Retalhos de vidas femininas: mobilidades e fronteiras entre o Recolhimento Anjo e do Recolhimento das Órfãs do Porto (1672-1800)

Developed to shelter women in vulnerable life conditions due to temporary separation from the male element, orphanhood or widowhood -women's retirement houses (recolhimentos), cloistered spaces without the need to take religious vows, became widespreadin Portugal during the early modern period. There were five placesin Portobetween the 17th and 19th centuries. The Recolhimento do Anjoand the Recolhimento das Órfãs, institutions with the same objective–to preserve female social honor –albeit with different administrations, are examples ofthe existence of social boundaries, the distinction and the selection of the female public they supported. However, the intersectionof women from different social backgrounds, the examples of the consolidation of some careers in these spaces and even the networks of sociability that formed between them and convents, particularly in the north of Portugal, show the permeability of the apparent boundaries existing in cloistered institutions.The aim of this article is therefore to explore the dimension of permeability and mobility in womenretirement houses, usinga comparative methodology that has allowed us to analyze some fragments of the lives of women that were shelteredin these spaces.