Início / Cultura / Arquivo histórico / Foundling Tokens

Foundling Tokens

The “tokens” of the children left in the foundling wheel of Lisbon, are a significant historical asset kept in the Historical Archive of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa.

These “tokens” are mostly composed of a ‘note’, i.e., a textual document, usually on paper, in which the parent or someone designated thereby, recorded information regarding the child that was considered necessary or useful. The “token” essentially served as a mark and individualizing element of the child, but sometimes it was also used as a means of sharing anxieties, the causes of abandonment, and also the conveyance of requests regarding the child’s future.

THE TOKENS

Some of these documents, in addition to the ‘note’, were accompanied by other pieces that, from a symbolic point of view, aimed to place the abandoned child under the protection, shielding or intercession of the divine (through images of saints, medals, crucifixes, etc.), secular objects (charms, clovers, amulets, playing cards, etc.), or even affective items (ribbons, embroidery, socks, mother’s hair, etc.).

This documentary series is composed of more than 86.700 “token”, which makes this set one of the most significant in numerical terms and in chronological comprehensiveness.

Foundling Tokens

Foundling no. 1103 de 1790

Token of Maria da Conceição

Extent and medium: 2 folios; paper.

Scope and content: Female child, born on 11 October 1790.
Includes a note with the letters ‘a, e, i, o, u’.

Foundling no. 708 de 1791

Token of Joaquim Ferreira

Extent and medium: 1 folio; paper and fabric.

Scope and content: Male child, born on 06 July 1791.
Includes a pink ribbon and a white silk pouch, with yellow and brown geometric motifs, holding within a half a prayer card to Our Lady of Sorrows.

Foundling no. 720 de 1791

Token of Guilherme

Extent and medium: 1 folio; paper and fabric.

Scope and content: Male child.
Includes a drawing of a cross, as well as a devotional scapular (bentinho) of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, of brown linen embroidered with pink, blue and red thread.