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Child abandonment in Portugal: legislation and institutional care

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Isabel Dos Guimarães Sá
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Continuity and Change , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , May 1994 , pp. 69 - 89
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

ENDNOTES

1 Bourdieu, Pierre, Choses dites (Paris, 1987), pp. 75–93.Google Scholar

2 See Guimarães Sá, Isabel dos, ‘Abandono de criaças, infanticidio e aborto na sociedade portuguesa tradicional através das fontes juridicas’, Penélope 8 (1992), 75–89.Google Scholar

3 From the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries three compilations of laws were in force: the Ordenações Afonsinas, from the second half of the fifteenth century to 1521, the Ordenaçõ Manuelinas from 1521 to 1603, and from then onwards until the codes elaborated in the nineteenth century the Ordenações Filipinas (1603). For the whole of the eighteenth century, the Ordenações Filipinas were in use, although supplemented by new laws, also available in compilations (see Serrão, Joel ed., Dicionário de História de Portugal (Porto, 1985)Google Scholar, ‘Ordenações’). As many issues were not included in Portuguese laws, the Ordenações Filipinas also declared which sources of law remained valid and in what order: first, Roman and canon law, the former being preferred to the latter; second, the ‘glosas’ from Acúrcio and comments by Bártolo, unless they were contradicted by the common opinion of the jurists; finally, the monarch could decide upon specific cases (Ordenações Filipinas, livro II, tit. 64).

4 In the Spanish, Italian and Portuguese cities the death of small children was invariably the motive that justified the foundation of foundling homes. In the Middle Ages, the Hospitals of the Holy Spirit in Rome were supported by popes because they were disturbed by the sight of children fished out of the Tiber and brought to their presence by fishermen (Boswell, John, The kindness of strangers. The abandonment of children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance (London, 1988)Google Scholar, Illustrations 15–17). In Germany a crucial issue in the debate concerning the foundation of foundling homes during the eighteenth century was also whether the number of infanticides decreased with legal abandonment. See Ulbricht, Otto, ‘The debate about foundling hospitals in Enlightenment Germany: infanticide, illegitimacy and infant mortality rates’, Central European History 18 (1985), 216–19CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. In Porto's case, a royal order authorizing the foundation of the foundling home mentioned the finding of many dead children on beaches and in other ‘strange’ places (Arquivo da Assembleia Distrital do Porto (hereafter AADP), Livra l do Regista, 4)Google Scholar. In Brazil, a bishop is said to have given orders to pick up children from dunghills (Mesgravis, Laima, ‘A assistência à infància desamparada e a Santa Casa de S. Paulo: a Roda dos Expostos no século XIX’, Revista de História (Brasil) 103 (1975), 413).Google Scholar

5 Among others, Flandrin, Jean-Louis, Le sexe et l'Occident (Paris, 1981), 203.Google Scholar

6 Mostazo, Francisco, De causis pus in genere, et in specie …, vol. I (Lugduni, 1700)Google Scholar, liber IV, cap. XI, n. 77; Velasco, Gabriel Alvares, De privilegiis pauperum et miserabilium personarum (Madrid, 1630), p. 2, q. 65, §2, nn. 180–2, 185 and 207–14Google Scholar; Gragoso, B., Regiminis republicare christianae (Lugduni, 1641)Google Scholar, part III, lib. I, §111, epit. 126.

7 de Gouveia Pinto, A. J., Exame crítico e histórico sobre os direitos essabelecidos pela legislação amiga e moderna, tanto pátria como subsidiária, e das naçóes mais vizinhas e cultas, relativamente aos expostos ou engeitados (Lisbon, 1828), p. 34Google Scholar; de Melo Freire, P. J., Instituliones Juris Civilis et Criminalis Lusitani …, vol. 5 (Lisbon, 1794)Google Scholar, tit. 9, art. 14.

8 Ordenações Filipinas, livro V, art. 1.Google Scholar

9 To give an example, wet-nurses boarding in Porto's foundling home often killed foundlings while they slept, and the punishment was merely dismissal, and even then this was not always the case (AADP, Livra l das Entradas e Termos das Amas, 51–165).Google Scholar

10 Trexler, Richard, ‘Infanticide in Florence: new sources and first results’, History of Childhood Quarterly 1 (1974), 98–116Google Scholar. In Portugal, references can be found to infanticide in penitentials. As an example, see Navarro, M., Manual de confessores e penitentes (Coimbra, 1552), 173.Google Scholar

