500th ANNIVERSARY OF THE POSTAL SERVICE IN PORTUGAL

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aukepalmhof
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500th ANNIVERSARY OF THE POSTAL SERVICE IN PORTUGAL

Post by aukepalmhof » Sun Apr 12, 2020 8:02 pm

Portuguese Post issued in 2016 four stamps and a miniature sheet for the 500th anniversary of the postal service. One stamp shows us a sailor landing from a caravel viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10014 handing over a letter to the postman. In the foreground is a ship boat in which he was transported to shore, behind him is a caravel returning from a voyage and on the right is Belem Tower on the entrance of the Tagus River. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bel%C3%A9m_Tower

What happened in the most diverse states of Europe, also happened in Portugal? In the first centuries of our nationality, no organized system to transport correspondence was available to citizens. Indeed, sending letters was a prerogative of kings and the nobility, who entrusted this task to their squires and stable boys. With the commercial development in the Middle Ages and the emergence of an increasingly strong mercantile bourgeoisie, the posting of Crafts Corporations began to emerge, guaranteeing the exchange of correspondence between its members, thus responding to the specific needs of these classes.
The Church, which was spread everywhere, felt the need to establish its own private mail, using the valuable service of monks and religious orders, who regularly walked from town to town. The Discoveries and the Portuguese conquests, starting from the fifteenth century, brought people related to trade and to navigation from the most diverse places to Lisbon, giving the capital a new cosmopolitan face and turning it into a thriving, intense business scene.
In the sixteenth century, Portugal was at the center of the economic, commercial and even cultural world and its Crown began to relate more closely with other European courts and with the main trading posts, by the find of spices, precious stones and gold that came from India, Brazil, and Mina.
In this context, King Manuel I, aware of the importance of providing the country with a communications infrastructure that allowed a quick connection to Europe, as well as to the interior of the kingdom itself, created the Ofício de Correio-Mor (High- Courier), by Royal Charter of 6 November 1520. Luís Homem was appointed to the position, a knight of the Royal House who had fulfilled the mission of bringing royal correspondence to various capitals of Europe several times.
As the kingdom's first High-Courier, Luís Homem was entrusted with organizing a public postal service in Portugal, enabling any citizen, upon payment of a certain amount, to have the right to send their own correspondence.
The Royal Charter, issued in the city of Évora, detailed a set of obligations that the High-Courier was bound to. He should arrange to have the couriers (as the holders of the letters were designated) necessary to meet the services required by the king or by private persons; to direct and to provide adequate clothing to the staff; to settle the price of the delivery of correspondence with stakeholders, according to the distances and the speed of delivery; and nicety, to provide post-horses in the most convenient locations to ensure the effectiveness of the service.
In the early days, the mail services found themselves unsuitably organized, sometimes not having set shipping days because this depended on the requests of citizens. The transport of mail was on foot and on horseback, depending on the distances involved. The routes were difficult and dangerous and were often infested with criminals.
With the institutionalization of Postal Services in Portugal, the first postal dynasty was initiated, consisting of four regally appointed High-Couriers. Thus, from 1520, the first step was taken for establishing one of the most important infrastructures, which would prove essential to the development of the country.
Fernando Moura

Source: Portugal Post
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2016 500-years-postal-services-in-Portugal.1 jpg.jpg

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