" History Village"
GRANJINHA

Inhabitants: 52  /   Area: 248 /    Tabuaço Distance: 9.5 km

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Granjinha

Granjinha is a small village, nestled around the chapel dedicated to St. Pedro, where the population cultivates the soil and takes advantage of the old berries. The hermitage of St. Pedro das Águias is an authentic architectonic jewel, also called St. Pedro-o-Velho, related to the legend of Ardinga or Ardínia. It was constructed in a closed piece of land upon the Távora River, close to the Yellow Cliff. The main façade of the sanctuary is west guided, it leanes against the mountain. The axial portals of the north side are full of Romanesque brutish and monstrous symbols.


The construction of the Hermitage dates back from the 12th century, despite the introduction of later elements. About 3 km away from Granjinha appears, today planted with vines, the limits of the old Cerca dos Frades do Convento de St. Pedro das Águias.


It was always lodged by a reduced and poor community, and in the 16th century, it fell frankly into a state of decay. In 1834, it was extinguished from the religious orders. From this monastery, there are, however, many recipes of traditional sweets, inventions from the monastic population and perpetuated until today and much appreciated.


The ruined buildings have been recuperated for modern exploration, having some elements of the old 17th century architecture preserved. Moreover, Granjinha presents some important archaeological vestiges, such as the prehistoric shelter Abrigo da Porqueira or the sarcophagus of St. Pedro das Águias in the Hermitage.
 

S. PEDRO DAS AGUIAS (St. Peter of the Eagles)
by Luiz de Freitas - Notas & Lendas

 

Monasterium de Aquilis ordinis
est Sancti Benedicti factum in tempore antiquo...
(from old book of  the  Monastery).

 

 

Here in the clientele of the Granjinha, the conventuais candies of the monastry of St. Peter Of The Eagles, appear and follow as pride for the district. Little divulged and much appreciated promises to return to the Granjinha tradition that conquered all the population.

 

 

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At approximately 18 km from the estuary of the Tavora, occulted to enter scarps on the left edge of the river, lays the ruins of a church whose beginning is lost in the nights of the centuries. Divergem the opinions of its origin, some say that it was primitavly the Maometana mosque while others say that it was always a Christian church.
All however agree that there had been two brothers, D. Thedon and D. Rausendo, who at first dedicated it to the catholic culture, or because they wanted an express ending, they wanted it to be constructed so it would adapt.
Those two noble men, who we already know, had come from between Douro-and-Minho, at the end of the 10th century, to conquer the lands of the kingdom of Lamego, known at that time as the “Senhoreado for the Mouros”. They deliberated to make war throughout the Douro, whose alcantiladas ribas allowed them with a hand of soldiers to cause great damage to the agarenos. Going up to the left edge of the Tavora, they reached a place where arraiais was seated to fix the place of residence, as the knights of that time believed that all things begin with God.

As God, the first one that they had made, was to establish a Ermida in louvor of Apostolo St. Peter. This ermida would be the origin of the Monastery of St. Peter of the Eagles. There they gave to the sacramentos some frades of the order of St. Blessed that the two knights had brought to obtain of Saint pottery of Oliveira, of Guimarães. Later D. Thedon transformed this ermida into monastery of monges that had blossomed there for more than one hundred and twenty years.

This monastery later was transferred by others for two brothers, D. Peter and D. João Ramirez, descendants of D. Rausendo, for the place where today one meets. Since then it was that church, whose ruins lay criminay abandoned, known for St. Old Peter.

This monument was collapsing little by little through the ages, and buried in rubbles, where the precious one rendilhados relives its arcs, doors, columns and cachorradas! Still he would be easy and not very dispensible to restore this lost jewel between wild cliffs and shrubs. There Ardinga, or Ardinea, would be baptized as son of Al-Boazan, emir of Lamego.

