Honorific forms of address

Certain honorific forms of address used in society have become so extraordinarily widespread that it is hard to imagine how scrupulously their use was regulated in former times. Knowing how one should address people was almost a science, and the use of these forms varied considerably over time, for reasons that it is impossible to determine.

Madeira followed the example of mainland Portugal in the distinctions granted to people. Consequently, from the end of the 16th century to the beginning of the 18th century the governor and captain-general and the bishop of the diocese were addressed as senhoria (‘lordship’), while all other citizens received the address of mercê (‘grace’), with which they probably considered themselves greatly honoured.

For a long time the bishops were addressed as mercê, a form which in the first centuries of the monarchy had been granted only to kings. During the period of Castilian rule, however, they were already being addressed in Madeira as senhoria ilustríssima (‘most illustrious lordship’), as can be seen from documents recorded in the books of that time.

It was the law of 31 January 1739, recorded on folio 50 of Book 9 of the Archive of the Funchal Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal do Funchal), that laid down that the great churchmen should be addressed as excelência (‘excellency’). This form was also to be granted to governors holding the rank of captain-general (capitão-general, military governor of Madeira), but only while they were in the districts they governed. No other local authority was granted high honorific forms of address in the same law. This amounts to saying that the corregedor (royal district magistrate), the juiz de fora (crown-appointed judge from outside the district), the customs judge (juiz da alfândega, head of the customs house) and other senior officials in Madeira continued, as before, to receive only the address of mercê.

At the end of the 18th century the Count of Castelo-Melhor and the Marquis of Valença – the latter alcaide-mor (royal governor of a castle and town) of Machico and the former of Funchal – were addressed as excelência, since both were grandees of the Kingdom (reino, i.e. mainland Portugal), whereas viscounts, barons and moços fidalgos were entitled only to senhoria. Later this last form was also given to the canons of Funchal Cathedral (the Sé) (Sé do Funchal), under the royal decree (alvará régio) of 15 November 1817, and to colonels commanding troops. All other officers received mercê, except marshals, lieutenant-generals and those of equivalent rank, who were entitled to excelência.

The governors and captains-general Dom Diogo Pereira Forjaz Coutinho and Dom José Manuel da Câmara were in the habit of addressing the Funchal Municipal Council as senhoria (lordship). This was contrary to law and established practice, and the latter was reprimanded for it by the government in mainland Portugal, which pointed out that the Council was entitled only to the form mercê. Only from 1834 onwards did the custom take hold – even then without legal authority – of the head of the district addressing the Municipal Councils and all authorities and heads of department (repartição) as senhoria.

Under the legislation in force until the establishment of the Republic, it was the governors and captains-general, and not the civil governors, who were entitled to the form excelência (excellency). Nevertheless, everyone considered it a duty to give this form of address to the representative of the central government in this district, and only the government itself sometimes denied it to him in the early constitutional period. On one occasion a judge of the Administrative Court addressed the civil governor of Funchal as senhoria, having been addressed in that way by the governor. The government, consulted on the matter, did not approve of the magistrate’s conduct, although it acknowledged that under the law the civil governor was not entitled to excelência.

It was customary to address the former commander of the 9th Military Division (Divisão Militar, a territorial army command), which had its headquarters in Funchal, as excelência, though sometimes unlawfully, since the post was not always held by general officers. From the commander of the Division, this form of address passed to the senior military authorities that later existed on the island.

The Funchal Municipal Council began to receive the form excelência from the civil governor only after its president was the Count of Carvalhal (‘oak grove’), a grandee of the realm. The municipal administrators (administrador do concelho, the government’s representative), by contrast, were always addressed as senhoria by the head of the district for as long as the monarchy lasted in the country. It was around 1872 that the Funchal Municipal Council began definitively to address the district judges as excelência, a form it later extended to the municipal administrator and, later still, to almost everyone.

To judge the importance that certain honorific forms of address had in the country in the 18th century and still at the beginning of the 19th, it is enough to say that the Dukes of Aveiro had to make the greatest efforts to obtain the form excelência, and that only in 1811 were the vice-rectors of the University of Coimbra (Universidade de Coimbra) granted the form senhoria – and this as a reward for the services rendered by the University in defence of the homeland during the French invasions!

At the beginning of the second quarter of the 14th century, when the great majority of men were addressed only as mercê or at most as senhoria, ladies in Madeira, following the practice in Portugal, were already almost always addressed as excelência. Not all ladies, however, were entitled to this deference from men, as is the case today, but only those who, by birth or by their husbands’ social position, formed a class worthy of particular consideration. The ladies to whom no one in former times dared deny the title of dona were those addressed as excelência, although by right this form belonged only to the wife of the captain-general and a few other ladies.

Today in Madeira the form senhoria is used only by the merchant class, and mercê by country people. Vossemecê and amecê, contractions of vossa mercê, are forms of address widely used among the lower classes of society, and also between illiterate superiors and inferiors, whereas você is used only between people who are friends; outside such relationships it is considered an offensive form of address.