11 ‘De Agnoscendis et alendis liberis vel parentibus vel patronis vel libertis’ (para. 4), from Corpus Inris Civilis, Digesta, xxv, 3, quoted by Pinto, , in de Gouveia, A. J., Compilação das providências que a hem da criação dos Expostos ou Engeitados se tern publicade e achão espalhadas em diferentes artigas da legislação pátria, a que acrescem outras … (Lisbon, 1820), 14Google Scholar. Nevertheless, it should be noted that a Roman law punishing infanticide did not appear before the fourth century AD (Flandrin, , Le sexe et l'Occident, 210).Google Scholar

12 This Regimento dos Quadrilheiros established a police force in the towns and cities of the kingdom. Its officers, the quadrilheiros, were replaced in 1760 by the Intendência Geral da Policia. Among a list of possible criminals – burglars, witches, prostitutes, gamblers – there were these movedeiras, women accused of provoking miscarriages. See Collecção cronológica de várias leis, provisões e regimentos de El-Rey D. Sabastião (Coimbra, 1819), 22.Google Scholar

13 This law was confirmed in 1698 and reinforced by Louis XIV in 1708. See Dupuis, A., ‘Avant la pilule, deux édits royaux de 1556 et 1708 (sur les déclarations de grossesse)’, Vieux Papier (Paris) 25 (1968), 241–5Google Scholar, where such laws are transcribed.

14 As for example, Depauw, Jacques, ‘Amour illégitime et société à Nantes au XVIIIe siècle’, Annales E.S.C. 27 (1972), pp. 1155–82Google Scholar, and Lottin, Alain, ‘Naissances illégitimes et filles-mères à Lille au XVIIIe siècle’, Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 22 (1975), 61–88.Google Scholar

15 The alvara of the 18 10 1806Google Scholar, §VIII, renewed explicitly §4 of title 73 of livro I: see da Silva, António Delgado, Collecção da Legislação Portuguesa, desde a ultima compilação das Ordenações (Lisbon, 1826–1830), vol. v, 414–18.Google Scholar

16 See Boswell, , The kindness of strangers, 27.Google Scholar

17 Ordenações Filipinas, livro V, tit. 41)Google Scholar. This law ascribes the same penalty to slaves that murder their master and to sons and daughters who murder their father or mother. Another law allowed the father to imprison his slave as well as his son, although other forms of private imprisonment were forbidden (Ordenações Filipinas, livro v, tit. 95, §4).Google Scholar

18 Although paternal power in Rome seemed to be unlimited, some authors suggest that its incidence was weakened by the fact that generations did not overlap due to low life expectancy. See Sailer, Richard, ‘Patria potestas and the stereotype of the Roman family’, Continuity and Change 1 (1986), 7–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Ordenaçõees Filipinas, livro III, tit. 9, §3Google Scholar (concerning emancipation); livro I, tit. 88, §6 and livro III, tit. 42, §4 (concerning married minors).

20 No law in the ordenações deals with this issue and it can be presumed that the Roman principle was in use. For other European countries see Ourliac, Paul and de Malafosse, J., ‘Le droit familial’, in Histoire du droit privé, vol. III (Paris, 1968), 51Google Scholar, and Allemand-Gay, Marie-Thérèse, ‘Le droit de la filiation illégitime à la fin de l'Ancien Régime’, XVIIIe Siècle 12 (1980), 251–69.Google Scholar

21 Only France is considered; see Allemand-Gay, , ‘Le droit de la filiation’, 269.Google Scholar

22 Ordenações Filipinas, livro V, tit. 38, §1, p. 1188Google Scholar. The law only banished cases in which a commoner killed a nobleman for adultery with his wife. Between men of equal status the killing of both the adulterous wife and her lover went unpunished. The betrayed husband was entitled to his adulterous wife's dowry (Ordenações Filipinas, livro V, tit. 113, §3).Google Scholar

23 AADP, Livro l das Entradas, 214 and 223Google Scholar (Maria and Vitória, both abandoned in 1701). In the latter case, it is stated that the husband had just arrived in a ship and the wife abandoned the child in order to save her life.

24 AADP, Livro 32 das Saidas, 408–9Google Scholar. In order to maintain secrecy, the pages of the book where the list is contained were stitched together.

25 Ordenações Filipinas, livro IV, tit. 92Google Scholar. This law could be interpreted as an authorization for a married man to have one concubine.

