Terms

Court The residence of the sovereign and, by extension, the city where he lives. In Brazil, "the Court" was Rio de Janeiro: the Portuguese court settled there in 1808, and the city remained the capital of the Empire of Brazil until 1889. To speak of... Conto In this sense, "conto" is short for conto de réis, a unit of account worth one million réis, or a thousand milreis, written 1:000$000, with a colon after the millions. People spoke of "five contos" for a large sum. It is not the conto as a... Milreis The practical unit of Brazilian currency: the milreis, written 1$000, with the cifrão after the thousands. With inflation, the real became too small, and prices began to be quoted in milreis. A thousand milreis made a conto. The currency was withdrawn in 1942... Chaise A light two-wheeled carriage with a single seat, pulled by horses; in a broader sense, any carriage. It was the vehicle of people of means, and whoever rode in a chaise did not walk or take ordinary transport. The plural is seges. Valongo An area of the port of Rio de Janeiro where the Valongo wharf stood, built in 1811 for the landing and sale of enslaved Africans. It operated until 1831, when the transatlantic traffic was banned. It is estimated that between 500,000 and one million people... Hanger-on A person who lives in a family's house, or on a landowner's estate, and takes part in daily life as if they belonged to the household, without being family. In nineteenth-century Brazil, the hanger-on depended on the owners and gave services or days of work... Bond A public debt bond: the government sold bonds to those who lent it money and paid interest to the buyer. The first issue of public securities in the Empire of Brazil was made by the National Treasury on March 17, 1828. For a wealthy private individual, buying... Provincial presidency Office of provincial president in the Empire. Under the Constitution of 1824 (art. 165), each province had a president appointed by the emperor, who could remove him whenever he wished. There was no fixed term, and appointments followed the advice of the... Third Order A lay Catholic association tied to a medieval religious order, such as the Franciscan, Carmelite, or Dominican. Members lived in the world but gathered around devotion to a patron saint. Laypeople led the association, and friars or priests gave spiritual... Misericordia The common name of the Santa Casa da Misericordia, a charitable institution providing hospital care, maintained by a brotherhood of lay Catholics. The one in Rio de Janeiro was founded in the mid-sixteenth century, on an uncertain date, and operated as a... Hypochondria A word that comes from hypochondrium, the upper region of the abdomen, under the ribs, where the seat of melancholy was believed to lie. For this reason, hypochondria first named a gloomy mood with a bodily origin. Only later did it come to mean the...