into account the main tendencies of recent research, the author reduces "intellectual history" to his own field of study, the history of philosophy, understood in the broadest sense to include forms of understanding or conceptualising reality, the history of ideas and of scientific theories and even of mentalities, integrating intellectual history into its social context, which permits a further widening to the history of popular life and even preliterate popular culture'.
Research on the "intellectual" as a new type of medieval man and on the body of his work has in recent years attracted much attention on the part of cultural historians, interested in the means of communicating and transmitting of knowledge, in the institutions of learning, in philosophy and the history of ideas. These domains intersect one another in the understanding of each historical moment and its evolution during the Middle Ages. The historian of intellectual life will, for this reason, also make use of methodologies that make possible the interpretation of sources, reconstructing their social, institutional, economic and symbolic contexts in a comprehensive manner. In addition to hermeneutics and philology, always indispensable to the understanding of texts, intellectual history cannot dispense with the methodological and conceptual tools of sociology, ethnology, anthropology and semiotics. A notable expression of this multidisciplinary interest
6
For this distinction cf. FUMAGALLI BEONIO BROCHIERI, Maria Teresa, "0 intelectual", in LE
GOFF, ]acques, 0 homem medieval, transl., Lisbon, Ed. Presen~a 1989, pp. 125-141 at 126 (or LE GOFF,
Jacques, L'uomo medievale, Laterza, Roma-Bari, 1987).
7
EADEM, ibid., pp. 133 ff. For a discussion on this conception of the medieval intellectual as a
university philosopher, cf. LIBERA, A lain de, Penser au Moyen Age, Seuil, Paris 1991 (Portuguese translation:
Pensar na Idade Media, translated by P. Neves, Sao Paulo, Ed. 34, 1999). 8
MARRONE, Steven P., "intellectual history", in The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages, Oxford,
Oxford University Press, 2010, vol. 2, pp. 852-855.
INTELLECTUAL HISTORY AND THE SCHOLARS 353
is the research led by the Comite international du vocabulaire des institutions et de la communication intellectuelles au Moyen Age (CIVICIMA). Directed by Olga Weijers, this committee has held a number of meetings over the years (the most recent in Oporto)9 and published its proceedings in a collection bearing its name10
•
Encompassing every domain of"intellectual" life- schools and universities, course books and companion reading or research tools, teaching methods and techniques, the names of disciplines and their masters and students, literary genres and even the material aspects of learning - this field of study has systematised a rich and dynamic technical vocabulary!' that is revealing, first and foremost, of a medieval self-awareness of the specificity of intellectual work.
The conceptual and categorical relocation that ensues from the anachronistic definition of the figure of the "intellectual" is not free from controversy and debate. Who exactly does the intellectual correspond to in the Middle Ages? Is he merely a university professional who lives from his work or rather every person dealing with written culture and thinking, including monks? Is he a person working in an institution oflearning and deriving an income from it, or a dilettante or court idler? Does the term refer to a specific form of learning, confined to scholastic, or does it transcend disciplinary limits to embrace chivalry romance and poetry? Does it include other activities involving artistic skills (theatre, music, handicraft, painting and sculpture, architecture)? If one is to undertake the intellectual history of the Middle Ages and of its agents, questions such as these cannot be left unanswered.
To sift through the studies of intellectual life in Portugal in the Middle Ages to arrive at an overview is a necessary but difficult exercise, partly due to the imprecision of the concept but above all to the dispersion and proliferation of studies over recent decades. Taking into account other chapters of this book, it becomes easier to delimit the research field - to intellectual practices and the institutions related to the production, reproduction and transmission of knowledge and its agents, or "intellectuals", understood in the above-mentioned fullest sense.
The progress made over the last sixty years can be compared with the most advanced research undertaken in the previous period. The studies by )oaquim de Carvalho (1892-1958), whose complete works were published between 1978
9 PACHECO, Maria Candida (ed.), Le vocabulaire des ecoles des Mendiants au moyen dge, Actes du
colloque de Porta (Portugal), 11-12 novembre 1996, CIVICIMA- Etudes sur le vocabulaire intellectuel du
moyen age, 9, Turnhout, Brepols, 1999.
10 See the 9 volumes published in the collection "Etudes sur le vocabulaire intellectuel du moyen age"
(Turnhout, Brepols, 1988-1999).
11 Cf. the volume with which the Project was closed and that presents a systematic introduction to this
field of study, TEEUWEN, Mariken, The Vocabulary of the Intellectual Life in the Middle Ages, CIVIC! MA,
10, Turnhout, Brepols 2003; see the bibliography in pp. 453-482 that includes studies on vocabulary and
354 THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF MEDIEVAL PORTUGAL (c. 1950-2010)
and 199712
, are a good example of this. As professor of the University of Coimbra
and author of numerous works on philosophy, medieval culture and the history of the university in Portugal, he was also innovative in returning to the sources and publishing works and testimonies that supplied materials for new insights, suggestive in many ways.
An overview of the achievements of recent research on intellectual and literary history in Portugal in the Middle Ages can be found in the Diciontirio da literatura
medieval portuguesa e galega13
, a dictionary of medieval Portuguese and Galician
literature, from its origins up to the Cancioneiro Geral of 1516. This reference book brings together articles by eighty-six of the most important scholars of the Portuguese and Galician Middle Ages and presents the very latest developments in our knowledge of all the literary genres, authors and anonymous works, libraries and institutions of culture and teaching, correlated historical and social facts, manuscripts and textual problems, medieval traditions, and the historiography on the Middle Ages. The different approaches of the Diciontirio offer, for the first time, an erudite and interconnected presentation of aspects and domains that are often kept separate in scientific and historical research in the search for rigour or greater depth.
2. Practices and instruments of the intellectual activity
In his work, the intellectual makes use of utensils and practices indispensible to the production and transmission oflearning. Although in lessons, disputes and sermons, the spoken word was the main vehicle of communication for medieval intellectuals, the written codices were the only resources that ensured their transmission 14
• Before
writing, language was the principal and critical instrument of thinking. The world of learning in medieval Portugal was multilingual until the thirteenth-fourteenth century. Latin would become dominant15
, but even though it managed to marginalise 12 CARVALHO, ]oaquim de, Obra completa, 9 vols., Lisbon, FCG, 1978-1997. The interests of this
author arc not confined to the Middle Ages, having published extensively on the Renaissance and Modern and Contemporary Philosophy. The syntheses on the institutions of culture and scientific and philosophical thinking of the Middle Ages that he wrote for the Hist6ria de Portugal directed by Damiii.o Peres (vol. 2, Barcelos, ed. Portucalense Editora, 1929; vol. 4, Barcelos, ed. Portucalense Editora, 1932), left their mark over the whole of the twentieth century and are reedited in vol. 3 of the Obra completa, pp. 127-304.
