The extinction inventories of convents in 1834

an attempt to reconstruct two archives of Benedictine religious institutions - Rendufe and Tomar

Abstract

In 1834, by Decree of 30 May and as part of the general ecclesiastical reform undertaken by Joaquim António de Aguiar, Minister and Secretary of State, and carried out by the Commission for the General Reform of the Clergy (1833-1837), all convents, monasteries, colleges, hospices and religious houses of all religious orders were extinguished, with the female houses remaining subject to their respective bishops until the death of the last nun, the date of their definitive closure.

The process of extinction of religious houses involved the drawing up of hundreds of inventories currently in the Torre do Tombo National Archive. This wealth of information makes it possible to carry out countless archival, history, and art history studies associated with economic and sociological studies. In this study, we intend to focus on the inventories of the Santo André de Rendufe monastery and the Convent of Christ in Tomar. The fact that both institutions have a Benedictine character (in the first case, black monks and in the second, friars of the Order of Christ) but are located in different places in the kingdom will allow us to make comparisons, propose hypotheses and draw conclusions that may help us to understand better how the above-mentioned processes of extinction of religious houses and the collection of their archives and documentary collections were conducted.