Charters

Madeira had several charters, but the oldest are known only from mentions in certain later documents and in the ‘Longing for the Homeland’ (Saudades da Terra) of Dr Gaspar Frutuoso. In the letters granting the captaincies of Funchal and Machico to João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira, transcribed on pp. 453 and 456 of the notes to Frutuoso’s work, Prince Henry the Navigator refers to the charter (foral) that he had ordered to be drawn up for the island. However, neither this charter nor the one that Afonso V gave in 1452 to what was then the town (vila) of Funchal is recorded in the municipal archives.

An anonymous manuscript Miscelânea, cited by Dr Azevedo and held in the National Library in Lisbon, states that ‘in 1452 Dom Afonso V gave a charter to the town of Funchal with many privileges, exempting the inhabitants of the whole island from paying excise, tolls or any of the levies that existed at that time in the Kingdom’. Dr Gaspar Frutuoso gives 1472 as the year in which this charter was granted, but Dr Azevedo believes this to be an error on the part of either the author of the Saudades or the copyist, since several documents recorded in the archive of the Funchal Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal do Funchal) show that the Funchal municipality already existed before that year.

The charter of the city of Funchal (see that entry) and of the towns of Ponta do Sol (‘point of the sun’) and Calheta (‘small cove’) is dated 6 August 1515. A certified copy of it, taken from the Livro das Ilhas on 2 May 1736, is kept in a special book in the archive of this city’s Municipal Council. It is a document of interest for many reasons, and Dr Azevedo transcribes it on p. 494 of the notes to the ‘Longing for the Homeland’. Its forty-one chapters set out the taxes to which the people of the captaincy of Funchal were subject, the formalities required for the manufacture, transport and export of sugar, and the fines incurred by gamblers, the excommunicated and persons found carrying or using weapons, etc., etc.

On p. 507 of the same notes Dr Azevedo transcribes the charter of the towns of Machico and Santa Cruz (‘Holy Cross’), whose chapters differ little from those of the charter of Funchal and the towns of Ponta do Sol and Calheta. It is dated 15 December 1515, and in its 2nd chapter it ordered that there should be a customs house in the captaincy of Machico, which could be established in Machico or Santa Cruz, ‘wherever His Highness shall later declare’.

The village (lugar, settlement rank below a town) of São Vicente was made a town and separated from the jurisdiction of Machico by a royal decree (alvará régio) of 23 August 1743, but whether it was granted a charter we do not know. This decree and the letter of grant (carta de mercê) of 25 August 1744 allowed the lugares (settlement ranking between a town and a parish) of Porto Moniz, Seixal, Ponta Delgada, Arco de São Jorge and São Jorge to be attached to the new town, ‘all of which were far from the town of Machico, for which reason their inhabitants suffered the same oppressions as those of the village of São Vicente’.

By a royal decree (alvará) of 17 August 1508, Manuel I ordered that the Council of the town (vila) of Funchal should be governed in the same way as that of the city of Lisbon. As a result, many provisions of the regulations (regimento) of the Lisbon Council were adopted here from the outset. The archive of the Funchal Municipal Council holds a fairly old book, written by one of the finest calligraphers of the day, containing the regulations and charter of the Municipal Council of Lisbon. Certain changes were gradually introduced into it, some of which appear in notes written in the margins of the book.

According to these regulations and charter, the board (mesa) of the council sessions was to be ten palmos long and six wide, and the councillors (vereadores) were all to sit three ‘on one side and unencumbered, facing the people’. The councillor in the middle was charged with answering ‘all parties that which had been determined and agreed by all’, but this duty lasted only one month, after which another councillor took over those functions. The clerk (escrivão) was ‘seated on the bench at the head of the table’, and opposite him sat the corregedor (royal district magistrate) when he attended the Council, as did the civil and criminal judges, the market inspectors (almotacés), the city procurator, the judge of orphans, etc., etc., when they came ‘to dispatch the parties’ cases’ or were summoned. The steward (viador) of works or the city accountant, when he attended the Council, sat ‘on the bench and at the end of the clerk’. There was no bench ‘on the other side of the table, facing the people’, but a railing that was to be no higher than the table and was not to ‘obstruct the councillors’ view of the people’.

It is likely that at the meetings of the Municipal Council of Funchal, at least those attended only by members of that body, the ordinary judge (juiz ordinário, locally elected lay judge), later replaced by the juiz de fora (crown-appointed judge from outside the district), sat at one end of the table, with the councillors and the municipal procurator (procurador do concelho) on his left, and the clerk opposite him. The regulations in question, whose wording is not always clear, raise many doubts. It is reasonable to suppose that they underwent various modifications so that they could be applied to the Senate (senado, the municipal council) of Funchal, since certain official bodies mentioned in them never existed here.

At a council meeting on 22 December 1802 it was resolved that from then on the president, that is, the juiz de fora, ‘should sit at the head of the table, with the clerk facing him and the councillors on his left side in order of age, the last place being occupied by the municipal procurator’, and that the guild representatives (mesteres) should sit at the foot of the table, ‘in such a position that they would not be hampered by the clerk’s chair’. The guild representatives were entitled only to ‘plain chairs’, while the other members of the Senate were to sit in high-backed chairs, a privilege also granted to members of the nobility when they attended council meetings. The nobles’ place was opposite the councillors, and the people’s judge (juiz do povo, elected representative of the craft guilds), when he came to the Council, ‘sat above the eldest of the guild representatives’.

The regulations and charter of the Municipal Council of Lisbon also contain provisions on the Council’s accounts, public works, the manner of accompanying the king, processions, the appointment of the market inspectors and the treasurer, etc., etc., the latter to be ‘a faithful and prudent person’. In the Corpus Christi procession (see Processions) the councillors, with their red staves, were to walk ‘on the right-hand side of the king and behind him, so as not to be level with him’, and no other person could go ‘ahead of him, except on the other, left-hand side’.

Since in Funchal the king could not accompany the Corpus Christi procession, it was the Council that held first place in this religious cortège, following immediately behind the canopy. This same place was guaranteed to it by the royal decree of 2 April 1763, which did not prevent a governor and captain-general from later trying to dispute it, without having any right to do so.

On some occasions in this procession the governor placed himself between the first and second councillors, and the corregedor between the procurator of the Senate and the clerk, although this was permitted neither by the charter nor by the warrant (provisão) of 1763. In our own day we have seen the Council always yield its place to the authorities, whether out of excessive courtesy or through ignorance of the enactments that entitled it to walk behind the canopy in that religious procession.