La(s) reforma(s) en el franciscanismo portugués en la Edad Media

This article analyzes the reform of Portuguese Franciscanism in the Late Middle Ages. It is a plural reform, carried out in a context of intense religious and spiritual renewal, in which new religious orders emerged and the laity participated intensely creating new forms of «poor life». Among the male Franciscans, the Observance arose in the last decade of the 14th century in northern Portugal, brought by Galician and Castilian friars. The support of the monarchy and of the courtly nobility dictated its rapid expansion to the entire kingdom, through the reform of old convents and the creation of new ones. Among the Poor Clares the reform was belated —it only took place at the end of the 15th century— and took two forms: the entrustment of the guardianship of their communities to the Observants and the creation of new monasteries subject to the first Rule of Saint Clare and to the Colettine Constitutions. Yet in 1517 when the Pope separated the Portuguese Franciscans into two branches and handed over the government of the order to the Observants, an even more radical model in its austerity had already arrived to the Portuguese territory, that of the «very strict observance» which will experience a great expansion in the following decades.