13 LANCIANI, Giulia, and TA V ANI, Giuseppe (orgs. and coords.), Diciondrio da literatura medieval
portuguesa e galega, Lisbon, Ed. Caminho, 1993.
H For studies on writing and the manufacture of books, see the contribution by Maria do Ros<irio
Morujii.o on the auxiliary sciences of history.
15 FREIRE, Jose Geraldes, Ora~iio de Sapit!ncia. 0 latim medieval em Portugal: Lingua e literatura,
Coimbra, Universidade de Coimbra, 1995, proposes in the first part a characterisation of medieval Latin in Portugal, and in the second part a history of Latin literature in Portugal in the Middle Ages, with a list of
INTELLECTUAL HISTORY AND THE SCHOLARS 355
the Arabic and Hebrew languages, its prestige and dominance as the lingua franca of the intellectuals declined as the Portuguese language gradually replaced it. By the end of the Middle Ages, a growing number of works were written in Portuguese, for example in hagiography, spirituality and history. If Arabic became very rare or inexistent by the thirteenth century!', Hebrew appears to have shown more resistance, printing before 1500 being predominantly in Hebrew17
, with Hebrew
workshops of manuscript decoration flourishing in Lisbon at the end of the fifteenth century!', and some medical texts in Castilian aljamiado, romance texts in Hebrew alphabet19
Books became of central importance to medieval Latin culture as a consequence of the place accorded to reading in Christian religious life20
, demanding adequate
practice and apprenticeship in the schools. Teachers were not involved in the production and reproduction of books. These were technical and manual tasks entrusted to craftsmen, which gave the intellectual liberty to engage solely in the activities of the mind, through dictation or lecturing. As has been emphasised, also with respect to Portugal, the substitution or evolution of writing itself, or the adoption of formulas and ways of exhibiting or drafting documents, testify to ideological commitments and to the rupture or sharing of institutional orientations11
•
To compose a new work, prepare a lesson or devise a sermon, given the need to support the discourse of tradition and of authorities, lengthy academic preparation, extensive reading, and works or florilegia were needed. Codices and the libraries
more than 100 works in the most distinct domains, although omitting the respective, printed or manuscript, bibliographic references.
16 See the anthology of the historiographical, geographical, literary, poetic and philosophical texts,
COELHO, Ant6nio Borges, Portugal na Espanha 6rabe, 4 vols., Lisbon, Seara Nova, 1972-1975 (2nd ed., vols. 1-2, Lisbon, Ed. Caminho 1989; 3rd ed., revised and updated, vol. 1, Ed. Caminho, 2008).
17 Cf. MEIRINHOS, Jose F., "Editores, livros e leitores em Portugal no seculo XVI. A colecyiio de impressos
Portugueses da BPMP'; in MEIRINHOS, Jose F., COSTA, Jorge, and COSTA, JU.lio (orgs.), Tipografia Portuguesa
do sec. XVI nas coleq:Oes da BPMP. Catdlogo, Oporto, Biblioteca PUblica Municipal do Porto, 2006, pp. 17-34 at 17: of the 30 books that are known to have been printed in Portugal up until the end of the fifteenth century, 13 are in Hebrew, 9 in Latin, 8 in Portuguese. In the following century the Hebrew editions disappear and Castilian editions flourish.
ta SED-RAJNA, Gabrielle, J\!Ianuscrits hebreux de Lisbonne: un atelier de copistes et d'enlumineurs au
XV' sUcle, Documents, etudes, repertoires, 16, Paris, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1970.
19 MENDES, Maria Adelia S. Carvalho, "Pedro Hispano, Tesoro de proves. Versiio em judeu-castelhano aljamiado (sec. XV)", Mediaevalia, Textos e estudos, nos. 15-16 (1999), monographic volume.
1° See the chapter of Herminia Vilar and Maria de Lurdes Rosa on the Church and religious practices.
21 A study on the medieval practices of writing may be found in SANTOS, Maria Jose Azevedo, Da
visig6tica
a
carolina. A escrita em Portugal de 882 a 1172 (aspectos tecnicos e culturais), JNICT I FCG, Lisbon 1994; EADEM, "A evoluyiio da linguae da escrita", in SERRAO, Joel, and OLIVEIRA MARQUES (dirs.), NovaHist6ria de Portugal, vol. 3: Portugal em defini~iio de fronteiras (1096-1325). Do Condado Portucalense
a
Crise do seculo XIV, coordinated by Maria Helena da Cruz Coelho and Armando Luis de Carvalho Horn em, Lisbon, Ed. Presenya, 1996, pp. 604-634; EADEM, Ler e compreender a escrita na Idade Media, Coimbra, Colibri I FL-UC, 2000; EADEM, "Mod os de escrever no seculo XII em Portugal. 0 caso do mosteiro de Santa Cruz de Coimbra", Bibliotheca Portucalensis, 2nd ser., nos. 15-16 (2003), pp. 99-114.356 THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF MEDIEVAL PORTUGAL (c. 1950-2010)
were both cause and result of medieval intellectual activity, and not only the texts deliberately copied, but marginal notes, ownership marks and occasional annotations provide evidence of the use of books in a scholastic and academic context. The institutional and political significance of the monasteries of Santa Cruz de Coimbra and Santa Maria de Alcoba<;a, as well as the sheer size of their preserved codicological heritage, have prompted the study of their respective libraries, and the reconstitution and description of the codices they contain. In recent decades, full catalogues of the Alcoba<;a collection in the Biblioteca Nacional22 and the
Santa Cruz de Coimbra collection in Oporto Biblioteca Publica Municipal have been published". Having been edited according to different criteria, but adopting analytical codicographic models, each catalogue provides detailed knowledge of the reading habits and the texts that were available to literate monks in both institutions. These collections had long interested historians, for example in connection with the study of the life and thought of Saint Anthony of Lisbon who had been a canon regular of Saint Augustine in the monasteries of Siio Vicente de Fora in Lisbon and later in the monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra before joining the Franciscan Order. It is believed that he acquired his rich training in writing and erudition in the two Augustinian houses24
•
Other smaller libraries have received attention, often for evidence that might seem at first irrelevant, but properly appraised by historians experienced in the reading of what is less obvious in the documents25
• Knowledge of intellectual and
n AMOS, Thomas L., The Fundo Alcobafa of the Biblioteca Nacional. Lisbon, 3 vols., Collegeville (Minnesota), Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, 1988-1990; NASCIMENTO, Aires A., "Em busca dos cOdices alcobacenses perdidos", Didaskalia, vol. 9 (1979), pp. 279-288; IDEM, "Le scriptorium d'Alcobafa: identite et
correlations", Lusitania Sa era, 2nd ser., t. 4 (1992), pp. 149-162.
