O concelho do Peso da Régua em tempos medievais : alguns contributos para a leitura do território

Abstract

The European area was and is the sum of territory with its own specificity, based on the organizational structures of administrative or other that ended up defining the character of being European. So, the best knowledge of the evolution of such territories leads directly to recovery, better understanding of the current reality, facilitating intervention in these spaces. The current county Ruler weight is a territory with ancient origins. The recent publication of the main documents of the medieval Vila Real District challenged us to know in detail the origins of this municipality that has become, since in modern times, nerve center of the wine region of Douro. We realize in this approach that this is agrarian matrix lands where the presence of the portuguese nobility and high dignitaries of the court, were present. We propose, therefore, by those news travel around the territory of the current municipality, with a retrospective and inquiring look on the major economic, social and political structures that have contributed in more ancient times to turn in what is now facilitating the current reading that territory.