Back to the statues of the Order of Calatrava: New testimony of the Definições of the end of the 13th century

Abstract

The discovery of another testimony of the “Definições” of the Order of Calatrava of the late thirteenth century among the codices of the Alcobaça monastery, now preserved in the National Library of Portugal, in Lisbon, was the starting point of this work. Those “definições” of Calatrava were published in 2015, but from an incomplete and incomplete version, transmitted in Portuguese by a codex of the convent of Avis, compiled in the second half of the fifteenth century. The new testimony of these “definições” discovered in Alcobaça, also in a Portuguese translation of 1439-1440, is not only more complete, but offers many preferable variants. Published as an appendix, the “definições” of Calatrava from the end of the 13th century, promulgated by the general chapter of Cister, bring important data on decisive aspects of the internal life of the order, which were then a cause of tension and discord. Among them, there was the reception of novices and the ritual of the profession, the election of the masters and the division of the assets of the order, or the duration and rhythm of the visits of the abbot of Morimond. If the “definições” thus allow to know the environment that characterized the life of the order in the late thirteenth century, their translation into Portuguese also enables further questioning about the reasons behind the interest of the Alcobaça monastery in the Calatrava statues.