The oldest document invoked by the Judges of the Brotherhood whenever their attribution was challenged, which happened frequently, is a charter from King Afonso V, dated August 7, 1460, where the king stated that he had learned that the “good men of your profession ordered and built a hospital which supported its own costs, in which there have continuously been twelve beds for the poor and a home for a charitable woman who washed them and made the beds and helped them in whatever they needed…” and that with this, had “huge expenses for which they did not have incomes of more than thirty reis and a pair of chicken…”, so that they asked for the help of the king, without which they could not continue to support the service.

The king checked this information, and what they received for their work and “Previously ordered, by service to God, to those silversmiths, that they go to that Hospital, and that all those of this profession, for the time in which they do this job, support the work of gathering, marking and calibrating the weights and scales, as was their duty, without keeping anything for themselves, as they had done before …”