Story

In the memory of 1758, the church of Santa Senhorinha had two ships with programs of different images. One presented panels on the Creation of the World; the third Franciscan showed saints of this order.

The abbot also described a vaulted chapel, closed with iron railings. Painting, spaces and architectural elements composed a written portrait of the interior. The source allows to study this description, without ensuring that the pieces or layout are preserved today.

The description continues by the tombs, which the Abbot presents decorated with painting and golden letters, and by a particular chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Pilar. The interior appears as a set of spaces, images and inscriptions, each with its function in the account.

This allows a layer reading: first the organization of the ships, then the painted themes and, finally, the elements that marked memory and devotion. It is not necessary to imagine a single undifferentiated hall; the document itself distinguishes various environments.

The Abbot of Faia recorded five altars in 1758, mentioning the Name of God, Saint Anthony and Our Lady, with the invocation of the Rosary and its brotherhood. The document shows different devotions gathered in the same church.

The restoration reported in 2022 belongs to another time. The two descriptions have different objectives and times: it is not enough to compare numbers to determine which pieces remained or disappeared. The church record allows to continue the discovery of the building, keeping separate historical memory and visit information.

The enumeration distinguishes the larger altar from the four collaterals. The reference to the brotherhood of the Rosary adds people to space: the church appears not only as a set of pieces, but also linked to a devotional organization. However, the text does not describe the composition of this brotherhood or its activities in detail.

In the reply of 1758, the abbot of the Faia writes that his presentation belonged to the infant D. Pedro, as Grand Prior of Crato. He also refers to the intervention of the provisor of the city of Porto in its collation. These details show that the local religious organization involved authorities beyond Cabeceiras. The account describes the form of provision of the office at that time; it does not mean that the Faia belonged to the municipality of Crato or Porto.

The same answer estimated the income of the benefit in 450 réis. This value belongs to the description of the institution and should not be presented as a current salary or converted directly into a price today. Dealing with the altars and chapels, adds a layer to the history: besides the building and the devotions, there was an organization of positions and incomes.

In the church of St John of Bucos described in 1758, the main altar combined golden reliefs and vermilion backgrounds. The account places St John the Baptist and St Dominic on opposite sides and the sacrary in the center of the altarpiece. He also mentions altars with Our Lady of the Rosary, Saints Pedro and Saint Anthony. This written portrait allows you to imagine the organization and colors of the ancient interior, without confirming that the pieces or disposition are preserved today.

The church of São Tiago of Faia reopened in 14 August 2022, after about a year closed for works. The news of the Archdiocese of Braga records the recovery of paintings, images and three altars, besides the placement of stained glass with episodes of the life and mission of the patron. It is a recent intervention, different from the portrait of five altars left in 1758: they are sources of distinct times, not a directly comparable count of surviving pieces.

The news also tells who made the intervention possible. Pastor Rui Filipe Marques Araújo attributed the realization of the works to the involvement of the community; the ceremony brought together associative representatives, workers and benefactors. Archbishop José Cordeiro presided. Behind the paintings and the recovered or placed stained glass is thus a history of participation.

Reopening does not necessarily mean that all works were completed: the same news records an appeal to continue the completion of the restoration. The August date marks the celebration and return of space to religious use, without allowing the end of each intervention to be established.

In 1758, the vicar described the church of Alvite with three altars: the principal, associated with St Pedro, and those of the Name of God and the Lady of the Rosary. He referred to a single body, choir, main chapel and sacristy. It is the provision registered at that time, without confirmation that it remains the same.

The document situates the church in Cacheina, surrounded by residents. It distinguishes the main altar of the two collaterals and mentions a brotherhood associated with the brotherhood of the Blessed Sacrament. The portrait of the building thus includes a community: places of worship, people and religious organization appear in the same response.

A list of spaces is not enough to reconstruct a plant. We can recognize functions and names, but the exact position of each dependency would require other sources. It is a good occasion to compare what a text describes with what an external photograph can show.

The Rector Domingos Camel de Sousa described five altars in the church of St. Nicholas. On the main altar, he placed St. Nicholas and St. Brás on opposite sides and Christ Crucified to the center, in a golden tribune.

The remaining altars were dedicated to the Lady of the Rosary, to the Lord of the Passos, to Saint Sebastian and to the Souls of Purgatory. It is a portrait written in 1758, not a confirmation of the current disposition.

In the memory of 22 May 1758, the chapel of Santa Maria, in Casares, served to administer the sacraments to the residents, far from the parish church. The distance helped explain the distribution of places of worship.

