Metadata: General Registry of Favours
Collection
- Country:
- Portugal
- Holding institution:
- The National Archive of Torre do Tombo
- Holding institution (official language):
- Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo
- Postal address:
- Alameda da Universidade, 1649-010 Lisbon
- Phone number:
- 00351 210037100
- Email:
- mail@dglab.gov.pt
- Reference number:
- PT/TT/RGM
- Title:
- General Registry of Favours
- Title (official language):
- Registo Geral de Mercês
- Creator/accumulator:
- Registo Geral de Mercês
- Date(s):
- 1639/1949
- Language:
- Portuguese
- Extent:
- 424 books
- Type of material:
- Textual Material
- Physical condition:
- Good
- Scope and content:
-
The Registo Geral de Mercês fonds contains favours granted by Portuguese kings since João IV, as well as those conceded during the Republic regime, after 1910. It also includes royal decrees and records related to military orders, enrollment of residents of the Royal House, donations and favours by Torre do Tombo, national and foreign decorations and nominations and favours given to individuals who served in the Portuguese overseas territories in North Africa, Angola, Cape of Good Hope, Cape Verde, Cacheu, Guinea, Mozambique, Monomotapa, S. Jorge da Mina, S. Tomé and Princípe, Brazil, China, Japan, and the Portuguese State of India.
In Early Modern Portugal, some New Christians achieved royal favours for their services to the Crown. This recognition reflected their high social and economic relevance. Also, a few New Christian families could circumvent the statutes of purity of blood and enter military orders or received favours and honours that were banned to descendants of Jews. Evidence of these cases lies in the Registo Geral de Mercês fonds. There can also be found here examples of favours granted to New Christian/Jewish diplomatic agents of Portugal in European courts such as Jerónimo Nunes da Costa in Amsterdam (PT/TT/RGM/A/001/0006/326231), his brother Manuel Nunes da Costa in Hamburg (PT/TT/RGM/A/001/0004/04267), or Manuel Fernandes Vila Real in Paris (PT/TT/RGM/Q/0015/350013), for instance. As the fonds is organized chronologically by king/queen and the records of each book are arranged alphabetically by the first name of the recipient, it is pretty simple to search favours, privileges, or donations given to a specific individual.
- Archival history:
- The registry of the Secretaria das Mercês (Secretariat of Favours) was destroyed after a fire on October 2, 1681. A decree in 1684 ordered the favours recorded in the Chancellery of King João IV to be copied to the Registo das Mercês. In 1791, the Registo das Mercês' service and archive were transferred to the Torre Tombo, then located in the Convent of São Bento da Saúde, in Lisbon. The record books from 1808 to 1821 (from the period when the Portuguese court was in Rio de Janeiro) remained in Brazil, and, at present, they are part of the collection of the National Archive in Rio de Janeiro.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The Registo das Mercês (Registry of Favours) was instituted by the permit of December 31, 1547, which ordered all donations, provisions, privileges, licenses, favours, etc., to be recorded in books. On November 29, 1643, King João IV created the Secretaria das Mercês e Expediente (Secretariat of Favours and Paperwork) to have the responsibility of recording all consults, orders, decrees and commands that were not matters of the State, in particular, orders of favours granted by services or grace. On January 19, 1671, the statutes of this Secretariat specified which services should be granted with a "mercê" (favour) and regulated the required proofs and procedural protocols. In 1681, after a fire had destroyed the Registo das Mercês' archive, a decree ordered their re-formation following the Royal Archive and Military Orders chancelleries, the account book of the Chancellery in the Contos (Audit Office) and the enrolment of the Conselho Ultramarino (Overseas Council).
In 1777, the Registo das Mercês received new statutes, and it became subordinated to the Conselho da Fazenda (the Treasury Council). These statutes also regulated that the Registo das Mercês' books related to former reigns should be dispatched to the Torre do Tombo. On February 5, 1791, the services and archive of the Registo Geral das Mercês were incorporated into the royal archive. In 1833, the mission of registering letters, licenses, provisions, and other decrees was also transferred from the extinct Secretaria das Mercês to the Torre do Tombo.
In 1887 there was a mandatory rearrangement of documents in the register of the certificates of honorific favours. The record of all national and foreign decorations in the Torre do Tombo was also made obligatory in 1919. However, in 1928, this task was transferred in 1927 to the Chancelaria das Ordens Portuguesas (Chancellery of Portuguese Orders), under the dependence of the Republic Presidency.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Fernandes Vila Real, Manuel
- Nunes da Costa, Jerónimo (Moses Curiel)
- Nunes da Costa, Manuel (Selomoh Curiel)
- Subject terms:
- Conversion to Christianity
- Privileges
- System of arrangement:
- The fonds is organised into 24 sections: 12 according to each sovereign (from Afonso VI to Manuel II); one gathering favours granted by several kings; one of favours granted during the Republic (1910-1946); and 10 organised by theme (honorific favours; favours and donations from the Torre do Tombo; military orders; negative certificates; registry of certificates; enrolment of residents of the Royal House; and decrees from the kingdom, India and Africa).
- Access, restrictions:
- Part of the books are available in digital format in the archive's online database.
- Finding aids:
-
Handwritten finding aids available in the Torre do Tombo:
Handwritten indexes (F. 1 to 35, 73 to 76; L. 335 to 353, 355 to 366; C. 612/1-33)
"Registo Geral de Mercês: catálogo das Ordens Militares e condecorações estrangeiras" (Catalogue of military orders and foreign honours). 1956. (C. 612/1-33; C. 611/1-8)
Published finding aids:
Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo. 1909-12. Inventário Das Portarias Do Reino. 2 vols. Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional. Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo. 1911-17. Inventário Dos Livros de Matrícula Dos Moradores Da Casa Real. 2 vols. Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional.
Farinha, Maria do Carmo Jasmins Dias, and António Frazão, eds. 1999. Guia Geral Dos Fundos Da Torre Do Tombo: Instituições Do Antigo Regime, Administração Central. Vol. 2. Lisbon: IAN/TT.
Olival, Fernanda, Isabel Castro Pina, Maria Cecília Henriques, and Maria João Violante Branco, eds. 1999. Guia de fontes portuguesas para a história da Ásia. Lisbon: Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses; Fundação Oriente; Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda.
Pina, Isabel Castro, and Maria Leonor Ferraz de Oliveira Silva Santos, eds. 1991. Guia de fontes portuguesas para a história de Africa. Lisbon: Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses : Fundação Oriente : Imprensa Nacional-Casa de Moeda.
Pina, Isabel Castro, ed. 2001. Guia de fontes portuguesas para a história da América Latina. Lisbon: Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses : Fundação Oriente : Imprensa Nacional-Casa de Moeda.
- Links to finding aids:
- https://digitarq.arquivos.pt/details?id=1817689
- Yerusha Network member:
- Universidade Nova de Lisboa - Western Sephardic Diaspora Roadmap
- Author of the description:
- Carla Vieira, 2021