Maiorga
| Maiorga | ||||||
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| Basic data | ||||||
| Region : | Centro | |||||
| Sub-region : | Oeste | |||||
| District : | Leiria | |||||
| Concelho : | Alcobaça | |||||
| Coordinates : | 39 ° 35 ′ N , 8 ° 59 ′ W | |||||
| Residents: | 2050 (as of June 30, 2011) | |||||
| Surface: | 10.04 km² (as of January 1, 2010) | |||||
| Population density : | 204 inhabitants per km² | |||||
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Maiorga is a Portuguese municipality ( freguesia ) in the Alcobaça district and Leiria district , in the historic Estremadura province . It has an area of 10 km² and 2050 inhabitants (as of June 30, 2011). Nine other localities belong to the municipality. It is 4 km from Alcobaça and 8 km from Nazaré and the Atlantic coast. It was one of the 13 cities of the Coutos de Alcobaça , the secular territory of the Abbey of Alcobaça .
geography
Until the 18th century, Maiorga lay on the edge of the Pederneira lagoon . This stretched from an opening near Pederneira, now called Nazaré , about 200 meters wide in the ridge that otherwise formed the coastline towards the Atlantic Ocean to a depth of 5 km and a length of about 10 km. In the first centuries after the founding of the Alcobaça monastery in 1153, the ships landed near Fervença, a district of Maiorga, to supply the monastery under construction. The Moors also took this route during their repeated invasions into the area they had liberated, such as in the 1195 massacre when they killed all 95 monks living in Alcobaça. In the 16th century the eutrophication of the lagoon increased and it fell dry in the 18th century, so that within a geologically short time the water surface turned into an agriculturally very fertile soil.
history
Finds indicate that Maiorga was already settled in Roman times. There are no records from the Moorish period, Maiorga only appears in documents in connection with the area of the Alcobaça Abbey, which was donated by Afonso Henriques , the first king of Portugal, Bernhard von Clairvaux , the abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Clairvaux , in 1153 . The monks also had on the hills at Maiorga Meier courtyards , called granjas , established for reclamation of them ceded territory. In Maiorga, the Quinta das Cidreiras and the now partially destroyed Quinta do Outeiro go back to this. The Quinta das Cidreiras also served as an agricultural school between the 13th and 17th centuries. Maiorga received the charter in 1303 and with it the municipal law, in the Latin text of the charter the city is called: Maiorica . The name (Latin: the larger, in Portuguese this also means the largest) indicates the special importance that Mairoga must have had among the 13 cities of the Coutos de Alcobaça in the first centuries of the abbey.
Architectural monuments
The São Vicente church, handed down from the founding time , no longer exists, it is said to have stood at the entrance to the city, where a fountain has been located for a long time. It is said that looking into it has healing properties for the eyes. In 1359 Maiorga received its first town charter, which was renewed during the general town reform in 1514 by King Manuel I with a more liberal town statute, which also gave Maiorga more self-government and a lower jurisdiction. The still existing stake ( Pelourinho , poor pillar of sinners), which symbolized the jurisdiction of the Abbey of Alcobaça , also dates from this time . The citizens of Maiorgas resisted the obligation to pay tribute to the abbey several times, but without success. Under the abbot Afonso de Portugal (1509–1540), a son of King Manuel I, Maiorga was given up on building a new church, the Igreja de São Lorenço , which is still the parish church today. The chapel of the Holy Spirit, which was later also called Igreja de Misericórdia and was part of the welfare service with hostel and hospital established in the Coutos de Alcobaça from the 17th century, also dates from the 16th century . These facilities were merged in the Coutos in 1775 centrally in Alcobaça. The chapel has a very beautiful Manueline portal. Today the chapel serves as an exhibition and assembly room. In Mairoga there were large granaries for the abbey. In the agricultural estates, seeds were produced for all of the Coutos. From 1537 a paper mill was also operated there. In the last centuries of the abbey, however, the importance of Maiorga must have faded - probably with the disappearance of the lagoon - the population declined. When the rule of the abbey ended in 1834 with the state closure of the monasteries in Portugal, Maiorga lost its town charter and has been a municipality in the Alcobaça district ever since.
present
As in most areas of the former Coutos de Alcobaça, the population lives from agriculture, which is carried out in the form of fruit, vegetable and wine growing, as well as from the ceramics and glass industry, in Mairoga until recently also from textile production. The largest company, the Companhia Fiação e Tecidos de Alcobaça (Society for Weaving and Cloths) employed a large part of Maiorga's population with over 1,000 employees until it was closed in 1999. Ceramics and glass factories have also lost their importance in recent times, of which there are only two left. Maiorga, once the largest and richest city ( maiorica ), has now experienced a second decline, which is also reflected in the decline, especially of the historical buildings.
Individual evidence
- ↑ www.ine.pt - indicator resident population by place of residence and sex; Decennial in the database of the Instituto Nacional de Estatística
- ↑ Overview of code assignments from Freguesias on epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu
- ↑ Caderno dos Forais of the abbey from the 13th century; see. Saul António Gomes: To manuscrito iluminado alcobacense trecentista: o Caderno dos Forais do Couto; P. 355 ( PDF )
- ↑ Pelourinho de Maiorga. In: Pesquisa Geral - Pesquisa do Patrimonio. Direção Geral do Património Cultural , accessed March 23, 2018 (Portuguese).
literature
- Maria Zulmira Albuquerque Furtado Marques: Por Terras dos Antigas Coutos de Alcobaça. Alcobaça 1994.
Web links
- Map of the Freguesia Maiorga at the Instituto Geográfico do Exército