26 The Portuguese inheritance system divided the estate in two parts: the legitima, formed of the property to be divided between the legal heirs, and the terca, which the testator was free to bequeath. The terca (the word meant literally a third of the estate, but the proportion could vary) could be used to benefit one of the legal heirs, increasing his estate, or to benefit any other person or religious institution. On the implications of this system in household formation and family patterns, see Osswald, Helena, ‘Dowry, norms, and household formation: a case study from North Portugal’. Journal of Family History 15 (1990), 210–12.Google Scholar

27 Ordenações Filipinas, livro IV, tit. 92, § 1 and 3.Google Scholar

28 Ibid., tit. 88, § 1 and 2.

29 Ordenações Filipinas, livro II, tit. 35, §12.Google Scholar

30 Ordenações Filipinas, livro IV, tit. 93.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., tit. 36, §4.

32 Inventories of the property left by the mother to her children had also to be drawn up. See Ordenações Filipinas, livro I, tit. 88, §§7, 8 and 9.Google Scholar

33 de Almeida, Jerónimo Couceiro, Tratado orphanológico e prático, formado com as disposicões das Leis Pátrias (Lisbon, 1794)Google Scholar; de Aboym Guerreiro, Diogo Camacho, De munere judicis orphanorum opus (Coimbra and Lisbon, 1699–1735)Google Scholar; de Paiva e Pona, António, Orphanologia prática em que se secreve ludo que respeita aos inventários partilhas … (Lisbon, 1713)Google Scholar; de Campos, Manuel António, Tratado prático juridico civil e criminal … (Lisbon, 1765 and 1768).Google Scholar

34 There was one particular case where it was conceded that even if Roman law admitted the loss of paternal power, Portuguese law retained it for the bastards of commoners (AADP, Livro I do Regista, 134).Google Scholar

35 The situation could be similar to the Spanish one, where there was an absence of any law concerning adoption of children less than seven years old. See Gonzalez, Juan Garcia, ‘Expósitos, beneficencia y prohijamiento’, in Estudios juridicos en homenaje al professor José Santa Cruz Teijero (Valencia, 1974), 322.Google Scholar

36 Ordenaçõees Filipinas, livro V, tit. 55.Google Scholar

37 Ordenações Afonsinas, livro IV, tit. 92, §§ 1 and 2. This law governing payments for the upbringing of illegitimate children is identical to that operating in the Basque country. See Valverde, Lola, ‘Illégitimité et abandon d'enfants au Pays Basque à l'Age Moderne’, (unpublished paper delivered to the 10th International Economic History Conference, Leuven, 1990Google Scholar, available in the library of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure; this paper is also to be published in Henderson, John and Wall, Richard eds., Poor women and children in the European past (London, Routledge, forthcoming 1994)Google Scholar, as ‘Illegitimacy and the abandonment of children in the Basque Country, 1500–1800’).

38 The popularity of the word engeiiado rivals the word exposto, although the second seems to be more used during the nineteenth century. The etymology of the word engeitado is interesting because it comes from the verb engeitar, which means ‘to reject’.

39 Ordenaçōes Filipinas, livro I, tit. 66, §41.Google Scholar

40 Capela, José, ‘Entre Douro e Minho 1750–1830. Finanças. Administração e bolqueamentos estruturais no Portugal Moderno’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Minho, 1987).Google Scholar

41 Pinto, , Exame crítico, 175–77Google Scholar; Silva, , Collecção de Legislação, vol. 1763–1774, 225.Google Scholar

42 ‘Alvará de 31 de Janeiro de 1775’ in Silva, Collecção da Legislação, vol. 1775–1790, 4Google Scholar. This law responded to a request made by the administrators of the Hospital de Todos os Santos of Lisbon and only mentions the capital of the kingdom. Until then, the foundlings were cared for until the age of nine. As is explained in the text, this measure was designed to diminish expenses, as the hospital was overloaded with children.

43 ‘Alvará de 31 de Janeiro de 1775’, §8 in Silva, Colleção de Legislação, vol. 1775–1790Google Scholar. Majority for foundlings therefore was age 20 instead of 25.

44 The law referred to foundling hospitals by the name of the instrument that served for the physical deposition of the foundlings: the wheel.

45 A comarca was an administrative and jurisdictional unit formed by a group of concelhos.

46 Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (hereafter ANTT), Livro n° 6 da Intendência Geral da Policia, 70–2Google Scholar. See also Peres, Damião, ‘Expostos’ in História de Portugal, vol. 6 (Barcelos, 1934), 635Google Scholar. Nevertheless, in the nineteenth-century Algarve foundlings were still ‘exported’ to Spain (Cortes, Nuno, ‘O abandono de crianças no Algarve. O caso dos expostos de Louié (1820–1884)’ (unpublished Master's thesis, University of Porto, 1991), 66.Google Scholar

47 Ordenaç~es Filipinas, livro I, tit. 88, §12.Google Scholar

48 The charter was destined for the Hospital de Todos os Santos of Lisbon. Quoted by Pinto, , Exame crítico, 187–8.Google Scholar

49 Pinto, , Exame crítico, 188–9.Google Scholar

50 Pinto, , Exame crítico, 189Google Scholar; Tomás, Manuel Fernandes, Repertório ou Indice Alfabético das Leis Extravagantes, vol. 1 (Coimbra, 1815), 49.Google Scholar

51 Ordenações Filipinas, 5th edn (Lisbon, 1747), 395–6.Google Scholar

52 Decree dated 22 December 1695, in Ordenações Filipinas, 5th edn, 396.Google Scholar

53 ‘Alvará de 31 de Marco de 1878’ in Silva, Collecção da Legislação, vol. III, 430–1.Google Scholar

54 At least in Porto, the register books mention privileges accorded to wet-nurses from the first half of the eighteenth century.

