This project doesn't start from ground zero. We will begin by collecting data provided by many published works about the 9 towns included and specific studies on crafts, food trade and provisioning, urban organisation, etc.

To define and characterize for each city (Braga, Guimarães, Porto, Coimbra, Santarém, Lisbon, Évora, Setúbal, Loulé and other towns of Algarve) the sources available for this
project. Characterization of these sources, typology, historical context of production and conservation. Methodologies of paleographic, codicological, archival and historical analysis
and study of its context of production. Place of conservation and accessibility: published or unpublished sources.
Including the types of documents, the authors, its origin, motives of their textual or documentary production.
Identification and characterization of the possibilities and limits of the available documents for the reconstitution of crafts regulations and practices.
We can find a huge variety of documents from town to town depending on the remaining documents but also on the documents that were actually produced in the middle ages.
Formal crafts statutes are very rare for this period in Portugal. So what we have is a considerable variety of documents that can provide important information about craft activities and crafts regulations. In some towns, they consist on the town council meetings actae; in others on regulations issued by the municipal powers; but also royal court decisions, royal ordinances; ecclesiastical institutions and confraternities documents about property, etc. The question is to identify for each town the most interesting documents, or part of them.
In this task all the members of the team participate, including the grant?s researchers, divided by the geographical spaces (cities). This task is a prior and essential activity for
the development of all the following tasks.

Development of methodologies and data collection tools (such as databases) and collection of information and data analysis from the documents identified in the previous tasks, as well as from studies and bibliography that already exists for each location / city.
As it was already said, for some cities there are already some important studies about its medieval times, in some cases including some parts and data about the crafts, but they lack to be integrated and related to a more systematic and comprehensive research, like the one of the present project.
So, our aim is also to integrate as much as we can the data and analysis about crafts already made for some aspects in certain towns.
In this task all the members of the team participate, divided by the geographical spaces (cities).
This task is a prior and essential activity for the development of the following tasks.

Study and characterization of the type of regulation on the crafts.
A number of aspects will be analyzed in particular, such as the different types of regulation, formal or informal; oral or written; customary or issued by a public authority.
General laws on various aspects that also include practices of the crafts; or specific regulations of crafts and for each craft in each city.
The geographical scope of these laws: some general laws of the kingdom; other local or regional city ordinances.
The legal status of these norms (royal ordinations, municipal decrees, tradition ...).
Identification and characterization of the author of the norms that could be: public authorities, like a king, or a municipality; the tradition; or the craftsmen themselves.
In all cases it should be defined the degree of participation of craftsmen ? or their absence - in the elaboration of these regulations.
Characterization of the elaboration process of these norms.
Definition and characterization of control officers and the penalties for non-compliance of regulations by the craftsmen.
Who were the agents of control for the compliance of regulations? Officers of municipal, feudal or royal authorities, or craftsmen?
Officers of generic economic activities control, like the almotacés; or officers specific for some crafts, or even for some special aspects of some craft, like the vedor (judge) of the shoemakers, or the marker (the one who puts a mark, or sign) of goldsmiths (who holds the seal that proves the authenticity of a product and its origin).
In this task all the members of the team will participate, including the grant's holders, divided by the geographical spaces (cities).
This task is an essential intermediate activity for the development of the following tasks.
Foreign consultants and researchers of the team will also contribute to the comparative European perspective.

Study and detailed characterization of which crafts and craftsmen were objet of regulations and the specific aspects and tasks that were object of regulations and control. For example, regulations and control could focus on raw materials, techniques used, labor organization, prices and salaries, labor schedules, apprenticeship, equipment and places of installation of the activity, etc.
For each aspect will also be analyzed the process of constitution of the norm, which authorities were involved and what role did the craftsmen had, if any. Once again the forms and the agents of control of each norm will be analyzed, but this time in a more specific and particular way, than in the previous task.
Specific and thorough analysis of these issues is sought, including taking into account the practical application of regulations and eventual conflicts that took place surrounding these issues.
In this task all the members of the team will participate, divided by the geographical spaces (cities) in which each one works.
This task will be an intermediate activity, following the previous tasks and simultaneously essential for the development of the following ones.
Foreign consultants and researchers of the team will also contribute to the comparative European perspective.

From the elements of the previous tasks, we proceed to the analysis of two distinct but articulated realities.
On one hand, the study of the forms of organization of craftsmen, if any, in their economic, social and political dimension.
That is, the existence, or absence, of formal or informal modalities of association of craftsmen, as confraternities, or the simple capacity to exercise collective actions or to have recognized group representatives.
On the other hand, the organization of the economic, productive and commercial structure of the crafts, including the structure of capital, fixed or variable costs, raw materials, equipment and manpower, products and their destination, etc.
In this task all the members of the team will participate, divided by the geographical spaces (cities).
This task will be an intermediate activity, following the previous tasks and simultaneously essential for the development of the following ones.
Foreign consultants and researchers of the team will also contribute to the comparative European perspective.

This is the final task, in the sequence of all previous ones, in which it will be developed an overall analysis of each city, analyzing in an integrated way all the aspects developed in the previous tasks.
So, first of all we will develop an integrated characterization of the regulation and functioning of the crafts in each city.
After that, in a second moment, the comparisons between the global characteristics of each one of the studied cities will be made, trying to define eventual typologies and establish the similarities and differences between them.
And finally, we will compare them with the reality of the several regions of Europe, in order to establish the singularities and similarities of Portuguese cases within the realities of different European regions in the 14th, 15th and early 16th centuries.
In this task all the members of the team will participate, divided by the geographical spaces (cities).
Foreign consultants and researchers of the team will also contribute to the comparative European perspective.
This task will be the last one, following all the previous tasks.