Convent of St Clare

This convent was built beside the church of Conceição de Cima, which João Gonçalves Zarco had ordered to be built and near which he then lived. It was João Gonçalves da Câmara, son of the discoverer and second captain-donatary (capitão-donatário) of Funchal, who took the initiative in founding this monastery. He intended it as a retreat not only for his own daughters but also for others who wished to follow the monastic life, which they could not then do in Funchal for lack of a religious house for that purpose.

Construction of the convent began in 1492, but the first nuns did not enter it until 1497. By a deed of 11 September 1480 the founder, João Gonçalves da Câmara, bought from Rui Teixeira and Branca Ferreira, residents of Campanário, the Curral estate, later known as Curral das Freiras (‘nuns’ fold’), for the sum ‘of 23,500 réis at five ceitis to the real (pl. réis; old Portuguese money unit, 1,000 réis = 1 milréis) and 50 gold cruzados... its area extended from the Passo da Cruz (‘pass of the cross’) and the Ribeira dos Socorridos (‘stream of the rescued’) up to where the stream rises, from rocky crest to rocky crest, on either side’. This rural property, the largest and most important the convent ever owned, was what the founder gave to the monastery when his daughters were admitted to it as nuns. Even earlier, the Infante Dom Manuel, Duke of Beja and later king, had urged and stressed the need to found a convent of nuns on this island. He did so in the letter which, as Grand Master of the Order of Christ (Ordem de Cristo), to which this archipelago belonged, he had addressed to its inhabitants on 17 July 1488. In this curious document, which we first came across in the newspaper O Reclame of 26 November 1890, he says that the Supreme Pontiff had written to him asking for a monastery to be founded at the church of Conceição de Cima, and adds that ‘as soon as you see this, gather at once in council with the captain and discuss it all very well, and may it please you that it be so done... it will please me to give for this such alms as seem good to me, and henceforth for the maintenance of the nuns I shall always be glad to give all the alms I well can...’. We do not know whether it was the Grand Master’s request that led João Gonçalves da Câmara to found the convent four years later, and still less do we know whether Manuel I, who came to the throne in 1495, contributed to the building of the monastery.

As already stated, building work began in 1492 but was not declared complete until 1497. This slow progress must be attributed partly to the absence of the founder and captain-donatary. Having ordered and arranged everything for the building, and perhaps even begun it, he later left for mainland Portugal, where stays were always long, chiefly because of the difficulty of communications. The building was later enlarged several times as the number of nuns grew. Along the cloister, to satisfy the devotion of the nuns and of other people, many chapels and oratories were built, which were quite unnecessary for the community’s religious services. The original church, dedicated to Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception (Nossa Senhora da Conceição) and known as Conceição de Cima, came to be dedicated to St Clare (see that entry), who was the patron of the monastery. This church also underwent considerable changes over time, being almost entirely rebuilt in the first half of the 17th century.

The founder’s descendants – the captains-donatary of Funchal and later the Counts and Marquises of Castelo Melhor – always regarded themselves not only as patrons of this church and convent but also as their rightful lords and owners. As late as October 1867 they claimed possession and ownership of them, registering them at the land registry of this judicial district (comarca), after a lawsuit brought in 1862 in which they proved their right to the ownership of the convent. On the death of the last nun, the Marquises of Castelo Melhor could lawfully have taken possession of the building, but they did not do so, for reasons unknown to us.

The first abbess of the Convent of St Clare (Santa Clara) was Dona Isabel de Noronha, daughter of the aforementioned João Gonçalves da Câmara. She had been a nun in the convent of Conceição in Beja and was transferred to Funchal with four other professed nuns, once the necessary licences had been obtained from the pontiff. With these mothers there entered the new convent Dona Elvira and Dona Constança, likewise daughters of the donatary, who later took their vows. After his death, which occurred in 1501, another daughter of his, also named Dona Constança, was admitted there as well; according to Frutuoso, she ‘always lived a holy life, not wishing to be a professed nun because she was always ill’.

Of the daughters of the third captain-donatary (capitão-donatário), Simão Gonçalves da Câmara, Dona Beatriz, Dona Isabel and Dona Maria de Noronha became nuns there, ‘where their father placed them with good revenues that he assigned to them for the purpose, and they always lived most virtuously and saintly’. The other donataries and the richest and noblest gentlemen of Madeira had many of their daughters as nuns of this convent.

