Inside Portugal: Lisbon in the sixteenth century

Book describes economic activity, social organization and daily life in the city that was at the forefront of European colonial expansion.

By José Tadeu Arantes  |  Agência FAPESP – In the period known as the “Age of Discovery,” Portugal was at the forefront of the process of exploration and conquest that imposed European hegemony on four continents (Europe, Africa, Asia and America). Lisbon, the capital of the kingdom, was the “great head of Portugal” in the words of the prominent Portuguese historian Vitorino Magalhães Godinho (1918-2011). At its heart was Paço da Ribeira, the new royal palace with adjoining buildings that housed the kingdom’s chief administrative bodies as well as a complex of warehouses, markets and bazaars; a vast square fronting the Tagus; and giant shipyards. From a second-floor balcony, the King could directly watch the ships departing for the Atlantic.

What was Lisbon like at this time? What was the composition of its population? How did they live? The answers to these questions are the focus of Viver em Lisboa: século XVI (“Life in Sixteenth-Century Lisbon”), a new book by Lélio Luiz de Oliveira published with support from FAPESP.

Oliveira is a professor at the University of São Paulo’s Ribeirão Preto School of Economics, Business Administration & Accounting (FEARP-USP). The book not only emphasizes economics, containing several elucidatory tables full of numbers, but also portrays the daily lives and mindset of the city’s inhabitants, described as “both profoundly inventive and routine bound” by French historian Fernand Braudel (1902-1985), the Annales School’s leading exponent.

“Portuguese historians have emphasized Portugal’s influence on the rest of the world,” Oliveira told Agência FAPESP. “My own concern was not necessarily to reverse this viewpoint but to show how Portugal itself was also influenced by other parts of the world.”

Reflecting this impact, the population of Lisbon grew from some 35,000 in the mid-fourteenth century to 120,000 at the end of the sixteenth century. During the reigns of Manuel I (1469-1521) and his son João III (1502-1557), the city expanded and modernized. According to Oliveira’s book, the population was highly diversified.

Slavery in the metropolis

Despite the enormous economic, social, political and cultural impact of colonial slavery in Brazil, the significance of slavery in the metropolis is typically overlooked. Some 140,000-150,000 African slaves entered Portugal between the mid-fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The relative size of this contingent is evidenced by the fact that around 1530, Portugal’s entire population was no more than 1.2-1.4 million.

“Sources agree that the African slaves were ill treated and lived in wretched conditions,” Oliveira said. Exhausted by inhuman labor and sold, bartered, loaned or bequeathed, slaves were not even entitled to churchyard burial. Until the establishment of lay confraternities specifically for African slaves, such as Confraria de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Homens Pretos, many deceased slaves were interred with Christian rites but not in churchyards or other holy burial grounds, and others were simply cast into a mass grave just outside St. Catherine’s Gate or summarily dumped at the edge of the city to be eaten by dogs.

In addition to blacks of African origin, Jews were another important ethnic minority, many of whom later became cristãos novos through forced conversion to Christianity. “Some 30,000 Jews lived in Portugal in the late fifteenth century. The number tripled following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain by the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492,” Oliveira said.

Manuel I was at first considered a protector of the Portuguese Jews, many of whom were prominent courtiers. Nevertheless, in response to Spanish pressure, a 1496 royal decree ordered the expulsion of all Jews from Portugal. In the following year, this order was revoked and replaced by forced conversion, apparently reflecting the king’s desire to embody Christian zeal in the eyes of Europe while, at the same time, not depriving the kingdom of some of its most valuable subjects. None of this appeased the population’s anti-Semitic fury.

The “great Lisbon massacre,” which occurred in April 1506 in the context of unrest due to drought and plague, began with a riot incited by Dominican friars. The authorities were unable to stop it, and 4,000 converted Jews were murdered, many of them burned alive in improvised bonfires in St. Dominic’s Square in Rossio. After the massacre, and particularly with the advent of the Portuguese Inquisition in 1540 during the reign of João III, many cristãos novos fled to the Low Countries, France, Turkey and Brazil.

The fate of the Muslims

Historians disagree on exactly what happened to Portugal’s Muslims and their descendants. It is worth recalling that Lisbon was Muslim (and called al-Ishbuna) for more than four centuries, between 714, when the city was taken by Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa, and 1147, when it was reconquered by Afonso I of Portugal. At its apogee in the tenth century, it had some 100,000 inhabitants and an exuberant cultural life. After the Christian Reconquista, the remaining Muslims were confined to the districts of Mouraria and Alfama or to the outskirts of the city. But what happened then?

“Until recently, Portuguese and foreign historians were practically unanimous in averring that by the sixteenth century, the remainder of the Muslim community, whether Arab or Berber in origin, had lost its religious and cultural identity. This is the view I take in my book,” Oliveira said. “However, a recent study by François Soyer, Associate Professor of Late Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of Southampton, interprets the facts differently, marshaling robust evidence for the view that the Portuguese Muslims constituted a small unassimilated minority and were expelled by Manuel I in 1497. So for me, the question remains unanswered, and more research is needed before a conclusion can be reached.”

According to Oliveira, the dynamization caused by voyages of discovery and overseas conquests did not bring about radical changes in the economy, social organization, the structure of trades and professions, or forms of work. The new was built on old foundations. Nonetheless, some sectors responded more emphatically to innovation. One of these was evidently shipbuilding. “This industry required raw materials such as timber, pitch, tallow, oakum, iron for nails, rope for rigging, and sailcloth. Many of these materials were produced in Portugal itself. The best wood was imported,” Oliveira said.

Systematic pillage in the initial stage of expansion and the need to defend conquered lands thereafter also required increasing production of firearms and gunpowder as well as the training of military personnel to use these materials.

One activity that was significantly dynamized in the period was the manufacturing of dry, very durable biscuits, which became an important element of the typical sailor’s diet. “This product was already well known in Portugal, in the vicinity of Lisbon, but production grew because of the voyages,” Oliveira said.

Pastry cookers and greengrocers

The day-to-day supply of food was a constant concern in Lisbon because of population growth. “Many different kinds of tradespeople linked to food and drink came to live in the city,” Oliveira said.

In addition to the straightforward provisioning of food and drink, these tradespeople had to meet growing demand for more sophisticated novelties brought to the metropolis from far-flung corners of the world, and especially delicacies and spices.

The upper classes used spices such as pepper, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and turmeric, often excessively, as luxuries and status symbols. At the top of the social pyramid, new utensils such as the fork were introduced. Forks were occasionally used at the court of Manuel I, while knives and forks were in daily use at the court of João III.

The countryside around Lisbon as well as other parts of Portugal, such as Alentejo, Minho, Douro and Trás-os-Montes, was no longer able to supply everything sold and consumed in the city. Many goods began to be imported from the Azores, Castile, Galicia, Italy, France, Flanders and England and from more distant regions, including Africa, Brazil, India, Ceylon, and even China.

The city council granted licenses for trades and crafts and established where they could be practiced. It also collected taxes. “The council was divided into pelouros, or portfolios, which acted as administrative bodies, each with its own jurisdiction, payroll and service offering. There were pelouros for meat, public works, street cleaning and execution of sentences, among many others. The council’s revenue came from the licenses. This arrangement, which dated from the twelfth century, remained in force until after the sixteenth,” Oliveira said.

Innovative in some cases and conservative in others, sixteenth-century Lisbon reflected both the vigor of Portugal’s global expansion and the general conservatism of its society.

More information: alamedaeditorial.com.br/viver-em-lisboa.