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The Lisbon Holy House of Mercy MHIH (Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa) is a Portuguese charitable organisation that, in modern times, serves also as the national lottery and off-course betting operator. In spite of its historical links to the Catholic Church, it is today a secular legal person in the public administrative interest ("pessoa colectiva de direito privado e utilidade pública administrativa"), that is to say, a private legal person, recognised by the authorities as pursuing non-profit-making objects of public interest.

The first of its kind (though many other local Misericórdias were established, thoughout Portugal and its overseas colonies), it was established in 1498 by Queen Regent Eleanor of Viseu, as a Brotherhood for the Invocation of Our Lady of Mercy (headquartered in a chapel of the Lisbon Cathedral) comprising "one hundred men of good reputation and sound conscience and honest life" that vowed to support the neediest and to uphold the Fourteen Works of Mercy.

Although a private legal person, the Misericórdia is overseen by the public administration, namely the Minister in charge of the social security system; its Chairman (Provedor), who presides over the Board of Directors, is nominated by the Prime Minister.

Creation
By the end of the fifteenth century, the Portuguese Age of Discovery was in full swing; the maritime expansion, and the intense commercial activities brought many people to the large urban centers, such as Lisbon. As a result, quality of life often deteriorated: the streets were hotbeds of promiscuity and disease, beggars and foundlings were commonplace, shipwrecks and battles resulted in large numbers of widows and orphans, and prison overcrowding was a serious problem.

Dowager Queen Eleanor of Viseu, who was at the time acting as Regent for her brother, King Manuel I (away in the Crown of Castile where his wife, Queen Isabella, was to be sworn Princess of Asturias), spearheaded the creation of the "Brotherhood for the Invocation of Our Lady of Mercy" (Irmandade de Invocação a Nossa Senhora da Misericórdia), as royal sponsor. Its seat was the Chapel of Our Lady of Piety (Capela de Nossa Senhora da Piedade) in the cloisters of Lisbon Cathedral.

This organisation was, however, not unprecedented, and matches the historical context of lay social philanthropy; there was a budding social conscience in Portugal, and the profusion of leper houses, hospitals, and charitable brotherhoods was such (especially so in Lisbon) that considerable overlapping of activities was inevitable, resulting in much abuse and misapplication of alms. King John II (r. 1481–1495) had already started to enforce a centralising policy, having secured a papal bull (Ex debito solicitudinis, 1479) authorising the fusion of all forty-three small hospitals of Lisbon and its environs into a single building: the Royal Hospital of All Saints, finished in 1504. King Manuel followed the policy of his predecessor and secured a papal bull (Cum sit carissimus, 1499) for the amalgamation of hospitals in Coimbra, Évora, and Santarém. Even though there is no concrete evidence that the foundation of the Lisbon Holy House of Mercy in 1498 constituted another aspect of this policy, its immediate success and royal patronage made the King recognise its possibilities in furthering the policy of centralisation of charitable services: in 1499 and in 1500, he wrote to the city elders of Oporto and Coimbra, respectively, suggesting the foundation of Misericórdias in those cities. King Manuel also granted several privileges, both legal and financial, to the Misericórdia during his lifetime, thereby establishing the Misericórdia as the leading charitable brotherhood of Portugal: by 1524, around the time Dowager Queen Eleanor died, every town and many villages of Portugal had a Holy House of Mercy, a total of sixty-one following the Compromisso of the parent house in Lisbon.

On 25 March 1534, the construction of the new Church of the Misericórdia was completed, and it became the new seat of the Holy House of Mercy. By the church, the Misericórdia ran its own hospital, with an orphanage, registry, house of the dispatch, offices and courtyards.

In 1564, the Holy House of Mercy started running the Royal Hospital of All Saints, the main hospital in Lisbon, replacing the Secular Canons of St. John the Evangelist, who had been running the hospital since 1530.

