Words to order the spirit (Portugal – 15th century)

Abstract

From the fifteenth century, the number of pastoral works written in Portugueseincreased, in order to enable the faithful – not only those from the court of thekings of Portugal, but also ordinary men and women – to be initiated into the Christianfaith. Considering that churchgoers were meant to learn several words that would givemeaning to the spiritual world, this essay will focus on three of those words and the usesintended for them by the Church’s literate leadership: “caráter” (“character”), “fé” (“faith”)and “confissão” (“confession”). By exploring the ways through which the clergy soughtto expand the vocabulary of Portuguese churchgoers, this work analyzes to what extentthe learning of such words contributed to the familiarization of Portuguese Christianswith the rules of their group. In short, the focus of this essay is the role assigned to thosethree words in terms of ordering of devotion in in fifteenth century Portugal.