The Royal Chancellery at the end of the Portuguese Middle Ages: diplomacy and political society (1970 – 2005)

The aim of this text is to review the research undertaken in Portugal on the question of the medieval royal chancellery and diplomacy and their relationship with the study of royal bureaucracy. In this sense, we characterize the lines of development that are to be noted in the research undertaken into political societies and royal power based on the records of the royal chancellery in the last thirty years. Initially, we focus our attention on the relationship established between the royal chancellery and diplomacy and later we highlight the main themes and problems studied under the scope of the social history of institutions. Finally, we refer to the use of prosopography as a method applied to the study of medieval Portuguese elites.