When the chapel shortened the path
The distance from the church also shaped the villages.
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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.
Source and context
Basto Land Museum — St Nicholas Parish Memories (1758)
Accessed: . Editorial summary; the date of consultation is not the date of the facts.