n CRUZ, Ant6nio, Santa Cruz de Coimbra a cultura portuguesa medieval, vol. 1: Introdufiio ao catiilogo
dos cOdices medievais de Santa Cruz existentes na Biblioteca PUblica Municipal, Oporto, Biblioteca PUblica Municipal do Porta, 1963; NASCIMENTO, Aires A., and MEIRINHOS, Jose F. (coords.), Catiilogo dos cOdices
da Livraria de Mao do Mosteiro de Santa Cruz de Coimbra na Biblioteca PUblica Municipal do Porta, Oporto, Biblioteca PUblica Municipal do Porta, 1997. For a more complete bibliography on the history of the codices of Santa Cruz see this same work and also FRIAS, Agostinho F., COSTA, Jorge, and MEIRINHOS, Jose F. (orgs.), Santa Cruz de Coimbra: A cultura portuguesa aberta
a
Europa na Idade Media I The Portuguese CultureOpened to Europe in the Middle Ages, Oporto, Biblioteca PUblica Municipal do Porta, 2001.
2
'1 Cf. CAEIRO, Franciso da Gama, Santa AntOnio de Lisboa, vol. 1: IntrodufiiO ao estudo da obra
antoniana, vol. 2: A espiritualidade Antoniana, Lisbon, author's edition, 1967 (re-edition of both the volumes, Lisbon, IN-CM, 1995); and also FRIAS, Agostinho F., Lettura hermeneutica dei sermones di Sant'Antonio
di Padova: introduzione a/le radici culturali del pensiero antoniano, Padova, Centra Studi Antoniani, 1995; MEIRINHOS, Jose F., "S. Ant6nio de Lis boa, escritor. A tradiyiio dos Sermones: manuscritos, ediy6es e textos espUrios", Mediaevalia. Textos e estudos, nos. ll-12 (1997), pp. 139-182.
25 MARQUES, Jose, "Desconhecidas instituiy6es culturais portuguesas. Alguns scriptoria
cistercienses", Bracara Augusta, vol. 39 (1985), pp. 5-24; IDEM, "Livrarias de miio no Portugal Medievo", in SOTO RABANOS, Jose Maria, Pensamiento medieval Hispano, vol. 1, Zamora, CSIC, 1998, pp. 801-814; NASCIMENTO, Aires A., "Livros e claustra em Portugal no seculo XIII: o invent<irio deS. Vicente de Fora",
Didaskalia, vol. 15 (1985), pp. 229-242; IDEM, "As livrarias dos principes de Avis", Biblos, vol. 69 (1993), pp. 265·287.
INTELLECTUAL HISTORY AND THE SCHOLARS 357
scholastic uses of books26 also finds a rich source of information" in medieval
accounts of the functions of the book.
Despite the research evaluating, for example, the more artistic and decorative aspects of Portugal's surviving library heritage28
, there is still no updated inventory of Portuguese libraries containing medieval books, or any edition of medieval catalogues or of references to books in medieval documents, which would enable better knowledge of the true extent of the circulation and ownership of books". In the absence of the volumes themselves, fragments have also been analysed as indirect evidence of the existence of books, which neglect, wear or prolonged use have caused to disappear".
Today's libraries casually divide up the medieval library heritage, even when it has survived over time through the explicit intention of their curators. It is known that a large number of works have indeed been lost31
, or their function modified.
For this reason contemporary libraries allow us to view these precious collections of manuscripts as they have been handed down to us, not as they were constituted, still less as they were at given moments in time. Temporal approximations are only possible through detailed reconstitutions, using indirect clues to understand the gaps and interpret of the marks of usage.
Bearing in mind the very nature of medieval books, according to which each copy needed an original or exemplar, one aspect that has attracted the attention of historians is their circulation (through loan, order or purchase), which allows us to reconstruct the replication of trends and styles, as well as the routes of internal, inter-institutional, and international circulation. Occupying a marginal
26 PEREIRA, Isaias da Rosa, "Escolas e livros na Idade Media em Portugal", in Universidade(s). Hist6ria,
memOria, perspectivas. Aetas do Congresso "HistOria da Universidade" (no 7° centeniirio da sua ftmdafiiO),
vol. 1, Comissiio Organizadora do Congresso, Coimbra 1991, pp. 55-69.
27 IDEM, "Dos livros e dos seus names: bibliotecas JitUrgicas medievais", Arquivo de bibliograjia
portuguesa, 17 (1971-73), pp. 62-70,97-167.
28 CEPEDA, Isabel Vilares, and FERREIRA, Teresa A. S. Duarte (orgs.), lnventiirio dos cOdices
i/uminados ate 1500, vol. 2, Lisbon, Secretaria de Estado da Cultura I Instituto da Bibliotcca Nacional e do Livro, 1994-2001. Cf. also MIRANDA, Maria Adelaide (coord.), A iluminura em Portugal. Identidades e
influCncias. Catalogo da exposifiiO: 26 de Abril a 30 de ]unho de '99, Lisbon, Biblioteca Nacional, 1999.
29 Two examples of the appraisal of the medieval catalogues and records are found in NASCIMENTO,
Aires A., "Livros e claustra em Portugal" ... , and PEREIRA, lsaias da Rosa, "Livros de Direito na Idade Media",
Lusitania Sacra, t. 7 (1964-66), pp. 7-60; IDEM, Lusitania Sacra, t. 8 (1967-69), pp. 81-96; Saul Ant6nio Games (University ofCoimbra) directs a project in studies of Portuguese medieval fragments: "FRAGMED- Corpvs Portvgaliae Fragmentorvm".
