The village and parish of Alfeizerão are part of a region with many archaeological and historical remains, the documented findings of the Neolithic and Bronze Age are followed by the Celtic or Germanic occupation of which only vague traces survive in the region's toponymy (Évora de Alcobaça or Eburobrittium, next to Gaeiras). Archaeological and historical remains abound from the Roman occupation, such as a Roman necropolis near the place of Casal da Ponte, and the Alcobaça chroniclers recorded in the town and to the east of it the existence of Roman tombstones, foundations of houses and an aqueduct that as a whole seem to have integrated a small port city served by an imperial road marked by Hadrian's milestone.
After the conquest of the fortress from the Arabs by D. Afonso Henriques in 1147, Alfeizerão is included among the lands donated by our first king to the Cistercian Order of Alcobaça, which ensure its settlement with allotment letters and two Sesmaria Letters, the first in 1332 and the second in 1442, documents confirmed by the Manueline charter of 1514. The town as the head of the county, with its legal and municipal attributions, is consecrated by this charter and by the erection of the Manueline pillory, a stone symbol of municipal dignity and application of justice.
Until the end of the 1600s, Alfeizerão had a prosperous port and naval shipyards, and the mayor of the village and castle of Alfeizerão was responsible for collecting the tithe of fish that was unloaded in the cove of S. Martinho. With the silting up of the lagoon and the Alfeizerão river, the port disappears and Alfeizerão reinvents itself with a reinforced connection to the cultivation and exploitation of the land, which guides the life of the parish to this day. The castle of Alfeizerão, as one of the two castles of the Coutos de Alcobaça, was the object of repairs and works that were provided with the help of the villages of the villages of the Coutos closest to the sea, the advent of firearms, however, made it ineffective this type of rock castles and the fortress is no longer repaired and falls into disrepair long before the damage caused by the earthquake of November 1, 1755.
In modern times, with the rise of liberal ideas, the region witnessed the decline of the Cistercian Order of Alcobaça, increasingly contested by the populations of the Coutos for their heavy tributes and rights. Alfeizerão was severely squandered in goods and lives by the French forces of the Peninsular War and is involved in the armed conflicts of the internecine wars between absolutists and liberals. After the absolutists capitulated by the Évora Monte Convention in 1834, the male Religious Orders were extinguished that same year, and the lands previously subject to the Alcobaça Monastery were subordinated to the central power, with the former monastic lands with their farms and means of production to be largely acquired and shared by large wealthy landowners, the new lords without monastic habits. The administrative reorganization of 31 December 1836 abolished the municipality of Alfeizerão and its administrative category of "village" and the parish was successively relocated to the territories of the municipalities of S. Martinho do Porto, Alcobaça and Caldas da Rainha, before settling definitely in the municipality of Alcobaça.
In the 20th century, the parish followed the direction of the region and the country, with the establishment of the Republic, the participation in the First World War (in which some of its children perished), the Estado Novo and democracy - facing difficulties and problems with the robust and industrious character of its people, whether on land or in industry, in trades or in sea life, because there have always been many seafarers on land, in the merchant marine or in the difficult and hostile life of cod fishing.
On 28 July 1991, Alfeizerão was re-elevated to the category of town, and the respective Decree-Law (100/91) was published in the Diário da República on 16 August 1991; With the recovery of this status, justice is done to the richness and dimension of its unusual historical heritage, a source of pride for all those who were born there or who live there. , 24th of June, patron saint of the parish.
Until the end of the 1600s, Alfeizerão had a prosperous port and naval shipyards, and the mayor of the village and castle of Alfeizerão was responsible for collecting the tithe of fish that was unloaded in the cove of S. Martinho. With the silting up of the lagoon and the Alfeizerão river, the port disappears and Alfeizerão reinvents itself with a reinforced connection to the cultivation and exploitation of the land, which guides the life of the parish to this day. The castle of Alfeizerão, as one of the two castles of the Coutos de Alcobaça, was the object of repairs and works that were provided with the help of the villages of the villages of the Coutos closest to the sea, the advent of firearms, however, made it ineffective this type of rock castles and the fortress is no longer repaired and falls into disrepair long before the damage caused by the earthquake of November 1, 1755.
The Alfeizerão area is located on the edge of the Lusitanian Basin, in a region delimited to the north by the Nazaré fault and to the south by the Torres Vedras fault, which is characterized by the so-called Depression or Diapiro de Caldas da Rainha, a fold associated with a fault which resulted in the intrusion of an older geological layer (the “Margas da Dagorda”) - this diapirism was accentuated in the Jurassic period with the formation of sub-basins. Alfeizerão occupies the bottom of the Diapiro of Caldas da Rainha, resting on a relatively recent alluvial plain; and its hills to the east preserve Mesozoic geological strata, with fossil shells and traces of plants and animals.
In the geology of the parish of Alfeizerão, therefore, two major geological units predominate, the Upper Triassic and Lower Jurassic in the lower areas of the valley and, delimited by the line of hills to the west of the town, the geological strata of the Upper Jurassic. This distribution makes it possible and even recurrent to find traces of ancient life forms in one or another geological strata. The presence of two lignite deposits in the vicinity of Macalhona (licensed in 1922 under registration numbers 1144 and 1145) indicate the presence of coal that results from the decomposition of fossil plant material.
