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Country
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PT
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Name of institution (English)
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Loulé City Archive
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Language of name of institution
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por
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Contact information: postal address
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Rua Cândido Guerreiro, s/n, 8100-681 Loulé
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Contact information: phone number
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00351 289400804
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Contact information: email
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arquivo.municipal@cm-loule.pt
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Reference number
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JOLLE
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Type of reference number
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Archival reference number
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Title (English)
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Judge of Orphans of Loulé
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Title (official language of the state)
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Juiz dos Órfãos de Loulé
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Language of title
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por
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Creator / accumulator
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Juiz dos Órfãos de Loulé
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Date(s)
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1406/1535
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Language(s)
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por
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Extent
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10 books
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Type of material
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Textual material
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Physical condition
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Satisfactory
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Scope and content
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The Juiz dos Órfãos de Loulé fonds is divided into three sections:
JOLLE/001: "Registo das tutorias dos órfãos" (documents related to orphans' guardianship), which includes inventories of assets related to inheritances (1411/1482).
JOLLE/002: "Livros dos órfãos" (orphans' books), which include records of judicial actions related to the nomination of guardians, inventories of assets, divisions of inheritances, etc. (1408/1412)
JOLLE/003: "Registo de fianças" (bail records), which is composed of one bail record dated from 1535.
This fonds contains interesting sources on the assistance given by public authorities to orphans, as well as on the social and economic dynamics in Medieval Loulé. This kind of documentation is rare in the Portuguese archives, particularly from such an early age as the 15th century. Moreover, it contains information on social minorities, since the jurisdiction of the Juiz dos Órfãos (Judge of Orphans) of Loulé also covered Jewish and Muslim orphans. For instance, a record dated 1409 (PT/AMLLE/JOLLE/002/00001) reports a dispute between Isaque Cofem, the rabbi of the Jewish "comuna" (commune) of Loulé, and Afonso Nunes, the Juiz dos Órfãos, over the assets inherited by two Jewish orphan sisters. The girls' mother claimed the ownership of some items included in the inventory of assets to be delivered to the orphans' guardians. Although rabbi Cofem was on the widow's side, judge Nunes ordered the items to be seized and returned to the guardians. Aside from being a rare example of a guardianship record of Jewish orphans in Medieval Portugal, this document also shows that the Juíz dos Órfãos already exercised authority over orphans from the Jewish community before the 1430s (see Mucznik and Tavim, 2018).
Documents from this fonds were transcribed and published by Maria de Fátima Machado (2016).
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Archival history
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The Juiz dos Órfãos de Loulé fonds is part of the original collection of the Arquivo Histórico Municipal de Loulé. In the 1990s, it was enriched with the incorporation of a set of records from 1406, 1410 and 1411 (34 folios) that Alberto Iria (1909-1992) bequeathed to the Municipality of Loulé in his will, together with other documents. Iria was a Portuguese historian who dedicated most of his research career to the history of the Algarve (the southernmost region of Portugal) in the Medieval and Early Modern periods.
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Administrative / Biographical history
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The Juiz dos Órfãos was a local officer whose primary responsibility was to protect the rights and assets of minor orphans. He had the duty of requiring the elaboration of the inventory of the orphans' assets and depositing their value in a specific ark, together with two books with the recording of revenues and expenditures related to their value.
There is evidence of the existence of the position of Juiz dos Órfãos in Loulé since the last quarter of the 14th century. The judge, or judges, (in some periods, there were two Juízes dos Órfãos in the village) were annually elected until 1433 when the position started being attributed by nomination and without a term. At the time, the Juiz dos Órfãos' jurisdiction was extended to the religious minorities settled in Loulé, namely the Muslim and Jewish communities. These minorities remained under its jurisdiction until the end of the 15th century when the position of "Juiz dos Mouros e Judeus" (Judge of Muslims and Jews) was created. In 1496, Diogo de Ataíde exercised this office in Loulé. From the 1490s onwards, the Juiz dos Órfãos was again elected by the council, and its mandate became triennial.
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System of arrangement
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The fonds is organised in two series: JOLLE/001: "Registo das tutorias dos órfãos"; JOLLE/002: "Livros dos órfãos"; JOLLE/003: "Registo de fianças" . Records are arranged chronologically.
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Author of the description
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Carla Vieira, 2021
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Bibliography
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Barros, Maria Filomena Lopes de. 2017. “Ordenar o povoamento e a vizinhança: muçulmanos, cristãos e judeus.” In Loulé: Territórios, Memórias, Identidades, 590–623. Lisboa: Museu Nacional de Arqueologia.
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Duarte, Luís Miguel. 1995. “Documentação medieval e moderna recentemente incorporada no Arquivo Histórico Municipal de Loulé.” Revista de História 13: 69–74.
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Tavares, Maria José Pimenta Ferro. 1987. “A Comuna Judaica de Évora.” Annuario de Estudios Medievales, 552–58.
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Tavim, José Alberto Rodrigues da Silva. 2018. “Judeus de Loulé nos séculos XIV-XV: no prolongamento do al-Andaluz.” In Atas do I Encontro de História de Loulé, 91–110. Loulé: Câmara Municipal de Loulé.
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Tavim, José Alberto Rodrigues da Silva, and Lúcia Liba Mucznik. 2018. “Jóias da documentação judaica medieval portuguesa.” In Os judeus na península ibérica durante a Idade Média: análise das suas fontes, 65–95. Coimbra: Almedina.
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Vaz, Francisco. 2013. “A Biblioteca do Convento de Jesus (1755-1834).” In As Bibliotecas e o Livro nas Instituições Eclesiais, Actas II e III Encontro, 133–49. Mafra: Secretariado Nacional Para os Bens Culturais da Igreja.