30 The indispensible inventory continues to be COSTA, Avelino de Jesus, Pergaminhos medievais:
inventcirio bibliogr&fico e ideogr&fico, Braga, Seminii.rio de Nossa Senhora da Conceiyiio, 1944-1952, 7 typewritten and unedited volumes (a copy may be consulted at the Library of the FL-UP).
•31 For Santa Cruz of Coimbra, cf. NASCIMENTO, Aires A., and MEIRINHOS, Jose F. (coords.),
Catcilogo dos cOdices da Livraria de Miio ... , pp. xx-xxii. Despite being repeatedly invoked by historians, book losses due to such facts as the dominion of the Philips, the Earthquake of Lisbon, the French Invasions and the extinction of the religious orders, they have not been dully attested, studied and quantified.
358 THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF MEDIEVAL PORTUGAL (c. l9SQ~2QIO)
position both in the great circuits of book trade and exchange and the network of academic institutions in Europe, Portugal was especially dependent on these forms of relationship by import of literary culture. For this reason there is considerable interest in the mechanisms of book circulation as a way of understanding not only the speed with which ideas were disseminated or contained, but also the cultural vigour and openness of institutions to other more dynamic contexts of production and innovation32
•
Although masters and scholars lived from and with books, no medieval university library has survived in Portugal and no document refers to the existence of one, which may indeed suggest that none existed33
• A large number of
manuscripts by thirteenth and fourteenth century authors have survived in libraries in the Iberian Peninsula, imported by masters studying or teaching in foreign universities, particularly in Paris. William Courtenay remarked that these masters did not leave any works written by themselves, nor did they have a remarkable role as university masters, but concluded that the collection and circulation of books ("in itself a major contribution") was the most important contribution of Iberian scholars to our knowledge of medieval thought, since our access to some of the best textual witnesses to many scholastic works would be lost without it34• Being itself an
important proof of the masters' mobility, transportation and preservation of books cannot be overestimated. However, we have to admit that these books had very scant effects on local academic life.
32 DfAZ Y DfAZ, Manuel C., "La circulation des manuscrits clans la PCninsule IbCrique du VII" au
XI" siecle", Cahiers de civilization medkvale, no. 12 (1969), pp. 219-241, 283-292 {re-edited in IDEM, Vie
chrCtiCne et culture dans l'espagne du VII' au X' siCcles, CSS 377, Aldershot, Variorum, 1992); MATTOSO, JosC, "Condi~6es econOmicas e sociais da circula~ii.o de cOdices na Peninsula Iberica", a lecture to the seminar on the CirculaciOn de cOdices y escritos entre Europa e la Peninsula en Ios siglos Vlll-XIII {Santiago de Compostela 16-19 sept. 1982), published in MATTOSO, Jose, Portugal medieval. Novas interpretar;:Oes, Lisbon, IN-CM, 1984, pp. 347-364 (= Obras Completas, vol. 8, Circulo de Leitores, Lisbon 2002); IDEM, "Monges e derigos portadores da cultura francesa em Portugal (seculos XI e XII)", in Les rap ports culturels et littriraires
entre le Portugal et la France. Actes du colloque Paris 11-16-octobre 1982, Paris, FCG, 1983, pp. 41-58 (re-edited in MATTOSO, Jose, Portugal medieval ... , pp. 365-387); NASCIMENTO, Aires A., "Concentra~ao, dispersiio e dependencias na circula~iio de manuscritos em Portugal nos SCculos XII e XIII", in Aetas del Coloquio sabre
circulaci6n de cOdices y escritos entre Europa y la Peninsula en los siglos VIII~XIII. Santiago de Compostela 16-19 septiembre 1982, Santiago de Compostela, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 1988, pp. 61-85; COSTA, Avelino de Jesus da, "Coimbra - centra de atrac~iio e de irradia~ao de cOdices e de documentos, dentro da Peninsula, nos seculos XI e XII", in Aetas das II ]ornadas Luso-Espanholas de Hist6ria Medieval, vol. 4, INIC, Oporto 1990, pp. 1309-1334; NASCIMENTO, Aires A., "Circula~iio do livro manuscrito", in LANCIANI, Giulia, and TA V ANI, Giuseppe (orgs.), Diciontirio da Literatura Medieval ... , pp. 155-159. For a highly documented synthesis on the subject see IDEM, "A Igreja na hist6ria da cultura: percursos do livro em Portugal na Idade Media", Igreja e Missilo, no. 18 (2000), pp. 139-201.
33 The annotations of the UniversityofCoimbra are related to the its modern period, after 1537, although
it contains works in the medieval scholastic style and another codices of medieval production.
34 COURTENAY, William, "SpanishandPortugueseScholars at the UniversityofParisin the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries: The Exchange of Ideas and Texts", in CORFIS, Ivy A., and HARRIS-NORTHALL, Ray (eds.), Medieval Iberia. Changing Societies and Cultures in Contact and Transition, Woodbridge, Tamesis, 2007, pp. 110-119.
INTELLECTUAL HISTORY AND THE SCHOLARS 359
3. Sclwlae and studia
Schools.
As we have see, the two main medieval libraries in Portugal belonged to the two most powerful and influential monasteries in the kingdom. These monasteries had schools that must have occasionally attained a significantly higher level than that of elementary teaching, as is attested by the existence in their libraries of works that were indispensible to advanced scholastic training in the arts, law and, above all, theology. These two were not the only schools in the kingdom, however; other teaching establishments have been the focus of some notable studies, but this topic is still insufficiently explored". In the late 1960s, Artur Moreira de Sa published two papers containing important documental samples concerning teaching and scholars in Portugal before the foundation of the University in 1290 by the King Dinis36• At around the same time, Francisco da Gama Caeiro wrote many important pages on schools, circulation of books and biblical, literary and scientific education at the end of the twelfth century and first decades of the thirteenth century, which were part of his studies of the cultural and doctrinal preparation of Saint Anthony of Lisbon37
• It was indeed inside the monasteries and their schools and
scriptoria that intellectual life was most likely to take place, in an environment
depending on cultural and spiritual links with the exterior'8
• The schools of the religious orders, which were devoted to the intellectual training of their members, were given particular attention as good examples of the international circulation of knowledge and of specific didactic and doctrinal trends, generally established within each order and according to its strategies of preaching and public action. Excessively keen on amplifying their relevance and achievements, however, modern literature on medieval monasteries has gone so far as to make the false claim that
35 For a recent list of studies, cf. COSTA, Marisa, "Ensino em Portugal na Idade Media. Bibliografia",
in La EnSC11anza en la Edad Media. X Semana de Estudios Medievales (Ntijera, 1999), Logrofio, Instituto de Estudios Riojanos, 2000, pp. 507-520.