This princess, in such a way got passionate herself for the Christian gentleman D. Thedon, in virtue of the fame of his warlike facts that conceived the project to marry him. With this end, she secretly abandoned alcaçar of her father and, preventing the frequented ways, she headed for the Castle of the Cabris, residence of her beloved. Colaça followed her. Both disfarçadas with masculine suits peregrinaram during some days until they had arrived to the ermida one of St. Old Peter, where they had been received by honorable monge Gelasio. Discovering this at the end of the day of the formosa princess easily converted to Christianity, promising him to be mediator between her and the valoroso captain as soon as this came back of an assortment that had IDO to make to the infidels. Knowing the mouro of the paradeiro of the son, for he was directed there incognito. Princess became easy that her desumano father be after afrontosa’s death, and whose corpse was shot to the Távora so that they did not give sepulture to it. Coming back D. Thedon, One more time victorious of his day against the mouros, knew of what occurred with Pablo Rodrigues. The destemido captain was so devistated with such news that he made celibacy vote.
This legend, that run with a forum of historical truth, and that as such, was received by serious writers, as much suggested by the people of these small farms that still affirm today to have seen in the night of St. João, clothes extended in a rochedo that exists there, and is called Hollow of the Moura. And the clothes of the formosa princess who, according to simple belief of the people that magic conserve! … And the pretty moonlight of our pretty land contributes so that this ingenuous legend if perpetuates alive and palpitates.
Let us go back to the monastery. The divergence of how much time in its transference: The illustrated Sunday intends that it was in 1065; George Cardoso in 1117. D. Joaquin de Azevedo in 1100 and F r. B. of Brito, no fixed date, it is understood that it had to be before1063, because in this year count D. Enrique confirmed that a donation previously given to the monastery by D. Peter and D. João Ramirez. This donation has the date 15th of July, age of Cesar of 1155 years. Reinante in Portugal in the part of Bragança D. Fernão Mendes. And on this side of Távora Mem Garci'a, and Fernão Garci'a, and Maria Cupinha.

Fr. R. of Brito says that he missed that date because of the names of the governors of the land that the show is made before the Count D. Enrique comes to Portugal, and the time is much later than the coming of the Count and still was after his death. However, the same count confirmed this and another donation to D. Thedonis and D. Rausendi in 1063, as it is said. It was forgotten, however, the cisterciense cronista of that in 1063 count D. Enrique could not make nor confirm donations in the portucalense county for the simple reason that the same government was only trusted later on 1080 (`).

It is not therefore easy to inquire about the date of the transference, not even the transference was had, because in the alluded donation they say frades of St. Peter of the Eagles that D. Peter and D. João had been the first Founders and Governors of the House of St. Peter, and that both had made the Monastery as the Potter makes ola. Positive and alone, he can affirm that the monastery of the Eagles is an antiqüíssimo - fact in tempore antiquo. Primitively benedictines had populated the cited monastery monges who had lived there for many years in the most rigorous observance of the rules of its order. The faithful, whose; first simpathies to the austerity and virtues of frades had cultivated, and gave the monastery important donations.

He came to be wealthy and with it came the relaxação of the customs. The virtuoso Abbot Dom Mendo, worried about this badly, he judged to rescue the remedy that changed the black habits of Is.Bento for the whites of Is Bernardo, whose monges they said wonders of virtue and penance. Effectively on the 14th of June, 1145 it was the monastery of St. Peter of the Eagles that reduced the order of Cister little before it had been established in St. João of Tarouca.

At the time of D. João III, the monastery fond of such decay that the congregation of Alcobaça became a necessary uniz it in such a way to make it better spiritually as in the weather. D. Jose all suppressed it as to the State far from the treatment and commerce of the men, but useless D. Maria I repovoou it of monges that had lived there until i864, that is, until the extinguishing of the religious orders. It was this monastery’s head of Couto and padroeiro of more than seven clientels: Castanheiro, Ervedosa, Prickly, Pereiro, Couples, Sarzedinho and Valença of the Douro, called before Valença the Monastery of St. Peter of the Eagles, as he sees himself as the charter data to this village for D. Manoel, who is originally found in the City council of Tabuaço.

Notes & Lendas – 49
In 1833, it is said in the Illustrated Sunday ('), that the liberal ones had launched fire to the secular monastery entirely destroying it. Effectively the monastery was destroyed by a fire rank in 1836 and not in 1833, but the attempt against this one did not have the character of politician. People coevas at this event.

