Indoors: domestic interiors in Early Modern Portugal

Indoors: domestic interiors in Early Modern Portugal

In the Portuguese world of the Early Modern Period, walls, keys and doors were used as recurrent symbols of living spaces. They constructed modes of everyday life, established social distinctions, consolidated gender
divides and built spheres of authority. Residential buildings adapted to multiple uses, although their goals were always protecting their inhabitants, as well as expressing and building social order. The purpose of this project is to study the ways in which people lived within walls, through differentiated uses of space and specific patterns of consumption.
During the Early Modern period, the family was the common reference when it came to organize community life.
The household groups included, besides the individuals linked by blood ties, servants and slaves; all co-residents should pay obedience to the head of the family, in a context where gender divides were the rule. Women were allocated gender specific tasks that could materialize in different uses of space and specific patterns of consumption. The house was women's territory in itself; most women, especially those of high social status, were supposed to leave it only during special occasions defined by social conventions.
In non-familial communal habitats, everyday life maintained the family as its main frame of reference: fictional kinships were constructed (sisters and "madres" in convents, for instance) and the form of authority chosen was always the paternal one.
The project is organized according to different types of early modern habitats, either permanent or temporary, such as:
1. The palace and the aristocratic manor;
2. The rural household;
3. Houses of reclusion for women: the convent and the retirement house ("recolhimento");
4. The male convent;
5. The college;
6. The hospital;
7. The prison.
Sources and methods: the project will explore a wide range of sources (inventories of orphaned children's
property, wills, pastoral visitations, dowries, rules of common life, inventories of mobile wealth, iconography,
musealized and privately owned objects, account books, cookbooks, minutes of institutional meetings, chronicles, etc).
Each member of the team shall study one or two of the above mentioned types of habitat, according to her/his previous research experience. Researchers are free to choose his/her case studies, which should belong to a geographic area as wide as possible, although they have to be concerned within the territory of contemporary Portugal.

Estatuto: 
Participant entity
Financed: 
Yes

In the Portuguese world of the Early Modern Period, walls, keys and doors were used as recurrent symbols of living spaces. They constructed modes of everyday life, established social distinctions, consolidated gender
divides and built spheres of authority. Residential buildings adapted to multiple uses, although their goals were always protecting their inhabitants, as well as expressing and building social order. The purpose of this project is to study the ways in which people lived within walls, through differentiated uses of space and specific patterns of consumption.
During the Early Modern period, the family was the common reference when it came to organize community life.
The household groups included, besides the individuals linked by blood ties, servants and slaves; all co-residents should pay obedience to the head of the family, in a context where gender divides were the rule. Women were allocated gender specific tasks that could materialize in different uses of space and specific patterns of consumption. The house was women's territory in itself; most women, especially those of high social status, were supposed to leave it only during special occasions defined by social conventions.
In non-familial communal habitats, everyday life maintained the family as its main frame of reference: fictional kinships were constructed (sisters and "madres" in convents, for instance) and the form of authority chosen was always the paternal one.
The project is organized according to different types of early modern habitats, either permanent or temporary, such as:
1. The palace and the aristocratic manor;
2. The rural household;
3. Houses of reclusion for women: the convent and the retirement house ("recolhimento");
4. The male convent;
5. The college;
6. The hospital;
7. The prison.
Sources and methods: the project will explore a wide range of sources (inventories of orphaned children's
property, wills, pastoral visitations, dowries, rules of common life, inventories of mobile wealth, iconography,
musealized and privately owned objects, account books, cookbooks, minutes of institutional meetings, chronicles, etc).
Each member of the team shall study one or two of the above mentioned types of habitat, according to her/his previous research experience. Researchers are free to choose his/her case studies, which should belong to a geographic area as wide as possible, although they have to be concerned within the territory of contemporary Portugal.

Objectivos: 
This project wants to bring the history of domestic life into the sphere of social history. Domestic interiors generally receive attention from historians of architecture of historians of art, who are attentive to stylistic and contruction/production methods. Their work is very important, of course, and they bring a major contribution to the field, but they do not study spaces and objects having as primary focus the people that used them.<br />Historical demography and social history can bring a fresh approach to the theme, either precising the number of people and relationships between them, or the values attached to domestic experiences.<br />On the other hand, the general public often feels very attracted to daily life, even in its "trivialities", so we think that this subject will have a wide audience, and help the discipline to move out from the limited spheres of academia. This is why the project has as one of its priorities the making of a website where students and the common reader can read about modes of living in the past - within doors, of course.
Parceria: 
Unintegrated
Coordenador 
Start Date: 
01/01/2007
End Date: 
31/12/2010
Duração: 
47 meses
Closed