The Jewish cemetery area of Évora is documented in the fifteenth century through royal, municipal, and property records connected to the Jewish commune of the city. The safest historical designation is Adro dos Judeus, the burial ground or funerary area of the Jews.

Documentary evidence for the Adro dos Judeus

The earliest known reference appears in 1435, in the Chancellery of King Duarte. The document records that the Jewish commune of Évora requested land for burials. The granted area bordered the muymentos dos dictos Judeus, the monuments or graves of the Jews. This wording suggests the enlargement of an existing burial place, rather than the creation of an entirely new cemetery.

The location is also supported by a contract from the Convent of Paraíso concerning two fields near the Porta da Lagoa. One of these fields is described as adjoining the Adro dos Judeus, together with the roads of Manizola and São Bento. This places the funerary area outside the main residential space of the Judiaria, in the zone between the Porta da Lagoa and the Porta de Avis.

After the forced conversion

After the forced conversion of Portuguese Jews in 1497, the Jewish cemetery area of Évora lost its communal function. In 1498, a royal letter addressed to the city of Évora mentions the chão que foi adro dos judeus, the land that had been the Jews’ burial ground. Fernão d’Esteves had bought this land and intended to sow it, while the municipal council claimed possession over it.

Later historical interpretation connects the disappearance of the cemetery near the Porta da Lagoa with the construction of the Mosteiro de Nossa Senhora do Carmo in the early sixteenth century. No Jewish tombstones or archaeological limits of the cemetery are known to survive.