36 SA, Artur Moreira de, "PrimOrdios da Cultura Portuguesa 1", Arquivos de Hist6ria da Cultura
Portuguesa, vol. 1, no. 1 (1967), pp. 1-113; IDEM, "Prim6rdios da Cultura Portuguesa 11'', Arquivos de Hist6ria
da Cultura Portuguesa, vol. 2, no. 1 (1968) 1-8, pp. 1-129.
37 CAEIRO, Francisco da Gama, "As escolas capitulares no primeiro seculo da nacionalidade
portuguesa", Arquivos de Hist6ria da Cultura Portuguesa, vol. 1, no. 2 (1966), pp. l-48 (re-edited in IDEM,
Dispersos, vol. 2, Lisbon, IN-CM, pp. 25-65); IDEM, Santa Ant6nio de Lisboa, vol. 1: Introdur;:ao ao estudo da
obra antoniana, Lisbon, author's edition, 1967, pp. 3-96 (re-edited in Lisbon, IN-CM, 1995, same pagination); IDEM, "A organiza~ao do ensino em Portugal no pedodo anterior a funda~:io da Universidade", Arquivos de
Hist6ria da Cultura Portuguesa, vol. 2, no. 3 (1968), pp. 1-23 (re~edited in IDEM, Dispersos .... , vol. 2, pp. 9-23). In these studies one can find the available knowledge on schools existing outside of the monasteries.
Js Cf. MATTOSO, Jose, Le Monachisme ibririque et Cluny, Louvain, Publications Universitaires de
Louvain, 1968, pp. 271-315 (=Obras Completas, vol. 12, translated to Portuguese by Jo:io Luis Pontes, Lisbon, Circulo de Leitores, 2002) and the different studies brought together in IDEM, Religiilo e cultura na Idade
Media Portuguesa, Lisbon, IN-CM, 1982 (re-edited in Obras Completas, vol. 9, Lisbon, Circulo de Leitores, 2002) and in IDEM, Portugal medieval ... ; FRIAS, Agostinho Figueiredo, COSTA, Jorge, and MEIRINHOS, Jose F. (orgs.), Santa Cruz de Coimbra .. .
360 THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF MEDIEVAL PORTUGAL (c. 1950-2010)
they had schools for external and public teaching39
• As far as the mendicant orders are concerned, one should point out that some studies on the Dominicans40 and on
the Franciscans have been produced thus far'1
• Some specific studies on teaching in Portugal have sought to understand the role of scholastic institutions in the import and dissemination of scientific knowledge", as well as to understand the social and political functions of their agents43
, or the recruitment of educated men to the
bureaucracies of the royal court and the municipal councils44 •
University.
A large-scale project was undertaken by Artur Moreira de Sa to publish all the available documentation concerning the Portuguese university before its definitive transfer to Coimbra in 1537. Initiated in 1966 and concluded only as recently as 2004, the Chartularium Universitatis Portugalensis includes the diplomatic edition of 6,971 annotated documents45
, gathered in fifteen volumes, each with introductory
notes providing context for the primary sources, and a final volume, the fndice
analitico geral abreviado (2004). This last volume, contrary to what was planned in the "Introduction" to volume 15) does not present any new indexes) nor does
39 BRANDAO, M<\.rio, "A escola pUblica de Alcoba~a. Urn embuste da historiografia alcobacense" [1960], in BRANDAO, M<irio, Estudos vdrios, Coimbra, Universidade de Coimbra, 1974, vol. 2, pp. 269-288.
40 ROSARIO, Ant6nio do, "Letrados dominicanos em Portugal, nos seculos XIII-XV", Repertorio de
historia de /as ciencias eclesidsticas en Espaiia, vol. 7 (1979) pp. 509-598.
·!l LOPES, Fernando Felix, "Escolas pUblicas dos Franciscanos em Portugal antes de 1308", Colectiinea
de Estudos, 1st ser., 1st ser., no. 2 (1947), pp. 83-108, cf. foonote 52, below.
4
" Cf. CARVALHO, R6mulo de, Hist6ria do ensino em Portugal, des de a frmda~fw da nacionalidade
ate ao fim do regime de Salazar-Caetano, Manuais universit<irios, Lisbon, FCG, 1986, chaps. 1-4, pp. 11-119 .
.n OLIVEIRA, Ant6nio Resende, "As institui~Oes de ensino", in SERRAO, Joel, and OLIVEIRA MARQUES (dirs.), Nova Hist6ria de Portugal ... , vol. 3, pp. 635-659; PACHECO, Maria Candida, "0 Ensino em Portugal na Idade Media", Communio, yr. 10, no. 1 (1993), pp. 62-65.
·!-1 See the recent studies ofGOMES, Saul Ant6nio, "Escolares e Universidade na Coimbra Medieval", in
RAM OS, A. De Oliveira, RIBEIRO, Jorge Martins, and POLONIA, Ame!ia (coords.), Estudos em homenagem
a foiio Francisco Marques, Oporto, FL-UP, 2001, vol. 1, pp. 510-531; COELHO, Maria Helena da Cruz, "Les
relations du savoir et du pouvoir dans le Portugal medieval", in AVERKORN, Raphaela, et al. (dirs.), Europa
und die Welt in der Geschichte. Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag von Dieter Berg, Bochum, Verlag Dr. Dieter
Winkler, 2004, pp. 313-334; FARELO, M<irio, "Ao servi~o da Coroa no seculo XIV. 0 percurso de uma familia de Lisboa, os "Nogueiras", in KRUS, Luis, OLIVEIRA, Luis Filipe, and PONTES, Joiio Luis (orgs.), Lisboa
Medieval. Os rostos da Cidade. Lisbon, Livros Horizonte, 2007, pp. 145-168; IDEM, A oligarquia camardria de Lisboa (1325-1433), 2008, unpublished doctoral thesis in History (Medieval History), Lisbon, FL-UL; IDEM,
"La vocation scolaire de la chapelle de maitre Pierre de Lisbonne au XIVe siecle", Medievalista [online], yr. 5, no. 7 (2009), Available at: www2.fcsh.unl.pt/iem/medievalista/MEDIEVALISTA7/medievalista-farelo7.htm; IDEM, ROLDAO, Filipa, and MARQUES, Andre Evangelista, "Les dercs dans !'administration dionysienne (1279-1325)", in ENCONTRO INTERNACIONAL CARREIRAS ECLESIASTICAS NO OCIDENTE CRISTAO, Carreiras eclesidsticas no Ocidente Cristiio, Lisbon, Centra de Estudos de Hist6ria Religiosa da Universidade Cat6lica Portuguesa, 2007, pp. 271-313.
