Post-mortem inventories: potentialities and limitations for the study of urban houses (São João del-Rei, 1800-1816)

ABSTRACT

This article demonstrates the potential and the limits of post-mortem inventories as documents for the study of material culture and urban history. We characterized the urban houses of São João del-Rei, Minas Gerais, between 1800 and 1816 and analyzed their descriptions to identify aspects that contributed to a good valuation of the buildings. The documental framework of the research consisted of 374 inventories, which described 219 houses. The data collection was guided by items of the documents that might contain buildings descriptions: list of real estate units, sharing and addition records, and references to wills. The information about the location, the street (urban or rural area), the typology (ground floor or two-storey), and the constituent parts of the houses (kitchen, backyard, floor, roof, ceiling, etc.) was compiled. Also, we considered the social condition of the owners and neighbors. We concluded that the evaluation of urban houses in the village of São João del-Rei permeated considered architectural criteria (tiled roof, floors, ceilings, backyards), urban aspects, and the social condition of the owners, such as being located in a central part of the village, bordering neighbors from social groups more or less from the elite, or being owned by people with other possessions. In this sense, the inventories enable us to analyze issues related to housing and its sociability established in the urban dynamic of the 19th century, under the interdisciplinarity point of view.

KEYWORDS:
Post-mortem inventories; Dwelling houses; Urban space; São João del-Rei; 19th century