As in many other cases, reality complicated the life of the entail of Esporão. The designated heir dies shortly before Teresa. He leaves a son born out of wedlock, Álvaro, whose legitimacy to inherit is contested. Álvaro succeeds in proving his rights before the royal court and is confirmed in possession of the entail in 1535. Well inserted in the municipal oligarchy of Évora and in the circle of the families of the local administration that were getting closer to the royal court, he also benefited from the wealth that came to him from his great-aunt (BASTOS SERRA, biographies 44 and 69).

The fact that he had only female descendants would bring new vicissitudes to the entail, which prove both its fragility and the plasticity that avoided disintegration. The eldest of his three daughters inherits the entail and marries Álvaro Mendes de Vasconcelos, knight of the House of the Count of Guimarães, later nobleman of the royal house, owner of great wealth (FREIRE, 1996, vol. I, pp. 383-386). The latter, in 1489, taking advantage of the absence of clauses on the bearing of surnames in the original entail, imposed his own on future administrators, using the mechanism of reinforcing the assets with the part of the inheritance he could dispose of (terça).  The obligation of annexation of the terça was often consigned in the foundation, and it often allowed the addition of conditions, as is the case here. It can therefore be considered a true refoundation (ROSA, 1995, p. 193, 204). Álvaro was taking into account the forthcoming succession of his son, João Mendes de Vasconcelos, who thus came  to inaugurate four generations of male descendants of the Vasconcelos as administrators.

The family’s path was marked by social ascension, through João Mendes de Vasconcelos’ full integration into the royal court. With his second wife, Briolanja de Melo, he had a sumptuous chapel built in Évora cathedral in 1528, reinforcing the existing suffrages and creating new ones. It was there that they were later to be buried, in 1541. The architectural details, the altarpiece, the ornaments and the sacred vessels of the chapel are carefully described in the document of institution and contract with the cathedral’s chapterhouse, which is reinforced by a royal letter authorising the requests of the founding couple (ROSA, 1995, 224-226).

What has been told so far is mostly known by the remarkable codex entitled Tombo das escrituras dos bens de raíz e rendas do morgadio do Esporão e memorial delas (ANTT, CABT, cx. 86, mç. 257, doc. 4841). Made on the orders of the first administrator Vasconcelos, it was part of the re-founding and increase of prestige that his father had begun, and of which the reconstruction of the Cathedral chapel was another major mark. It is a document of solemn characteristics and intended for memory and evidence. If it substantiates the importance of the founders, it also reinforces the re-founding of the Vasconcelos, with the inclusion of the document of annexation of the terças, the obligation of the surname, and the foundation documents of the chapel in the Évora cathedral.

The morgadio continued in the male first-born descendants for several generations, until Francisco de Vasconcelos, who was awarded the title of Count of Figueiró by Philip II and who died without descendants in 1653. The noble title and the entail passed to a female line; after other breaks of male succession and a network of endogamous marriages, the entail entered the House of the Marquises of Abrantes, who were the last owners of the entail (FREIRE, 1996, vol. I, pp. 391-393).

The legal existence of this morgadio, despite many vicissitudes and changes, goes back 436 years; the estate, already free of the entail, undergoing many other changes, still remains today, which adds another 160 years to it (https://www.esporao.com/pt-pt/). In the present Entail of the Month is told, as in many others, the story of venerable elders, this one with 623 years. Its longevity is due, in good part, to the entailment that was made in the distant year when Teresa Eanes da Fonseca decided to found a chapel in the defesa of Esporão. This happened because the entailment implied the conservation of the documents produced by the “body” that was being created – understood as a vital factor for its eternal duration.