Santarém

A story of freedom

This ancient city was in contact with Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians. The foundation of the city of Santarém refers to the Greco-Roman and Christian mythology, recognizing in the names of Habis and Irene, their mythical origins. The earliest documented traces of human occupation date back to the 8th century BC.

The population of the village would have collaborated with the Roman settlers, when they docked in 138 BC. During this period it became the main trading post of the Tagus River and one of the most important administrative centers of the Lusitania province. From the Romans it received the name of Escálabis or Scallabi castro.

It passed on to the Moors in 715, until D. Afonso Henriques conquered it definitively in 1147, in an audacious blow, perpetrated at night with a small army. It was, from that time on, the headquarters of the Order of the Templars, before it passed to Tomar in 1180.

Here several historical events took place that immortalized the city in time.

During the reign of D. Dinis, more precisely in 1319, the solemn act of acceptance of Pope John XXII's Bull was held in Santarém, which confirmed the constitution of the Order of Christ and to which the patrimonial assets of the extinct Order of Templars transitioned. This monarch died in Santarém in 1325. That same year, at the age of thirty-five, D. Afonso IV, son of D. Dinis was crowned in this village.

É nesta altura que se instala o estilo artístico gótico, estando muito bem representado nos seus conventos e igrejas estando patente nas suas rosáceas ricamente decoradas, assim Santarém é hoje considerada a capital do gótico em Portugal.

In 1405, were born in this village the infants D. João and D. Fernando, children of D. João I and D. Filipa de Lencastre. In 1477, D. João II was acclaimed king, in 1580, D. António Prior do Crato and, in 1640, D. João IV, King of Portugal, which restores independence over the Spanish.

Santarém was elevated to the category of city by license of December 24, 1868, endorsed by King D. Luis I.

Going through the city we find porticos and rosettes, arches and crevices, Manueline windows, Renaissance wedges, Aphonsine escutcheons, towers, walls and portals, confusing its historic center among gardens, streets and sidewalks.