Castas Donas: Cónegas Regrantes de Santo Agostinho em Portugal no período medieval

Abstract

This paper is a preliminary and open research based on unpublished information on the historical reality of the geography of the establishment and recruitment of canonesses regular of the order of Saint Augustine in Portugal, in the Middle Ages. This is not a widely developed subject of current historiography - not withstanding the fact that it was a consolidated cenobitic movement, on the Portuguese territory, during the 12th century in particular, therefore prior to the success of women's applications to the Cistercian or the Mendicant Orders - generally subsumed and justified by the absence of primary sources of documentation on the subject. Following an introduction to the state-of-the-art of bibliography and historiography on female monastic movements in Medieval Portugal, the paper includes a general description of the spiritual and institutional model of canoness regular. Finally it submits a proposal of use and enhancement of a relevant form of information drawn from the archives - obituaries of canonesses regular - in view of unveiling features of the Augustinian communities of sorores in Portugal.