40 SA, Artur Moreira de, Chartularium Universitatis Portugalensis (1288-1537), 16 vols., Lisbon,
1966--2004. The editing was successively assumed by the institutions that in the last nearly fifty years has overseen the financing of scientific research in Portugal: Instituto de Alta Cultura, Instituto Nacional de Investigat;iio Cientifica, Junta Nacional de Investigayiio Cientifica, Fundat;iio para a Ch~ncia ea Tecnologia.
INTELLECTUAL HISTORY AND THE SCHOLARS 3 61
it contain any additional documents that might have been discovered since the publication of each single volume. Artur Moreira de Sa oversaw the completion of volumes 1-9. The subsequent volumes were directed by Francisco da Gama Caeiro (vols. 10-11), Ant6nio Domingues de Sousa Costa (vols. 12-15), and Miguel Pinto de Meneses (vol. 16). The latter had, along with Alice Estorninho, integrally read, collated and organised the immense documental mass that composes the work. In the course of its gradual publication, the editorial criteria were changed, either explicitly or implicitly, so as to include, in the final stages, records containing direct or frequently indirect references to I) university teachers in the service of the court and various members of the Order of Crista; 2) royal ambassadors to the papal Curia; 3) Portugal's overseas expansion, 4) the university educated Portuguese episcopacy; and 5) Humanism, in which university scholars distinguished themselves at international level46
• The documentation is heterogeneous and typologically diversified, and only a small part of it was actually produced by the university. A case in point are the final volumes of the collection, which include a vast number of documents from the Holy Apostolic Penitentiary of the Vatican Secret Archives, never published before.
The Chartularium brings together an enormous mass of documents. Though not completely exhaustive, it offers a great wealth of diversified information for the history of the university, of literary culture, and, above all, of the social and political roles of learned men. Over the coming decades, these volumes will surely supply researchers with abundant matter on many different themes, not least the university". The use of prosopography and the transfer of the documents' contents to a textual database allowing queries and incorporating other similar documents will provide researchers with heuristic tools giving complete and rigorous access to nearly three centuries of intellectual history, while at the same time revealing the extent to which university academics were involved in political and ecclesiastical institutions throughout that period.
Important results of the analysis of these documents appeared in the Hist6ria
da Universidade em Portugal issued in 199748
, at a time when the Chartularium was
46 IDEM, "Introdu~iio", Ibid., vol. 8, p .7.
47 Immediately before the publication of the Chartulariam its conceiver published a reflection on the
methodological and historical problems that then justified the project and that in good part continued to apply: IDEM, "Dllvidas e problemas sabre a universidade medieval portuguesa", Revista da Faculdade de
Letras de Lisboa, 3rd ser., no. 8 (1965), pp. 240-273. Also see GARCfA Y GARCfA, Antonio, "Aspectos de la
universidad portuguesa medieval", in IJSEWIJN, Jozef, and PAQUET, Jacques (eds.), The Universities in the
Late M idle Ages, Leuven, Leuven University Press, 1978, pp. 133-147.
48 Hist6ria da Universidade em Portugal, vol. 1, t. 1 (1290-1356), t. 2 (1537-1771), prefaces by Ant6nio
362 THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF MEDIEVAL PORTUGAL (c. 1950-2010)
still being published. This work dealt with the broader institutional aspects of the university and revised previous findings".
The origins and the date of the university's foundation have attracted special attention50
• Religious orders played a prominent part throughout its history, particularly the mendicants, and within these, the Dominicans51; the Franciscans,
self-prohibited from taking degrees and becoming members of the academic staff, being thus confined to their own studia52•
All things considered, however, it is still not entirely clear how the Portuguese medieval university effectively contributed to the development and diffusion of learning and literate culture. It is clear enough that it had the structure and functioning of an institution dependent on royal power, in which a certain dialectic of consented submission formed part and parcel of the mechanisms for the social promotion of the teachers, who were bestowed with privileges by the king53• This
submission on the part of university scholars to royal power looks even more striking if we consider that, in contrast to what happened in other parts of Western
"19 For their importance and for constituting a unique contribution to our knowledge of the intellectual
life in Portugal in the Middle Ages, one should point out the studies integrated into volume 1: MATTOSO, Jose, "A universidade portuguesa e as universidades europeias", in Hist6ria da Universidade em Portugal. .. , pp. 5-29; DIAS, Pedro, "Espao:;os escolares", ibid., pp. 33-38; COELHO, Maria Helena da Cruz, "As finano:;as", ibid., pp. 39-67; MARQUES, Jose, "Os corpos academicos e os servidores", ibid., pp. 71-127; VELOSO, Maria Teresa Nobre, "0 Quotidiano da academia", ibid. pp. 131-151; MATTOSO, Jose, "A universidade ea sociedade", ibid., pp. 305-335; OLIVEIRA, Ant6nio Resende de, "A mobilidade dos universit<\.rios", ibid., pp. 339-356. See further below for the different contributions on the disciplines taught in the university.
50 SA, Artur Moreira de, "La fondation de l'Universite, a Lisbonne, en 1288 et son rOle clans le
dCveloppement de la culture portugaise jusqu'au milieu du XV" siecle", Revista da Faculdade de Letras de
Lisboa, 3rd ser., no. 12 (1969), pp. 29-36; IDEM, "Les origines de l'Universite portugaise et son evolution jusqu'en 1537", Arquivos do Centra Cultural Portugues, vol 2 (1970) pp. 13-46; FREIRE, Jose Geraldes, "Petio:;iio de 12-XI-1288 (critica textual): hist6ria da Universidade", Humanitas, vols. 51-52 {1989-1990), pp. 219-221; RODRIGUES, Manuel Augusto, "Proto-hist6ria e fundao:;iio da Universidade de Coimbra",
Arquivo da Biblioteca da Universidade de Coimbra, vols. ll-12 (1992), pp. 19-33; COSTA, Ant6nio Domingues de Sousa, "Considerao:;6es
a
volta da fundao:;iio da Universidade portuguesa no dia 1 de Maro:;o de 1290", inUniversidade(s). HistOria, memOria, perspectivas. Aetas do Congresso ... , vol. l, pp. 71-82.
