ABSTRACT
Imprisonment, destitution, hunger and disease were aspects of the same reality for a long time in Portugal and in many other countries in Europe. The prison world in the early modern period still lacks a systematic approach relating it to social history in order to address the phenomena of violence, criminality and repression. The inhumanity of life in Portuguese prisons had been criticised in previous centuries as well, albeit from different philosophical and ideological viewpoints. The discreditable public image of this world corresponded to society's attitude to prison inmates and was reflected in the scarcity of pious bequests. The period of Habsburg rule was marked by some investment in prison buildings, such as the ones planned for Coimbra, where as in several other places secular prisons were still housed in the castle. The poorly documented question of prisoners only makes sense here in relation to the social and political processes that shaped and constrained it.
