Santo António das Areias

Poejo Boutique Hotel is located at Santo António das Areias, a village just at 4 km from Marvão.

Other interesting places to visit: Marvão, Castelo Vide e Portalegre.

History of Santo António das Areias Village

The most central and oldest part of Santo António village is implanted on a gentle slope, mostly, exposed to the west, drained by lines of seasonal water courses, which stand out the streams Ribeiro do Lobo and Ribeira do Tragazal. Although until today had not been identified any reference to this village before 1569, we have to consider the hypothesis of this place being occupied from the end of the Roman Empire. This hypothesis is based on the strategy of settlement of Upper-Middle-Ages, evident in the area of the present municipality of Marvão.

With the destruction of the city of Ammaia and under pressure from the Barbarians, especially from the late fifth century, we find a new form of land use. Not far from the water lines, in the gentle slopes, small and medium agricultural properties begin to settle, surrounded by land with some agricultural potential but not very evident in the landscape.

The Political instability forced some caution. From these troubled times we know several witnesses in the surroundings of Santo António das Areias, standing out the small habitats of Água de Cuba, Patinha da Burra, Asseiceira, Ranginha, Lagar dos Frades or Feijoeira. Any of these archaeological sites, unfortunately never studied, has an orographic establishment very similar to what happens in Santo António.

Probably this village had origin from one of these habitats, growing gradually after the Christian Reconquest and being worthy of the construction of a temple devoted to São Marcos.

If we read the “Memórias Paroquiais” (parish memories) we find reference to this temple which would be set a little above to the present “Casa do Povo”, not far from the old Fonte da Vala. This temple, around which was the first cemetery of the village, have collapsed in the beginnings of the twentieth century when occurred the collective translocation to the present cemetery.

Although we have no information on the date of construction of São Marcos Church, it would certainly be prior to the Santo António Church. This presumption is based in the greater antiquity of the cult of São Marcos and in the toponymic memory on this village that still exists, for example, in Valência de Alcantara (Spain).

When referring to the village of Santo António das Areias, the older people in the other side of the border still call it by São Marcos. Eventually, this ancient toponymy may also have some close relationship with the influx of Spanish people to festivities in honor of São Marcos. But exactly the festival and fair that is organized every year in honor of São Marcos, the largest and well-attended of the municipality, compared to the already long-forgotten procession in honor of Santo António, seems to reinforce our interpretation that, originally, this village has emerged around the vanished church of São Marcos and later had been built a new church dedicated to Santo António, in the spot called Areias (sands). The new church, probably built in the second half of the sixteenth century, originated another urban organization around the new and larger temple, contributing to the loss of centrality of the São Marcos church. The date given for the edification of the Santo António Church is based on the inscription on the capital of the cruise where, with difficulty, we can still read the date 1569.

If our interpretation is correct and the cruise is in fact contemporary of the church, the date of the century seven hundred that is recorded on the granite base that sustained the pulpit that was inside the Church of Santo António should correspond to a phase of remodeling or reconstruction of the temple and not to its foundation. Anyway, the century seven hundred is much subsequent to the oldest parish register known for this village. Strangely, this register refers to a baptism dated from 1715. We say strangely because as a rule, the oldest reports relate exclusively to the obits. Naturally, this rule applies mainly to the oldest church records, datable from the late fifteenth and sixteenth century.

Beginning the first book of registers with a baptism in the year of 1715 and containing the same book the seat of the first marriage in 1716 and the first death in 1722, it is likely that this parish had been established in the year of 1715, or soon early, although already in place there were two temples, but , by that date, none of them was a parish seat. The people living in this place would be linked to one of the parishes located in Marvão, gaining its independence only in the early eighteenth century.

By Jorge Oliveira
archeology professor at Evora University

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Other villages and cities with interest: Marvão | Castelo de Vide | Portalegre