51
ROSARIO, Ant6nio do, "Dominicanos na hist6ria da Universidade Portuguesa", ibid., vol. 4, pp. 177-194. 02 There exists a broad examination of the studia and of Franciscan authors in the work of LOPES, Fernando Felix, Colectiinea de estudos de HistOria e Literatura, 3 vols., Lisbon, Academia Portuguesa da Hist6ria, 1997; in this volume are collected the studies the author devoted to this subject: IDEM, "Escolas pllblicas dos franciscanos em Portugal ate 1308", Colectiinea de estudos, no. 2 (1947), pp. 83-108 (re-edited in IDEM, Colectanea de estudos de Hist6ria ... , vol. 2, pp. 353-369); IDEM, "Os estudos entre os franciscanos portugueses no sec. XVI", Colectfmea de estudos, 2nd ser., no. 2 {1951), pp. 155-91 (re-edited in IDEM,
Colectfmea de estudos de HistOria ... , vol. 2, pp. 385-405); IDEM, "0 ensino das doutrinas de Escoto na Universidade de Coimbra", Itinerarium, vol. 12 (1966), pp. 193-264 {re-edited in IDEM, Colectfmea de estudos
de HistOria ... , vol. 2, pp. 473-534); IDEM, "Franciscanos portugueses pretridentinos. Escritores, mestres e leitores", Repertorio de historia de !as ciencias eclesitisticas en Espaila, vol 7 (1979), pp. 451-508 {re-edited in IDEM, Colectfmea de estudos de Hist6ria ... , vol. 2, pp. 407-60); IDEM, "Franciscanos de Portugal antes de formarem provincia independente e provinciais a que obedeciam", Archivo Ibero-Americano, vol. 45 (1985), pp. 349-450 (re-edited in IDEM, Colectdnea de estudos de HistOria ... , vol. 2, pp. l-93).
53 VERGER, J acques, "U ni versite et pouvoir politique, du Moyen Age a la Renaissance", in Universidade(s).
Hist6ria, memOria, perspectivas. Aetas do Congresso ... , vol. 5, pp. 11-23, in which the Portuguese case is cited.
INTELLECTUAL HISTORY AND THE SCHOLARS 363
Europe whenever their affairs were called into question, they hardly ever voiced their disagreement over the successive relocations of the university between Lisbon and Coimbra, which were decided by the kings under the pressure of the municipal elites. The university's frailties were not only administrative but above all, academic and scientific. It speaks eloquently about the quality of the Portuguese medieval university that we know nothing, either directly or indirectly, about any original work composed by its teachers. Even the curricula are unknown until the sixteenth century. The debility of the university is also attested by the consistent granting of scholarships attributed by the kings to undertake courses abroad, and by the apparent need to resort to foreign teachers to ensure teaching at the Portuguese
university54 •
The policy of attributing grants to pursue courses abroad was an important instrument of tutelage used by the kings and a channel to social promotion for their beneficiaries, as they depended on the social position of the beneficiary. The presence of Portuguese students in foreign universities caught the attention of researchers in the 1950s through to the 1970s, with the publication of several volumes about their presence in Bologna'S, Oxford56
, Toulouse57, Salamanca58, Montpellier59 or, for the
54 Despite there being documental clues to this movement of foreign masters, their names are not known,
or apart from occasional cases, which sciences they would have taught. Prior to more revealing investigation one might doubt whether the presence of these masters was a permanent fact, or that they attained a high number, or that these foreign masters, having in fact taught here, were of a recognised level, or authors of some work, given that in no case did these masters merit a nominal record until the fifteenth century. In contrast, the record subsisted of foreign masters occupying high positions in the ecclesiastical institution or in the royal bureaucracy, but not in the university.
55 SILVA, Nuno J. Espinosa Games da, "Joiio das Regras e outros juristas portugueses da Univcrsidade
de Bolonha (1378-1421)", offprint of Revista da Faculdade de Direito, Lisbon, s. n., 1960; COSTA, Ant6nio Domingues de Sousa, "Estudantes portugueses na reitoria do colegio deS. Clemente de Bolonha na primeira metade do seculo XV", Arquivos de HistOria da Cultura Portuguesa, vol. 3, no. 1 {1969), pp. 1-157; IDEM,
Portugueses no Co/egio deS. Clemente e Universidade de Bolonha durante o slfculo XV, 2 vols., Bologna, Real Colegio de Espaii.a, 1989-1990.
56 RUSSELL, Peter E., "Medieval Portuguese Students at Oxford University",Aufsiitze der Portugiesischen
Kulturgeschichte, t. 1 {1960), pp. 183-191.
57 SERRAO, Joaquim Verissimo, Portugueses no Estudo de Toulouse, (Universitatis Conimbrigensis
studia ac regesta), Coimbra, Universidade de Coimbra, 1954; IDEM, Les portugais
a
l'Universite de Toulouse (XIII-XVII siecles), Paris, FCG, 1970.58 IDEM, Portugueses no Estudo de Salamanca (1250-1550), offprint of Revista da Faculdade de tetras
[Lisboa], 3rd ser., 5 {1962); ANTUNES, Jose, "Portugueses no processo hist6rico da fundao:;ao da Universidade de Salamanca", Revista de hist6ria das ideias, vol. 12 {1990), pp. 19-53.
