Towards a corpus of beneficence in Madrid from the 16th to 19th century

Abstract

ALDICAM-CM Project’s main aim is to collect the speech from Madrid region through the selection, transcription and reading of the archival documents prior to the 20th century. Among these documents, the funds from charitable institutions (especially common since the late 16th century in Madrid town) are particularly relevant. We focus specifically on two institutions that have preserved some writings of an outstanding historical and linguistic interest: Inclusa (Foundling Hospital) and Hermandad del Refugio. Their archives have preserved documents that make use of different registers: formal, medium and low. The low-register documents in particular are represented, above all, by notes on children abandonment or handing over to the Inclusa and by private individuals’ request letters. This allows us to document certain Madrid’s lower-sociolects phenomena rarely found in written sources. In addition, there are some notorious discourse characteristics, the «discourse of charity». The broadening of writing’s social base on the part of those people compelled to ask for assistance offers us a larger socio-linguistic variety than the one provided by other archival sources.