Blog 3: Torre do Tombo
3 November 2011
If research bores you, skip to the next blog (as yet
unwritten, but soon . . .). If it doesn’t, well, caveat lector.
What I’m trying to do here in Lisbon is track down the
parents, grandparents, and possibly siblings of the group of Mexican
crypto-Jewish silver miners whom I have been studying during the last few
years. All of them were born in the Beira region of Portugal in the latter half
of the sixteenth century of parents or grandparents who came from Spain around
1492 rather than be made to convert to Catholicism. Then shortly later they were
all converted by force in Portugal. I came here with the assumption that many
of their relatives were likely to have fallen into the documentation of the
Portuguese Inquisition in the 1550s-80s. The Coimbra Inquisition had
jurisdiction over the Beira heretics, for the most part, but the Beira records
are in Lisbon. And, alas and begorra, they are all in mau estado – bad condition — requiring special authorization to be
able to access. Permission that is sometimes given, sometimes not, as I am
learning. The other major complicating factor is that my Mexican miners all
have common surnames like Smith and Jones and given names like Peter and
George. The computerized index of cases lists hundreds of people with the
equivalent Portuguese names. I hear wild geese honking.
On the other hand, as we all know from our slimy parks and
golf courses, chasing wild geese isn’t all that hard these days: you can walk
up to them and club them with a four iron if you are so inclined. And what with
modern research tools, it shouldn’t be entirely impossible to find at least a
trace here in Portugal of the Almeidas, Lucenas, Fonsecas, and Enriquez’s who
dug or traded for silver in the Mexican mountains in the 1580s.
Tuesday we got off the plane; Wednesday we settled in the
Graça apartment; Thursday we went to the National Archives, housed in the
magnificent new Torre do Tombo at the edge of the University of Lisbon. Only
thirty minutes on the #735 bus. The Arquivos
are housed in a massive spanking new cube of a building whose scale in
dissonance with the surrounding university buildings. Four high-relief abstract
sculptures jut out from the front façade. Steps, the width of the building, lead
the visitor to a narrow tunnel-like entrance. The surfaces of most buildings in
Lisbon are broken up with windows, balconies, and cornices, in styles that span
a couple of centuries; a large number are faced in tile. Torre do Tombo seems
better suited to be a Mexican archaeological museum than a Lisbon archive.
Linda and I have been denizens now of the three major
Inquisition archives: in Spain, Mexico, and Portugal, and though they are similar
in what they house, they are very different in feeling, in strengths, and in
weaknesses. Spain’s, at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas on
Serrano, is set in a campus-like park. It looks and feels like a university
library. The reading room is homey, well lit, crowded. And it is only a hundred
meters from a cafeteria with splendid subsidized meals and seating for 200. And
of course a bar (well, it IS Spain). Mexico’s occupies the old Lecumberri
prison, with the reading rooms in cellblocks radiating from the central
rotunda, formerly the guards’ stations, now an exhibition space. Its meager
cafeteria died a couple of years back, but street food is available from carts
in the plaza out front. Portugal’s sits in but is not of the main university
campus. Its interior spaces, with exception of the well lit, spacious, and
comfortable reading room with seating for 120 or so, are large, sterile, and
off-putting. Downstairs is a windowless room with five formica tables and two
vending machines. We bring sandwiches.
In all three the staff are patron-friendly and adept at
dealing with people who have only a rudimentary spoken command of the local
language. In all three reading rooms silence reigns. In all three archives you
have to fill out request papers by hand, and get them hand authorized by the
appropriate functionaries, to enable the stacks gnomes to bring you the dossier
you want to look it. The indices are all computerized, but the functionaries
belong to a union. Open stacks? Only in
the USA.
All three archives have computerized indices (that I can even
access from my study in Kingston!), with Portugal’s giving by far the most
complete and useful information. So complete, in fact, that I was able to
eliminate 70% of my probably-should-look-at list without having to peruse the actual
documents. Both Portugal and Mexico have digitized a portion of their
collection, and again we can access those documents on line. Mexico digitized
first, some 10 years ago, before the available technology was entirely up to
the task. So for the fine points of Mexican trials we often have to consult the
originals. (Thank goodness, because it justifies yet another trip to Mexico
City. As if we needed justification.) Portugal’s digitalizations are better
than the originals, turning fragile paper into firmly undamagable bits and
bytes. They give the complete file, even the blank pages, in color, with the
ability to zoom in and enlarge any troubling blot, overwrite, or palimpsest. A
portion of the collection is on microfilm, and it, too, is high quality. Spain
. . . well, someday.
Mexico seems to take the best care of its documents. Its
reading rooms are patrolled by vigilant guards who watch for unauthorized ink
pens or—there have been cases in the past—clandestine razor blades. Patrons
enter through a metal detector. Computers are checked in and out. Patrons who
handle manuscripts must wear masks and gloves to guard the paper from breath
moisture and finger oils. In Mexico parcels are inspected as you exit the building.
Inexplicably, neither Spain nor Portugal takes any of these precautions.
One last thing: all three archives hold the bulk of their
nation’s Inquisition dossiers. But that material is only an infinitesimal part
of what each system contains. After all, these are the national archives: home to material historical, statistical, and
geographical; to letters, maps, financial records, and photographs; to all the
paper that bobs in the wake of national daily life.
You want to spend a fascinating couple of weeks, or
lifetimes? Come jump into the water. We’d be pleased to help you get started.
David & Linda