The quality of the records ensures a good management: the documents of the Todos os Santos Hospital

Abstract

Todos os Santos Hospital was the biggest and most important Portuguese Hospital of the modern period. Planned by D. João II since 1479 it was finally opened by his successor, D. Manuel I, over two decades later. We get to know this institution, like all others,  among other factors, from the quality of the archival heritage that was left to us. We know that the archives before its historical  function have as principal function to allow the institution, essentially, to take decisions, to demonstrate rights and maintain the  institutional memory, which is why it has always been necessary to establish a set of actions that guarantee the organization and 
safeguard of the documentation. This text aims to show the documents produced by Todos os Santos Hospital so that we can understand the structuring and functioning of the archive during the Old Regime. For this, it was necessary to go through the great  documentary collections of the Hospital archive and it was shown that the documental acting and organization remained virtually  unchanged since its creation until the xviii century, despite the progressive complexity of both.