59 SERRAO, Joaquim Verissimo, Les portugais
a
l'UniversitC de Montpellier (XIIe-XVI!e siCcles), Paris,364 THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF MEDIEVAL PORTUGAL (c. 1950-2010)
period following the end of the Middle Ages, Paris60 and Italy'1
• More recently Mario
Farelo has produced a series of studies on the peregrinatio academica of medieval and modern Portuguese scholars throughout foreign universities". In the thirteenth century the number of Portuguese scholars heading abroad was small, increasing progressively over time, which appears to attest to the need to go abroad in order to get a better, deeper education, because the Portuguese university could not provide it. It is difficult to imagine that such expedients were due to an increase in the number of students, to the extent that the university could not admit all of them. Demand appears to have been greatest in Law and Theology, which is explained by the nature of these disciplines and by the social requirement for high level graduates to serve in ecclesiastical institutions and in the royal court and municipal bureaucracy. With regard to the most favoured destinations, there are still few comparative studies, but Peter Russell suggests that in the fourteenth century there must have been more Portuguese students in Oxford and Cambridge than in Paris63
• He ventures whether this might not have been due to Portugal's stronger commercial ties with England. He also refers to the first pages of Luis de Matos' book, in which the author surveys the records of students at Paris during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries64
•
4.
Scientiaejoaquim de Carvalho has emphasised that "the activity of Portuguese schools appears to have been exercised in obscurantist repetition of the same texts, so that only dialectics, or logic as we would say today, would have stimulated philosophical
60 MATOS, Luis de, Les portugais
a
l'Universite de Paris, entre 1500-1550, (Universitatis Conimbrigensisstudia ac regesta), Coimbra, Universidade de Coimbra, 1950; FARELO, MB.rio, La peregrinatio academica
portugaise vers l'Alma mater parisienne, XII'-XV' siecles, unpublished master's dissertation, Montreal, University of Montreal, 1999; IDEM, "Les Portugais a l'Universite de Paris au Moyen Age. Aussi une question d'acheminement de ressources", Memini. Travaux et documents publies para la Societe des etudes medilfvales
du Quebec, no. 5 (2001) pp. 101-129; IDEM, "Os estudantes e mestres portugueses nas escolas de Paris durante o periodo medievo (secs. XII-XV): elementos de hist6ria cultural. ecleshistica e econ6mica para o seu estudo",
Lusitania Sacra, 2nd ser., tomes 13-14 (2001-2002), pp. 161-196.
61 RAU, Virginia, "Italianismo na cultura juridica portuguesa", Re vista portuguesa de Hist6ria, t. 12
(!969), pp. 185-206; EADEM, "Alguns estudantes e eruditos portugueses em ItB.lia no seculo XV", Do tempo e
da Hist6ria, vol. 5 (1972), pp. 29-99.
62 Cf. the relevant studies in FARELO, M<irio, "Bibliografia sobre os escolares portugueses no
estrangeiro", Lisbon, Instituto de Estudos Medievais, 2007, available online at: www.fcsh.unl.pt/iem/biblio/ bibliografia-escoiaresPDF.pdf, and IDEM, "On Portuguese Medical Students and Masters Travelling Abroad: An Overview from the Early Modern Period to the Enlightenment", in GRELL, Ole Peter, CUNNINGHAM, Andrew, and ARRIZABALAGA, Jon (eds.), Centers of Medical Excellence? Medical Travel and Education in
Europe, 1500-1789, Farnham, Ashgate, 2010, pp. 127-147.
63 RUSSELL, Peter E., "Medieval Portuguese Students at Oxford University" ...
64 See MATOS, Luis de, Les portugais
a
l'Universite de Paris, entre 1500-1550 ... , pp. 2-5 (especiallyp. 2,n. 1).
r
INTELLECTUAL HISTORY AND THE SCHOLARS 365reflection"". The publication of primary sources has not allowed for a substantial reassessment of the courses that were actually taught, as information on school and university curricula is still scarce. Information is far more abundant on benefits, petitions, privileges, academic rituals, and quarrels within the university world and among its masters than on course planning and teaching. The documents are so scarce and opaque that for decades one of the most hotly debated questions has focused on which disciplines were effectively taught in the Portuguese Studium
genera le and whether the teaching of theology was authorised or not66
The absence of works whose authorship can be linked to the Portuguese university in the Middle Ages remains so far an undisputed fact. Only through indirect evidence can we infer any interest in the domains of the trivium and the
quadrivium, of philosophy, medicine, law or theology. What we know about the teaching in the Faculdades is vague, since the medieval statutes and lists of privileges never mention curricula.
The trivium was certainly studied, providing an initial training essentially in grammar, but also in dialectics and rhetoric (where continuity with prior learning in monastic and cathedral schools was particularly evident)67
• It is not totally
unlikely that something of the ;~uadrivum was also taught68
• This set of disciplines
was common training in the schools and also in the Faculdade de Artes. In these, if the school was not of very elementary level, it might perhaps go a little further by reading some works, especially Aristotle's. However, only some rare fifteenth--century documents and a few passages in King Manuel's new university statutes, promulgated in 1503, contain the first references to the study of natural and moral sciences69
.
Philosophy encompassed, in practice, the vast disciplinary boundaries of the Faculdade de Artes, and gradually absorbed the liberal arts70• Owing to the definition
65 "[A] actividade das escolas portuguesas parece ter-se exercido obscuramente na repeti<j:iio dos mesmos
textos, e do quadro dos seus estudos s6 a dialectica, ou como hoje diriamos a 16gica, teria estimulado a reflexiio filos6fica": CARVALHO, Joaquim de, Obra completa ... , vol. 3, p. 249 (chapter "Cultura filos6fica e cientifica-periodo medieval", in PERES, Damiiio (dir.), Hist6ria de Portugal ... , vol. 4). One may note that the assertion is based on one single work and author, the Summulae logicales attributed to Petrus Hispanus. Contrary to what was then thought, today it is beyond dispute that the work was not written in Portugal (where only much later would it have been used) and that its author is probably not even Portuguese, cf. below foonotes 98-102.
66 IDEM, Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 281-282 (cited chapter). 67 Cf. above, on the Schools.
68 For the music, see the chapter of Manuel Pedro Ferreira in this volume.
69 PACHECO, Maria Candida, "Trivium e quadrivium", Hist6ria da Universidade em Portugal ... , vol. l,
pp. 155-177. The panorama would alter with the appearance of the printing press and the dissemination of the Humanism in Portugal, and above all with the Statutes granted by King Manuel in 1503, cf. MARTINS, Jose Vitorino de Pina, "0 humanismo (1497-1537)", ibid., vol. 1, pp. 179-236. In any case, the documentation of the
Chartularium still encloses much information that should be read differently so as to extract the knowledge that we clearly lack on the medieval Portuguese university.