55 Hespanha, António, História das instituições. Epocas medieval e moderna (Coimbra, 1982), 228.Google Scholar

56 Mostazo, , De causis piis, vol. I, liber iv, cap. XI, n. 59.Google Scholar

57 Mostazo, , De causis piis, vol. I, liber iv, cap. ix, nn. 73–6Google Scholar; Fragoso, , Regiminis republicae, vol. III, part III, liber I, §III, nn. 133–4Google Scholar; Pegas, Manuel Alvares, Tractatus de exclusione, inclusione, successione et executione majoratus (Lisbon, 1686), part 5, cap. LXIII, nn. 1, 2, 3 and 7.Google Scholar

58 Mostazo, , De causis piis, vol. I, liber iv, cap. XI, nn. 75–6Google Scholar; Freire, , Institutiones iuris, vol. II, tit. vi, §VIII.Google Scholar

59 Velasco, , De privilegiis pauperum, part 2, q. 65, §2, n.s. 192–4Google Scholar; Fragoso, , Regiminis republicae, vol. III, part III, lib. i, §III, n. 132Google Scholar; Mostazo, , De causis piis. vol. i, lib. iv, cap. XI, n. 78Google Scholar; Pegas, , Tractatus de exclusione, part 5, cap. LXIII, n. 6.Google Scholar

60 Pinto, , Exame crítico, 241Google Scholar; Loiseau, M., Traité des enfants naturels, adulterins, incestueux et abandonnés… (Paris, 1811), 768–804.Google Scholar

61 See the map in Russell-Wood, A. J. R., ‘Fidalgos' and philanthropists. The ‘Santa Casa da Misericórdia of Bahia’, 1550–1755 (London, 1968), 24–5.Google Scholar

62 Ribeiro, Victor, História da beneficência pública em Portugal (Coimbra, 1907), 59–65 and 70.Google Scholar

63 Ribeiro, , História da beneficência, 63 and 76.Google Scholar

64 Ibid., 84–5.

65 Ribeiro, Victor, ‘A Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa’, Memórias da Academia Real das Ciências, New Series, Class 2, vol. ix, part II (Lisbon, 1902), 396.Google Scholar

66 AADP, Livra I do Regista, 15–31.Google Scholar

67 Anjo, A. César, ‘Assistência a criaças expostas em Portugal’, Amatus Lusitanus 7 (1950), 427.Google Scholar

68 Pereira, Gabriel, Documentos históricos sa cidade de Evora (Evora, 1887–1891), 254.Google Scholar

69 Russell-Wood, , ‘Fidalgos’ and philanthropists, 234.Google Scholar

70 ‘Ordern circular de 24 de Maio de 1783’ in AADP, Livro 1° do Registo, 150–2.Google Scholar

71 No scholar has yet drawn up a complete account of the foundlings entered in the records of the Hospital de Todos os Santos of Lisbon. Data available suggest that by the end of the seventeenth century 500 children might be abandoned in a single year and by the second decade of the eighteenth century nearly 700. By the middle of the century 1,000 per year might be abandoned and in the final years of the Hospital almost 2,000. See Ribeiro, , ‘A Santa Casa’, 397–404.Google Scholar

In Porto, a city of about 40,000 inhabitants by the end of the eighteenth century, about 60,000 children per year had been abandoned throughout the century. The number of children received each year varied between 800 and 1,500 during its last two decades. Less-populated urban centres, with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants, such as Guimarães and Braga (Minho) kept their intake of children below 15.000, the average number of foundlings range from 50 to 130 per year in both institutions. See Isabel dos Guimarães Sá, ‘Abandono de criaças, ilegitimidade e concepções pré-nupciais em Portugal: estudos recentes e perspectivas’ (paper presented to the III Congresso da Associación de Demografia Historica, to be published with its proceedings).

72 The means of transporting foundlings to Lisbon from areas as distant as Almada, Setúbal, Torres Vedras and Abranles are criticized in ANTT, Livro n° 2 da Intendência Geral da Policia, 30.Google Scholar

73 ANTT, Livro n° 2 da Intendência Geral da Policia, 37–9.Google Scholar