A great part of the clienteles of Távora, Granjinha, Parallel, Pereiro, etc., were tenants with fees to the monastery. It seemed to the people of these clienteles on some occasions, to be exempted from the payment of their respective forums. The State had stolen frades and therefore the tenants fees was understood to be able to make the same to the State, since the thief who steals the thief has one hundred years of pardon. It had, however, a difficulty: in the convent that tumble on the properties and forums that existed. It was a necessity you make disappear. Congregated by the tenants fees,
They had deliberated to cut to the evil of the root setting on the fire of the convent. If the deliberation was fast, the execution was not less. At night the convent appeared in flames. It did not have haste in giving to it socorros. When the fire was only licking the church where they had arrived. The church was saved, but not at the neck, and more was consecrated to the cultured catholic. Today it is a temple. A respectable cellar exists there. The remedy was efficient: nobody more paid forums.
This monastery, whose origins retrace at least to the primórdios of the Portuguese nationality, must have suffered during its secular existence and deep modifications, therefore that today nothing we find is in its ruins that authorize it to attribute them to previous existence of the XVII century.
                                                                            Luiz de Freitas - Notas & Lendas
 

SÃO PEDRO DAS ÁGUIAS (St. Peter of the Eagles)

Under the Christian mantle, the language of serpe: for Maria Estela Guedes

In the depth of the valley of walls, the puncture of rocks is launched on the river Távora, the eremitério of St. Peter of the Eagles is placed, where he prays for the legend, Abbot Gelásio married the moura princess, Ardinga, with D. Tedon, Christian knight.	The figures under the beiral of the roof are zoomórficas and human beings
The father of Ardinga, to the governing time of Lamego, left in the pursuit the fugitive princess, having found it in S. Peter of the Eagles. Furious, it decapitated the son next to the river, whose waters until today are impregnated of its blood.	It would be nonsense to see a Naja (charge-of-cap used by juris doctorate graduates) in this image?
Associated to a place inhabited with huge rocks, and this stranger church, whose zoomórfica ornamentação points with respect to a sacred daily pay-Christian, the decapitation of Ardinga, or Ardínia, they make you think about them what this says regarding to places. Célio Rolinho Pires	Lateral door, giving for one adro
The Country of the Rocks”: that certain monuments, we topónimos and antropónimos, point with respect to spaces of execution in the old lusitânicas populations. Two capital punishments were the decapitation and the precipitation. Precipices are what it does not lack in this place that it redeems in the abyss. It is well probable then that the church of St. Peter of the Eagles, under the Christian mantle, discloses previous facts historical, and underlying.	Narrow ticket leaned against the penedia.
The church has the main door come back toward an abrupt scarp, of that if they raise, on the top, very high rocks: two seem gémeas, tipping a door in the sky, and another one is shot up as an indicating finger or gigantic, itspeaks In this position, to enter in the church, it is necessary to make Indiana line and obesas people will have it coming at back of its side.	The main door is the one that if sinks in the orchids; it has a lateral door in the parallel wall to that it is come back toward us; in the wall directed toward the Oliveira, door does not exist, is the backs. The church is of coasts for the river that runs in the deep one of the mountain, of this side.
How much the Christ, in the interior, does not have neither the sky nor the river to the front of the eyes, yes the wall of rock, rude rock, much more rock that Peter… wanted it to revive, pass the bad comparison, could not, of so enclosed, or so buried in the rock.	A snake head concludes one of the serpentine elements
The church is românica, of decoration something bizarre, not in such a way for the wealth of animal figures as for the constant and insinuate presence its serpentine element - ofita. It enters the more or less naturalistic figures, more or less estilizadas, we found the Ouroboros serpent for which, in Lisbon, Fernanda Frazão alerts them, shown in the photograph. .	Cross in rosette interlaced with serpent formed element
In the generality, I did not recognize the animals, even because the rock is very clear. However it enters the figures of the beiral, one desperate for attention, for seeming a lobster, or any other arthropod with many legs, centopeia type. Also the sardão seems to be present, Lacerta sp., whose symbolic value is of the serpent. It is however not zoomórfica ornamentação, in linear figures, coils, or in spirals, some interlacing in crosses, that becomes more present to the snake.	Cross in rosette between serpentine elements two gémeas rocks, seeming to delimit a door of the sky
In this wild place, the serpents exist, as in all the sides, perhaps but something exists more frightful, even though a little dangerous - the Vipera latastei, cornuda viper. Of the first time that I visited St. Peter of the Eagles, many years ago, with the family, saw one viborazinha, that he had to be a youthful one, of arrebitado nose, to cross the road. Unhappily, she was esborrachada underneath a shoe.	Two gémeas rocks, seeming to delimit a door of the sky delimit a door of the sky