The 1516 Compromisso
Its Compromisso, or statutes, was approved by King Manuel I and confirmed by Pope Alexander VI. The loss of the original Compromisso of the Lisbon Misericórdia (likely during the 1755 Lisbon earthquake) makes it impossible to reconstruct the brotherhood exactly as it was first conceived. The earliest extant Compromissos are those of the Misericórdias of Évora and Oporto and show only minor differences from the first printed Compromisso of Lisbon, dating from 1516. The brotherhood was initially comprised of 100 members, divided into two classes: that of "noble brothers" or "brothers of higher standing" (irmãos nobres, or irmãos de maior condição), including not only nobles of blood, but also members of the gentry, the professional classes, and the clergy; and that of the "members of the mechanical trades" or "brothers of lower standing" (oficiais mecânicos, or irmãos de menor condição), made up of plebeians. All had to be of good repute, God-fearing, serve the brotherhood without question, and congregate when summoned by the bell of the Misericórdia. Attendance at the Misericórdia was mandatory on three yearly occasions: the election of the Board of Guardians (Mesa) on the feast of the Visitation; the Maundy Thursday procession of penitents; the All Saints' Day procession to the scaffold at St. Barbara to collect the bones of the hanged and give them decent burial in the private cemetery of the Misericórdia. Brothers and their families received financial and medical aid if they were in need, and their funerals would be attended by the brotherhood.

The Board of Guardians (Mesa) was made up of thirteen brothers, six from each class; the Chairman was always chosen from the upper class. The Board consisted of the Scribe (Escrivão), nine Counsellors (Conselheiros), and two Stewards (Mordomos). It was presided by a Chairman (Provedor), who had to be a person of good social standing and financial means, trusted with defending the Misericórdia against the incursions of civil and ecclesiastical authorities on the privileges of the brotherhood; regardless, he only had independence of action in minor decisions: he was obliged to convene the Board on all matters of policy. To keep in touch with the brotherhood's activities, he had to make monthly visits to the prison, the hospital, and the needy, to ensure that alms were being properly applied. The Scribe was responsible for the supervision of the ledgers and keeping minutes. He and the nine Counsellors formed five pairs (each comprising one noble and one plebeian) to each of which was allocated a specific duty: visiting the sick and providing food and medicine, visiting the sick and looking after their spiritual welfare, giving out food to prisoners, almsgiving, collecting alms and rents. The duties of the Stewards were distinct: the Steward of the Chapel (Mordomo da Capela) was responsible for the treasure of the chapel, alms, burials and masses; the Outside Steward (Mordomo de Fora) provided legal aid for prisoners and paid any fees necessary before they could be released.

All members of the Board were elected for a yearly term of office, except for the Stewards, who were elected every month because of their heavy duties. Elections were held in an indirect fashion: on every 2 July (Feast of the Visitation), the brotherhood chose an electoral committee of ten brothers; the final results were announced the following day.

17th century
More than a century after its founding, and in tune with the profound political changes ever since the Kingdom had lost its independence in 1581, the Lisbon Holy House of Mercy published a new Compromisso, in 1618.

18th century
In the second half of the 18th century, the growing number of foundlings left on the Misericórdia's foundling wheels raised questions on the financial support of the institution. The government of the Marquis of Pombal increased the role of the State in how the Brotherhood was run: he undertook a reform of the rules concerning how foundlings were to be relinquishing by their parents, and subsequently raised and educated by the Misericórdias.

It was also at this time, in 1768, that the Lisbon Misericórdia was given the Church of Saint Roch and its ancillary residence — to replace its original church and administrative buildings that had been mostly destroyed by the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. The Holy House of Mercy still owns and operates the site today. The church continues to function, and part of the Jesuit residence was turned into a museum (the Museu de São Roque) late in the 19th century. Other parts of the complex, and later buildings erected adjacent to it, still function as the Holy House's headquarters for the city.

Regardless, the Misericórdia was still very much dependent on charitable donations, which made it be prone to periods of financial unstability. To continue its mission, the Board petitioned Queen Maria I for permission to institute an annual lottery, the proceeds of which were destined to meet "the urgent needs" of the foundling hospitals run by the Misericórdia: permission was granted by decree on 18 November 1783, and the first lottery drawing was on 1 September 1785. The lottery soon became one of the Holy House's main sources of revenue (shared with Saint Joseph's Royal Hospital and the Royal Academy of Sciences).

19th century
In 1806, John, Prince Regent ordered that all Misericórdias complied with the Compromisso of the Lisbon Misericórdia: to that effect, the statutes were reprinted in 1818 and widely circulated.

In the beginning of the century, a time marked with profound political instability following the French Revolution and the Portuguese Civil War, the Brotherhood entered a state of decline. A concerned Duke of Braganza, the regent in Queen Maria II's behalf, nominated an Administrative Commission in 1834, thus relinquishing the need for active members of the Brotherhood in the management of the Misericórdia. The Commission strived to improve the conditions offered to the foundlings in the care of the Misericórdia, by transferring female orphans to the nearby and recently-extinguished Convent of São Pedro de Alcântara, and by improving their education.