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Maarten Janssen, 2014-

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1745. Carta de Francisca Josefa do Evangelista, freira, para João dos Querubins, padre confessor.

Autor(es) Francisca Josefa Evangelista      
Destinatário(s) João dos Querubins      
In English

Private letter from Francisca Josefa do Evangelista, nun, to João dos Querubins, confessor.

The author asks the recipient to help her and to give her a remedy to her pregnancy.

The defendant in this process is Francisca Josefa do Evangelista, a nun in the Order of St. Francis, who was born and who resided in Abrantes. Though she was the daughter of Feliciano Mendes da Rocha (muleteer) and Maria da Silva, Francisca Josefa do Evangelista was raised from an early age by Leonor Catarina do Avelar, the widow of Francisco Soares Galhardo, who had no children of her own. When Francisca was 17 or 18 years old, she went to the convent, where she professed her faith and from where she never got out again. Accused of witchcraft, heresy and sacrilege, the defendant was arrested on August 3, 1745. On December 17, 1745, she was sent to prison in her monastery, described as very wet, narrow and with low light, and forbidden to see or talk to anyone besides the nun who held the key to her cell and brought her food. During all this time, she was obliged to fast on bread and water, alternating fasts with two or three days of normal eating. In her letters, which were given to the table of the Inquisition by the recipients, Francisca Josefa do Evangelista shows her desire to be transferred to another monastery, claiming that the nuns of her current one wanted to kill her. She also said that she once had given her food to a dog and he died soon after, which would be evidence of an attempt to poison her. At issue were still other behaviors of the defendant, namely: a) in her letters she said that she mocked the Holy Office; b) she had given a profane use to the consecrated particles; c) she stated that she had had intercourse with the devil and experienced a delivery every three months, giving birth to hideous creatures; d) she had made a covenant with the devil, making a written statement with her menstrual blood, and had made novenas to St. Helena in conjunction with the repetition of the same covenant; e) she tried to know the future through a profane divining formula that involved fresh eggs in a glass with water; f) she wrote a small book of prayers that she herself had adulterated; g) she had had lustful dreams with the devil in human form in the figure of a black man. Still, the defendant later dismissed what she had said, claiming to have invented everything just to be moved to another convent. The doctors trained at the University of Coimbra, António dos Santos (family member of the Holy Office, cousin of the defendant and who participated in some of the letters) and João Gomes Pimenta Grandio, attested on October 29, 1745, that the defendant was mentally well and that there had never been signs of mental disorders. In the process, however, it is also said that the defendant used to leave the convent shouting, declaring that they wanted to kill her in there, and that she had already shown a priest one paper with the blood pact she had made with the devil. On February 14, 1746, the defendant was sentenced to the payment of the court costs, to spiritual penances. She also could not go to the bars for a period of six months.

If there is no translation for the letter itself, you may copy the text (while using the view 'Standardization') and paste it to an automatic translator of your choice.

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[1]
j M j

Mto Rdo Snr vejo a carta de Vmce q estimandoa por sua m

[2]
e escandeliza, por outro modo pois ou Vmce não podendo
[3]
cudar eu sou criansa cuda sou tão velha q destampo
[4]
ou q istou Louca na verdade q as consternasois em q me ve
[5]
jo em remedianca q daqui la vai pouco porem inda
[6]
me não falta o juizo eu avi de aperzentar no tribunal do
[7]
sto ofisio seminhantes couzas qdo eu nem por sonhos la
[8]
quero hir bem sei eu suposto he sabeo do corpo q pa a
[9]
lma miseria so ificas remedio mas como eu nunca
[10]
ei de comfesar o q a Vmce tenho dito so porq la me não
[11]
levem e menos ao casere deste musteiro q em mto perigo
[12]
ando eu de renegar por instantes quanto mais vendo
[13]
me preza no poder das snras deste comvto q era o mesmo q
[14]
algumas comsomiremme e eu fazelo antes q elas o fize
[15]
sem nem falar niso he bom, q ja lhe digo tal acuzação
[16]
não ei de fazer o q tomara q Vmce me de com mta brev
[17]
idade algũ remedio pa o q toca ao ventre fora este tive
[18]
mais tres como lhe dezia na carta q se perdeo porem esta
[19]
va nese tempo em huma sela fichada q por algum
[20]
me fizeram favor de me emprestar q estava dezolapada
[21]
e la tive boa ocazião de emcobrir iso, mas agora q is
[22]
tou em huma publica q he a q inda me cabe, não sei
[23]
como isto a de ser se Vmce me não da algum meio, como tão
[24]
esperitual eu vendome em tal comflito me mato e perco
[25]
vida e alma o q he snr na verdade a minha ultima re
[26]
zulução; os ventres q tenho tido tem sido tres mezes quada
[27]
e o q naseo erão humas couzas piquenas como monos
[28]
os quais custuma levar qm Vmce pode comsiderar os gera
[29]
agora pa se completarem os ditos tres mezes não faltão mais
[30]
q quinze dias veja Vmce em q apertos esta a minha vida
[31]
e alma, neste comvto; não ha parte de q me eu valha

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