"Territory of precious stones of excellent virtue": the formation of family nuclei in the Monastery of Santa Mônica of Goa (1606 –1638).
The Monastery of Santa Mônica in Goa, founded in 1606, was the first female convent house in the East. The Governor of the Estado da Índia and Archbishop of Goa, D. Frei Aleixo de Meneses, was his idealizer and founder. This was the main women foundation of the religious who dedicated much of his life to the works of support for women in Portuguese possessions. The monastery was under the protection of the Archbishop’s religious family, the Order of the Hermits of Saint Augustine and, beside the recollection of Our Lady of the Sierra and the recollection of Saint Mary Magdalene, formed the tripod of women’s institutions in India. Many women from the same family professed together in the monastery, contributing to the formation of family groups. This custom was common in the conventual houses scattered in the Portuguese and Spanish colonies. The present study seeks to discuss the formation of these parentage groups in the first three decades of their foundation – period in which the institution Augustine was inserted in a conflict sparked by the Senate of the House of Goa.