The vicar António Alves Teixeira also mentions Santa Ana, in Carrazedo, administered by Manuel Gomes Martins. They are references of the document, without confirmation of access or current status.

The parish church was located in the place of Bucos, which the vicar presented as the most populous of the parish. In addition, he named Vila Boa, Carrazedo and Casares. This set of places helps to understand why a single church did not respond in the same way to the needs of all residents.

The document also distinguishes who administered each chapel: in Casares, the commander; in Carrazedo, Father Manuel Gomes Martins. Place, invocation and administration are three different clues. The function of administering sacraments because of the distance is explained to Casares; it should not be automatically attributed to all the chapels mentioned.

The memory of 1758 explains the function of three chapels: Saint Bartholomew, in Celeiró do Monte; Our Lady of Lapa, in Lapela; and Saint Anne, in Busteliberne. They served to administer sacraments to the residents who lived far from the matrix. A small building responded to a daily difficulty.

The dean Domingos Camel de Sousa describes high hills between the places and refers three settlements away half league from the church, in rough terrain. The distance was not only a line on the map: relief was part of the difficulty. The church was to spring, in a place with six neighbors, counting the house of the rector himself.

The three chapels were kept at the expense of the commendator, according to the report. But they were not the only ones: the text lists eleven chapels beyond the matrix, with different administrations and functions. In the Outeiro of Santo António, for example, it marks pilgrimages of neighboring parishes in the feasts of Santo António and Santa Luzia. The set reveals both the cult close to the residents and meetings that attracted people from outside.

The history of Pedraça is also read in the houses. The municipal presentation highlights Casa do Paço, Casa de Parada and the houses of the Baron of Basto and Paço de Vila. For Parada, it uses the expression Brazilian taste; for Casa do Paço, it draws attention to the name of the place. They are different clues: one points to architecture, another to the toponymy.

These houses are part of a parish that the Municipality describes as fertile and abundant in water, linked to agriculture and the cultivation of flax. Approaching the housing of the work landscape helps to look at the heritage beyond religious buildings.

The municipal description does not provide construction dates for this set nor identifies those responsible for each work. Nor does the reference to Brazilian taste enough to reconstruct the biography of a owner. The houses are here starting points to know the parish; their inclusion does not presuppose public access.

In the memory of Rio Douro of 1758, the vicar lists fifteen places and places the church outside the village. He also refers to fifteen hermits, explaining their relationship with religious assistance to people living far from the home.

St. Stephen stayed outside Eiró; other invocations accompanied names of villages, such as Santa Ana in Toninha, São Gonçalo in Vilela and São Frutuoso in Leiradas. The document also distinguishes religious responsibilities from Refojos, private and residents. It is a historical network of places, devotions and care, without confirming the conservation or current access to each building.

The municipal description identifies two lateral organs, being a mute. The visual symmetry of the church does not correspond, therefore, to two sound instruments. Next to the entrance appear frowns; later, the wood creates another surprise effect.

The two pulpits are painted brown to imitate marble and partially golden. The fountain places the execution in 1777–1780 and the painting and browning in 1786–1789. Shape, material and finishing count different stages of the same work. This patrimonial description does not confirm the current functioning of the organ.

The choir adds another reading of the wood: the Municipality describes a brown chair, of 1767–1770, organized in two levels and in the shape of U. São 45 seats, with the place of the abbot to the center. The disposition helps imagine a community gathered, instead of looking at each chair separately.

At the top, the circular zimbarium is accompanied by interior and exterior balconies. The description identifies the twelve apostles and, on the top, St. Michael. From furniture to silhouette, they change the scale and the observation point. The photographs of this reading show details of the organ; they do not document all these elements.

In Casares, a wooden bridge integrated the real road to Braga and communications with Trás-os-Montes, according to the memory of 1758. Before the movement, the vicar defended building it in stone. It was a request, not the confirmation of a work.

The source distinguishes this passage from small walkways made with a wooden beam, for pedestrians. Different paths responded to different uses.

The passage not only served the village. The vicar describes a public road and very frequented, linking Braga to the term of Basto and Trás-os-Montes. The bridge emerges, as a local point of a larger network. The recommendation to replace it by chanting shows the author to assess a need, besides inventing what existed.

In the same rivers, the water moved mills and was used by farmers in the fields. The crossing, grinding and watering appear in the same portrait of the territory. A bridge can be read by what it allows to do: reach another place, maintain a communication or approximate works separated by water.

In 1758, the procession of the Body of God gathered in Santa Senhorinha the Chamber and representatives of the nearby parishes, with crosses and ecclesiastics. The memory mentions expenses with wax and sermon: behind the celebration there was preparation, objects and work.

