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

Abstract

From the fifteenth century, the number of pastoral works written in Portuguese increased, in order to enable the faithful - not only those from the court of the kings of Portugal, but also ordinary men and women - to be initiated into the Christian faith. Considering that churchgoers were meant to learn several words that would give meaning to the spiritual world, this essay will focus on three of those words and the uses intended for them by the Church's literate leadership: carater (character), fe (faith) and confissao (confession). By exploring the ways through which the clergy sought to expand the vocabulary of Portuguese churchgoers, this work analyzes to what extent the learning of such words contributed to the familiarization of Portuguese Christians with the rules of their group. In short, the focus of this essay is the role assigned to those three words in terms of ordering of devotion in in fifteenth century Portugal.