Syntactic Trees

Accusation letter, concerning the jailer from the public jail in Alcácer do Sal, written on behalf of many prisoners by an unidentified author.

The author denounces his jailer, João Rodrigues Couceiro, to the Inquisition of Évora, on behalf of all prisoners in the jail of Alcacer do Sal.

The Inquisition archives contain, apart from the around 40 thousand individual proceedings ("processos"), a collection of scattered charges, for which the Inquisition "Promotor" had to decide whether or not to prosecute. Complaints, confessions, letters by the commissioners or about different stages of each proceedings are some of the document types that can be found in these books. This letter has been kept among such documentation.

«Inquisitors. The prisoners of the jail in Alcácer do Sal inform you that, in this land, there is João Rodrigues Couceiro, a new-christian, from the village of Arraiolos, who's been working as a jailer in this jail for two months now. One of these nights, as he was returning home from gambling, he grabbed a Christ with his hands and said these words: "Come here! Haven't you promised me to give me it, why do you take it from me? You're an impostor! And now I tell you that I don't believe you, I believe only in my law!" And he took the Christ and beat it so much that he broke it. We now write these lines to you, to unburden ourselves. Now he says he wants to go to Castela. Witnesses Manuel da Silva, António Gonçalves, Tomé Gonçalves, Manuel Sarrão, Felipa Nunes, Francisca Gonçalves, all arrested in this jail.»