The Abbot also describes separately the triduum of the forty hours, with music and sermons for three days. Distinguishing the two references helps to realize the religious calendar of that time. The document is a testimony of 1758, not the agenda of the current feasts.

The municipal transcription of the Parish Memories records 137 fires and 439 sacramental souls in Painzela. The formulation itself distinguishes domestic units from a religious category of people. Therefore, the 439 should not be presented as a modern census of all inhabitants. The document also allows to know the language used to describe the community.

The same passage identifies Saint Andrew as a dedication of the matrix and connects the presentation of the vicar to the abbot of Santa Senhorinha. The small text therefore gathers population, church and ecclesiastical organization. Instead of reading it as a statistical table, we can ask what the author chose to record about the community.

There is also a layer between the old document and the screen: the municipality informs that the transcript updates the spelling and the score from the edition of José Viriato Chapel, published in 2003. This indication helps to distinguish the date of the testimony, 1758, from the date of the edition used to disseminate it. The references to the chapels appear separately, in the documentary note.

The memory of 1758 lists three wooden bridges in the parish: Vagalhafos, in Quinta de Vila de Lobos; Santa Senhorinha, near the church; and Olela. Names approach the crossings of the farms, the place of worship and the inhabited places.

The same report mentions singing bridges in São Clemente and São Martinho do Arco de Baúlhe. Wood and stone appear, thus, in a single description of the river. The enumeration does not provide construction dates nor proves the survival of structures.

A municipal report of 2012 highlights a sculpture of Santa Maria belonging to the church of Outeiro, dating from the 13th or 14th century. The Virgin appears crowned, seated on a throne, with the Child on his knees. The account says that the play was found buried in the place known as Mata da Santa and taken by parishioners to church. The news doesn't date the discovery. This story allows to know the path of the image, without confirming where it is currently exposed.

In memory of 23 May 1758, the abbot João de Lima Lobo de Noronha enumerates sixteen places. The enumeration includes Covilhã, Augueiros, Presas, Nogueira, Candedo, Ribeiro, Outeiro, Porcarice, Faia, Togais, Souto, Ribeira, Tuesdays, Breia, Casa Nova and Joio. Situa the church out of place and describes the parish on a northern slope.

The list helps to think of a territory distributed by small cores, and not just around the matrix. Names belong to historical transcription; they are not a current administrative list or allow to draw the boundaries of each place by themselves.

The same testimony presents two counts: 99 neighbors and 418 people. The document separates them; they should not add or read “neighbours” as another total of inhabitants. It also distinguishes scales: when speaking of the municipality, the abbot refers to eighteen parishes, but declares not knowing the number of its neighbors. Knowing what the author did not tell is as useful as knowing the numbers he left.

Ribeiro and Ribeira appear as different entries. Outeiro is here in the list of places of Faia: the coincidence with the name of another parish does not authorize to shift this reference on the map. The complete list allows to compare names, while chapels help to perceive some relations between places and houses.

The extinction of religious orders, in 1834, changed the fate of the set of Refojos, keeping the church in the religious function. According to the municipal proposal of patrimonial candidacy, João António Fernandes Basto acquired the Monastery in public haste between 1838 and 1842. In the nineteenth century, the assembly also welcomed municipal services; in 1944, another part received a college with boarding school. Looking at the whole is also to discover how ancient buildings were adapted to administration and teaching.

The document places around 1855 the installation of the city services in the part of the cloisters. For the school area, it registers a new change of ownership in 1959, for the Conciliar Seminary of Braga. The group therefore did not have a single destination after 1834: different parts followed their own stories. The heritage proposal is here a historical source; it does not demonstrate a UNESCO classification nor confirms the current uses of each space.

Odília Alves Gameiro studies three texts on the life and miracles of Santa Senhorinha, preserved in copies of the 16th century: two in Latin and one in Portuguese. The similarities between them suggest, according to the researcher, a medieval original. Reading these versions allows you to study the construction of memory and worship. The time of a copy is not necessarily the time of the story that tells.

The two Latin testimonies studied come from Coimbra: one from the College of Grace and another from Santa Cruz. This provenance helps to realize that the memory of a saint linked to Basto circulated beyond the place of worship. Each copy is also an object with a history of conservation and transmission.

There are three times to be separated: that of the life narrated, that of the composition of the account and that of the copy that came to us. The investigation situates Little Lady in the second half of the 10th century, but does not transform the five hundredth-century texts into testimonies written by those who knew her. The similarities and differences between versions are precisely part of the historical work.