St. Peter of the Eagles, with his Venusians rocks, of Vénus, is a place that I would say feminine, although the male to be in exhibition, not only in the fálicas rocks as in the serpent, not only in the fire that blackened the great penned perforated, as in the sulphurous yellow of a set of rocks in high spirited position, that frankly seem like sulphur blocks.	Two sobranceiras gémeas rocks to the church, the sulphurus yellow viscera: sulphur has the symbol S letter coiled
The volcanic lands exist in the North, for example in the Mountain range of the Star, as in the XVIII century they had no longer discovered the disciples of Vandelli Sundays. It swims hindering the one that said sulphur not passing of lichens or something that seemed. It would not admire me, of the remaining portion, that the rocks had been painted. The truth is that the place is inhabited, and the church visited.	serpentiformesIn the arc of the porch, they seems to be three heads of cat on coils; in the frontal, the quadruped can be a lizard, attacked by an eagle, and also surrounded by serpent in the form of ornamental elements
For Janelle opened in the wall, the photographic machine obtained to pass: in the dark, in front, what is in black in the photo. Seems like a caveira, it is a cross in a rosette, equal to that appears in the porches. To the side, in the interior sill, they were settled receiving of a glass with rocks inside	Registration in the main porch
It is with a so natural certainty something as rocks to hold flowers with the vases inside, but also it can be another thing, threaded in secrecy in the interior for that opening, therefore the church is almost always closed.	This window opened in the wall is a great and sufficient way to allow the entrance of the photographic machine
There, in region (1), an old castanheiro protected by a wall exists, to the wheel of which they made long ago with processions. Christ, inside of the church, looks at the rock wall: each altar with its deity. Here they are, clearly, the rocks are divine, therefore they had been adored, this will not be still, exactamente as the old castanheiro	For Janelle opened in the wall, the photographic machine entered: in the darkness of the church, a cavern is seen, really a cross in equal rosette to the ones of the porches
	The home, the penedo in the cave that serves as shelter and where it makes fire
To the right, the main door, centimeters from the rocky wall; in front, a lateral porch of the ticket for a plaza in which an immense penedo with a deep socket exists, used uterus to light the fire
Set of figures most important to the porch; in the center, the quadruped, perhaps the Lamb…has no posterior previous to legs of saurian and of dog or fox. This animal is ridden or attacked for that it can be the serpent with wings of that the naturalists speak of the Port of XIX century.
Under the esfíngicas, bigger figures, the ornament is constituted by one that emphasizes of hieroglyphic serpents
The animal has prehensile tail, skin covered of scales and seems that it is at least a leg. It must therefore be a Sardou (Lacerta)
Serpent formed in the decoration of the porch
Ouroboros is the serpent that bites the proper tail; in this wall it appears in double helix, is about the hibridação of two images: the Ouroboros and its caduceu, baton of Hermes, with two rolled snakes, emblem of the medical arts
Ouroboros Sculptured rente to the ground, telluric and serpent ante, the Ouroboros snake
Main elements in serpent forms
Figures of buried humans
The third figure to the right seems to have carapaça and some pairs of legs, something as cágado or a lobster
The third figure to the right seems to have carapaça and some pairs of legs, something as cágado or a lobster
For the same way it is gone down EN 323 and covered almost two kilometers, arrived the crossing of the Granjinha, small population that already had an interview that one came high.		Nestled to the return of its dedicated chapel, St. Peter where the population cultivates the land and uses to take advantage of sabugueiro berry. In the terms of the Granjinha it has to see a true jewel arquitectónica, the Ermitério of St. Peter of the Eagles, which it binds in a delicious legend.
	The armada one, saying of St. Peter the Old one, walked on to the Cistercians Monastery of St. Peter. Constructed in one pressed balcony cut on the river Távora, next to the Yellow Fraga,
Guided in the direction of the West, the main façade leans, almost to the mountain. The topography demanded that the chapel-moor if raised from a sufficiently inferior quota and seems to have more delay when being constructed.		The vestibules axial of the side and north are loaded of românica symbology. The archivolts are supported in the back of animals that it confronts, abundant decoration of palmetas.
	The spandrel of the setting façade has a leaked cross which enters a lasso and of the vestibule of the north an Agnus Dei. The key of the archivolt of the vestibule north has a registration
Where if asked for, to the “God of the Armies” to keep to the entrance and the exit of this place.		Construction of the ermitério to séc can be attributed to the XI century, with the introduction of more delayed elements.