Biography

Ana Rita Rocha is a PhD researcher on the project VINCULUM — Entailing Perpetuity: Family, Power, Identity. The Social Agency of a Corporate Body (Southern Europe, 14th-17th Centuries) (ERC Grant agreement ID 819734) and Visiting Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra. She has a PhD (2019) and a Master’s (2011) in Medieval History from the University of Coimbra and a degree in History (2009) from the same institution.

She is currently an Integrated Researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History (NOVA FCSH) and a Collaborating Researcher at the Institute for Medieval Studies (NOVA FCSH). She researches topics related to entailment (morgadios and chapels), poverty and charity, and assistance to the poor and sick in the medieval and modern periods. As part of the VINCULUM project, she is carrying out research into the binding component of power, analysing the institution of morgadios and chapels by urban elites as a means of social ascension in Ancien Régime Portugal.

Research fields

• Social history
• Poverty and charity
• History of leprosy
• Entailment (morgadios and chapels)

Selected publications

• Rocha, Ana Rita, “Sob o signo da mudança. A intervenção régia nos hospitais urbanos portugueses entre os séculos XV e XVI: o exemplo de Coimbra,” in Pequenas Cidades no Tempo. A saúde, edited by Adelaide Millán da Costa, Sara Prata, Fabián Cuesta-Gómez, Adelino Cardoso e Helena da Silva, 225-241. Lisbon / Castelo de Vide: IEM – Instituto de Estudos Medievais / Câmara Municipal de Castelo de Vide / CHAM – Centro de Humanidades, 2023. [link]🔓
• Coelho, Maria Helena da Cruz & Ana Rita Rocha. Forais de D. Dinis. Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional – Casa da Moeda, 2022. [link]🔓
• Rocha, Ana Rita, “Uma sociedade desamparada? A assistência na Idade Média,” in Atualizar a História. Uma nova visão sobre o passado de Portugal, organizado por Paulo M. Dias e Roger Lee de Jesus, 55-65. Lisbon: Desassossego, 2022. [link]
• Rocha, Ana Rita. “Doença e epidemias no mundo urbano tardo-medieval: o exemplo da cidade e região de Coimbra.” Anais de História de Além-Mar 22 (2021): 33-57. [link] 🔓

Main projects

• Researcher in the project “VINCULUM. Entailing Perpetuity: Family, Power, Identity. The Social Agency of a Corporate Body (Southern Europe, 14th-17th Centuries)” — Coordinated by Maria de Lurdes Rosa (IHC — NOVA FCSH) and funded by the European Research Council (Grant agreement ID: 819734). [link]
• Researcher in the project “MedCrafts — Crafts regulation in Portugal in the Late Middle Ages (14th-15th centuries)” — Coordinated by Arnaldo Sousa Melo (Lab2PT — University of Minho) and funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (PTDC/HAR-HIS/031427/2017). 2018-2022 [link]