Do recomendado ao lido : direcção espiritual e prática de leitura entre franciscanas e clarissas em Portugal no século XVII

Abstract

If it is difficult to ascertain the type of texts read in the Early Modern Age, it is far more complex and difficult to study which texts were being read in convents, espacially by nuns, due to the rigid rules by which those places were governed and the difficulty in having access to such sources. It was the responsability of a large group of people to select and guide the reading of the accepted texts: perceptresses of novices, confessors, spiritual mentors, etc. The analysis of the list of recommended texts and of the aspects that should guide the way to read them found in the letters of an illustrious Franciscan, Friar António das Chagas († 1682), to his many pupils, lead us to establish de corpus of recommended texts and compare them with those mentioned in some biographies of devout people of that same period included in conventual chronicles.