MedCrafts .: Regulamentação dos mesteres em Portugal nos finais da Idade Média: séculos XIV e XV.

This project intends to study the regulations of crafts activities in late medieval Portugal, 14th and 15th centuries,

through the analysis of several Portuguese towns, from different regions, in a comparative perspective. The project

intends to promote an integrated vision of the regulation systems and the social practices, placing them in their social,

economic, legal and political contexts, focusing namely on the relations between craftsmen and public authorities.

Through the analysis of those regulations, control and its social practices we intend to further understand and

characterize the reality of crafts and craftsmen activities in medieval Portugal. The focus on the regulations and control

seems to be the better starting point to study crafts realities. Through the bias of the study of crafts? regulation and

control, one can accede to other aspects of the crafts and industrial activities, namely its organization and production

structures, and its spatial insertion.

It will also contribute to the knowledge about the economic evolution of Portugal in this era, mainly its industrial

activities and its contribute, or lack of it, to the trade and maritime expansion an economic trends of this centuries

and of the centuries to come. So the conclusions and data the project will offer will be very important to contribute

to a better understanding and more global knowledge, in a longer chronology, about the evolutions of Portuguese

economy and society, mainly in the industrial fields, throughout times until the present day. In Portugal as whole and

within the European framework.

But the conclusions and data of the project will also provide the same kind of information at a regional level for the

diversity and specificities of many Portuguese towns, form almost all the Portuguese regions, and including almost all

the most important urban areas, in medieval times as in today. So it will also provide many data and conclusions very

useful to other scientific research projects in many scientific areas and regions, and for many time periods, from the

middle ages to the present. It will also provide information important for developing cultural heritage projects including

cultural tourism and related activities.

Because this project focus on the analysis of several cities in Portugal our team has gather a number of researchers,

both senior and junior, including post graduate students each one specialist or that is currently studying one, sometime more, of those towns. And those researchers belong to the most important universities and research units with 

medieval research in Portugal. It also includes various reputed European consultants form various countries.