Álvaro Gonçalves Pereira: um homem entre a oração e a construção patrimonial como estratégia de consolidação familiar

Abstract

Álvaro Gonçalves Pereira, documented between 30ties and 80ties of the fourteenth century, was a member of the Pereira family, who had a strong influence in his time. His commitments, with the monarchy and with some subjects focused beyond the Portuguese border, had a decisive role in the assertion of his power. Álvaro Gonçalves Pereira, in the context of the Order of the Hospital, made a kind of a cursus honorum from friar to prior and starred a very particular time in the history of this Order, both from the point of view of the Portuguese events, and from the point of view of the evolution of the troubled history of the headquarters of this institution (island of Rhodes). These conjunctures - internal and external - aroused a remarkable program of action developed by Álvaro Gonçalves Pereira in the south of Tagus river territories. He implemented a strategy of territorial control and increased his manor power, through a very strong architectural program in some fortified structures, such as Amieira (valley of the Tagus river), Crato (northeast of Alto Alentejo) and Sertã (Beira Baixa), to which are added the houses of Flor da Rosa (Alentejo) and Cernache do Bomjardim (Sertã). This building cycle sponsored by Fr. Álvaro opened a new stage in the history of the Hospitallers, in which the protagonists are the monarchy and the Pereira family. The meaning assigned to the buildings made under the initiative of Fr. Álvaro is clarified in the context of the Battle of Salado. This whole situation was favorable to Pereira's emulation. This situation was favorable to Pereira's emulation and gave rise to the intervention at Livro de Linhagens do Conde D. Pedro, in which were written some texts that praise Pereira, according to the context of the 80ties of the fourteenth century. To sum up, this is the manifestation of a guarantee of fixing a memory or of continuing another form of life.