Em torno de uma experiência religiosa feminina: as mulheres da pobre vida de Évora

Taking the city of Évora as a point of observation, this paper intends to analyze several non-regular religious experiences performed by women, inside the city, along the 15th century. The memory, registered in the liturgical books of the city´s cathedral, of several poor or enclosure women that were buried inside that temple and trusted to their clergy the intercession for their souls, is the pretext to understand the strong implementation of such groups of poor women inside the city, its evolution during this century and the changes that led to their conversion into monastic communities. The feminine relevance assumed in the support or in the admission to these groups is intersected with the dynamics of expansion and context of these non institutionalized religious options, which are a space of autonomy and a statement of social and religious role of women in the medieval world.