Pillory

Monsanto

This is a very simple specimen, consisting of a small platform, on which the base—a block in the form of a bell jar—is set, topped by a smooth column finished off with a cylinder. The strange form of this pillory, reset in 1938 using pieces presumably found nearby, cannot help but raise some doubts about its integral authenticity. When the village was granted its new charter, it was most certainly endowed with a coeval pillory—which cannot be this piece, as it is clearly alien to the Manueline typology—although its location in one of the few squares of the urban settlement is in accordance with the new administrative statute, which included the Town Hall and Gaol, but their exact locations are not known.