The community was originally made up of a small number of nuns, which grew appreciably, reaching about seventy by the end of the 16th century. Around the middle of the 18th century the number of nuns rose to 130, 70 of them supernumeraries, many of whom were not professed and had not taken vows. In the first quarter of the 19th century this number had fallen to about 70. The dowry each nun brought on admission was 800,000 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis), besides other expenses, the whole amounting to roughly one conto (one million réis) de réis, so that it was not easy for people of modest means to join this religious community.

The original fervour in observing the monastic rules and the former austerity of the nuns’ life in this convent gradually cooled, and serious and reprehensible abuses crept in. Truly scandalous acts were even committed, in which the ecclesiastical authority was forced to intervene by imposing the severest canonical penalties. Around the middle of the 18th century there were thirty servants in the convent, and several nuns each had a servant solely for her private use, which, in a house of strict and austere life such as a convent should be, was an unpardonable abuse. There was a time when the nuns’ way of life differed from that of the rest of the society to which they belonged only in the enclosure they kept, living shut within the walls of a convent. On one occasion the entire community even broke its own enclosure for a moment – the strictest and gravest point of discipline in monastic houses – and the diocesan prelate and the Supreme Pontiff hurled the most rigorous penalties of the Church at the nuns. Serious abuses did occur, and were afterwards severely curbed, but the events narrated in the novel Angela Santa Clara by Henrique Read Cabral are nonetheless without foundation.

One of the most important events in the history of this convent took place during the sack of this city by French corsairs in 1566. The nuns were forced to abandon their convent so as not to fall victim to that horde of savages and, as G. Frutuoso says, ‘they went out through the canefields, and took refuge, and did not stop until they reached their Curral, which lies a good distance from the city, and so they went, without saving any ornament, leaving everything in the convent except the monstrance of the Most Holy Sacrament. . . . The French remained in Funchal, busy with destruction and slaughter, from 3 to 17 October, and immediately after they left this island the nuns left the Curral and returned to their convent in the city. The corsairs carried out the greatest plunder there and caused great damage to the church and convent, committing every kind of vandalism.

The civil and ecclesiastical authorities of this archipelago tried on several occasions to unite the two communities of Santa Clara and Encarnação into one, on the grounds that the former had ample means to support itself while the latter was a poor convent with scant revenues. They never managed to carry out the planned union of the two convents, however, despite having obtained a papal brief authorising it, owing, no doubt, to powerful influences that intervened and blocked it entirely.

By the middle of the 18th century the Convent of St Clare had an annual income of more than seven contos (conto: one million réis), and in 1821 its revenues rose to 14 contos. That year, however, it ran a deficit of two contos de réis, owing to the lack of careful and diligent administration. Under the disentailment (desamortização, the sale of Church property by the State) laws, all the property of this convent, which was considerable, was sold by the public treasury; the sum raised by the sale is not known. When the religious orders were abolished, the convent had little more than sixty nuns. The last survivor was Maria Amalia do Patrocinio, who died in November 1890.

By decrees of 26 October 1912 and 17 December 1914 the convent, church and convent grounds of Santa Clara were granted to the Municipal Council of Funchal, the Holy House (Santa Casa, the Misericórdia) of the Misericórdia and the Auxilio Maternal, so that these bodies could build an avenue, a hospital and a ‘crèche’. The Council was to keep possession of the church and the choirs, which were intended for a regional museum.

By the decree of 12 March 1896 the old convent was handed over to the Congregation of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, so that an institute could be established there to train women for the religious missions in our colonies, and also to house a school of elementary and secondary education for girls, of which there was a great lack in our community. The political events that took place in our country in 1910 led to the expulsion of these nuns, who left Madeira at once, and the excellent services they had been providing here were interrupted.

The decrees of 31 October 1912 and 22 September 1913 granted the convent buildings to the Municipal Council of Funchal, the Holy House of the Misericórdia and the charitable association ‘Auxilio Maternal’, for the purposes set out in those decrees. A considerable part of the old monastery was actually demolished, and acts of real destruction and vandalism were then committed in all the buildings. The buildings reverted to the State, because the planned works had not been carried out and the specific purpose of the grant had not been fulfilled.

The decree of 25 January 1927 and the ministerial order (portaria) of 12 June of the same year authorised the Ministry of Finance to transfer the various premises of the former convent to the Ministry of the Colonies, for the benefit of the Associação Auxiliar das Missões Ultramarinas, with the specific purpose of establishing there a missionary training college for nuns who were to serve in the missions of our overseas colonies. The running of this college was entrusted to the Franciscan Sisters already mentioned, who also set up a crèche in the same convent, where some 400 children are taken in, fed and educated during the day. This is one of the most notable services being rendered to the poor of Madeira here.