The study also reads the reports in the context of a rural community: crops, food and trips appear among the concerns represented. Hagiography allows to know this imaginary and the values that the text seeks to transmit, besides counting wonders.

The municipal presentation records the popular designation Sé of Basto for the church of Santa Senhorinha, associating it with the idea of antiquity. In the manor houses, it highlights buildings from the 17th and 18th centuries, some with coats and chapels. Paço, Castelo, Mozes and Vila Garcia were already mentioned in 1726. This reference helps to read the heritage of the parish, without assuming that the houses are visitable or that all the old elements are preserved today.

The municipal portrait does not end in the four houses mentioned in 1726. It includes Carcavelos, Cainhos, Casa do Oven, Eirões and Olela, extending the look to several places. In religious architecture, mentions the chapel of Calvary, also called Senhora do Ó, in Olela, and that of Santo António. They are references to know the diversity of the heritage, without assigning to all buildings the same date.

The Sé designation of Basto belongs to the popular use described by the Municipality. In this reading, it acts as a clue to the importance attributed to the church; it has not been converted into an affirmation of cathedral status. Compare this name with the memory of the painted panels allows you to look at the building through words of different times and purposes.

The parish report places Santa Senhorinha in a valley between the Gatiras and the Ladario. It lists places such as Rendufe, Soutelo, Outeiro Seco, Olela, Devesa and Vila Garcia, among many others. The church is described outside the village, in the middle of a field. This portrait allows you to imagine a community distributed across several cores, but retains the names and perspective of the document of 1758, without functioning as a current map.

The author also lists villages that were seen, distinguishing the position in the valley of the look from the Ladário. Visibility was part of the way of presenting the territory. A place could be described by what surrounded it and by what could be seen from a higher point, beyond its limits and names.

The municipal transcription of 1758 presents Gondiães with 55 fireworks and 269 souls of communion, together with the matrix dedicated to Saint Martin. Vilar mentions 41 neighbors and 141 sacramental souls, with the church dedicated to St. Lawrence. Both places are located at the end of Cabeceiras de Basto, in the district of Guimarães.

It is important to keep the words of the source: fires or neighbors and souls are not the same category. These numbers should not be added as if they all counted people, nor presented sacrament souls as a modern census of the total population. The text of Gondiães gives the information to Lima; the reference should accompany the reading of these numbers.

In 25 of May 1758, the vicar Manuel Pacheco da Cunha numbered eight places: Cavez, Vila Franca, Ponte, Arosa, Rabiçais, Moimenta, Revorça and Parada. He located the church in the middle of the parish and described six chapels. Names help to recognize a hammock; they are not a current list of administrative places.

São Gregório, in Vila Franca, São Mamede, in Arosa, and Santa Maria Magdalena, in Moimenta, were attributed to the abbot of Pombeiro, with its maintenance linked to the Benedictine congregation of Tibães. São Bartolomeu, on the Bridge, had as patron João Correia, of Guimarães. In São Caetano, in Raviceis at the passage of the chapels, and Santa Luzia, in Revorça, the charge was for the residents. The transcription itself uses the variants Rabiçais and Raviceais.

The report also describes five altars in the matrix and a brotherhood of the Souls. The parish appears as a space of worship and collective organization, with distinct responsibilities. The pilgrimage of São Bartolomeu is mentioned for 23 and 24 of August; they are dates of historical testimony, without functioning as current agenda.

The parish links went beyond the chapels. The vicar wrote that Cavez did not have their own mail and resorted to Raposeira, which was located to a league. He also indicated the absence of fair in the parish. They are clues to think where news arrived and where services were concentrated at that time; they do not describe the current offer nor allow automatically to convert the league into a road distance.

In May 1758, the vicar of Vila Nune registered 55 neighbors and 239 people. He numbered fourteen places, some with only one resident, and marked uninhabited houses in the place of Serra.

These numbers describe different categories of the document. They should not be added or confused with a current census. The small scale of the places helps imagine a scattered settlement, observed from the parish.

The enumeration allows to approach the look: Silva assigns eight neighbors; to Vale and Rossada, five to each. Fojães and Ribeira da Covilhã appear with one resident. The church was in Granja, near the Valley. The religious center was not confused, therefore, with the place called Vila Nune.

The vicar Domingos Leite de Andrade adds that there were unmarried women in poverty between neighbors and people from other parishes. It is the social description of an author and of a time, without allowing the life of each person to be reconstructed. By preserving the terms and date, the document allows different domestic conditions to be observed within the small places.