In 1908, Paul Choffat, a distinguished geologist of Swiss origin, travels to Alfeizerão to explore the remains of fossils discovered in a coal mine near the village. The location of the mine is described as follows: «The mine is located about a kilometer and a half east of the church of Alfeizerão, and its entrance opens into a ravine that emerges from the plain immediately south of the curve that marks the beginning of the road that goes up to Alcobaça». Field studies and oral information lead us to locate this old coal mine on a hill overlooking the dirt road in the beginning of the Caminho do Vale do Moinho. Choffat carried out a cross-section at the site that exposed the following geological layers: at the top, a layer of sand from the Kimmeridgian period, followed by a layer from the Jurassic with fossil coal or lignite and several bones of the same dinosaur, found next to a dinosaur egg; then, a layer of clays with plant traces (of ferns and conifers) and, finally, a layer of Lusitanian limestone with crinoids and sea urchins. The geologist identified the dinosaur bones (fragments of a dinosaur basin) as belonging to a species of armored herbivore of the stegosaur family, more precisely, of the genus “Dacentrus lennieri” (classified at that time as “Omossaurus”), a species from which other fossil remains were also found along the Atlantic coast, in Murteiras, Foz do Arelho.
In Alfeizerão, different testimonies and vestiges of the Roman presence have emerged over the centuries, such as walls of houses and ceramics, tombstones and scattered coins. The beginning of the literary record of these finds precedes us by about four centuries.
the roman inscriptions
Frei Bernardo de Brito, in a work published in 1597, argues that the ancient city of “EburoBrício” should have existed in a “piquena villa, called Alfeizarão” given the abundant Roman remains that were found there. Namely, an honorific plaque engraved by the citizens or governors of Eburobricius in honor of Publius Lauro; a tombstone of Sulpicia Avita, daughter of Lucius, placed at the entrance of the castle, on the right side; another identical tombstone, by Júlia Marciana, exposed at the base of a stone cross that existed in front of the chapel of Santo Amaro («S. Mauro»); a plaque placed next to the ruins of a Roman aqueduct, recording in stone that this aqueduct had been restored by the Decurions of Eburobrício (see Annex 1 – The inscriptions by Bernardo de Brito).
Historical criticism was particularly harsh with Friar Bernardo de Brito, and these Roman inscriptions are not exempt from this tenacious skepticism, but this has been reassessed by specialists in a more thoughtful and condescending way due to other written references and the context in the epigraphy of Lusitânia dos Santos. gentile names and surnames that Brito had copied from the inscriptions. In 1721, the report of the Ombudsman of the District of Leiria, Cristóvão Sá de Nogueira (Coutinho, ), listed three inscriptions in Alfeizerão, the first in front of the Church of Espírito Santo, which was the tombstone of Terência Camira, ordered to be carved by his mother, Maximum Terence; the second tombstone, found in the castle and dedicated to Sulpicia Avita, already treated by Brito, and a third inscription, also found in the castle, which he cannot decipher or copy (Nogueira, 1721). In 1758, in response to the Pombaline inquiry, the parish priest Doctor Manuel Romão mentions the foundations of Roman houses that appeared in Ramalheiras and states that in the castle he had seen Roman inscriptions dedicated to Roman senators (ANTT, Memórias paroquiais, vol. 2, nº 53 , pp. 465 to 472). Three decades later, Frei Manuel de Figueiredo finds (and copies) again the tombstone of Terência Camira and also mentions the «shattered pattern» in front of the chapel of Santo Amaro that Brito had transcribed but that he cannot read due to the state it was in. the stone and the faded design of its letters; the chronicler once again touches on the theme of Eburobrício: «The residents, in order to provide more evidence of the situation of that ancient Roman colony, point to the remains in the place they now call Ramalheira, to the east of Alfeizerão, where the farmers have discovered foundations and ruins of buildings» (Leroux. 2020:127-129).
An interim note that must be made, this is not intended to resurrect the identification of Eburobrício (or rather Eburobrittium) with Alfeizerão, the city was located with a substantial set of (non-epigraphic) evidence in the Roman ruins excavated at Quinta das Janelas, in Óbidos, but the city was a municipality and had its own territory, Civitas, which extended to the west of the Montejunto and Candeeiros mountains, starting to the south at the Alcabrichel stream and whose northern border would follow an imprecise limit in the old Lagoa da Pederneira, the territory of Alfeizerão was therefore within the Civitas and was administered by that city, so it is not absurd that Eburobrittium occurs in its inscriptions, honorific or monumental, such as that of the aqueduct, or that they mention Roman governors or senators, as reported. the parish priest of Alfeizerão in 1758 or was advanced by Friar Bernardo de Brito, in this case with the explicit mention of the city of Eburobrício/Ebur obrittium.
If it wasn't there Eburobrittium, what was the Roman village of which there are traces in Alfeizerão? Prof. Vasco Gil Mantas considers that this village would be a Roman port “vicus” (Mantas, 1996:886), a medium-sized population cluster developed in the shadow of its potential as an inland port on the shore of the Alfeizerão lagoon, a lagoon port that offered « excellent conditions for sheltering ancient navigation» (Mantas, 1986:224).
The 20th Century and the Problem of the Roman Milestone
At the beginning of the century, in 1903, when stone was extracted from Monte do Pedrógão, on the left bank of the river, a Roman sarcophagus in limestone with smooth walls appeared, containing bones and a lid also made of stone, the sarcophagus was kept in the parish church and informed if the authorities. José Joaquim de Almeida Carvalhais went to study the findings (see Annex 2: Surveys and excavations by José Carvalhais), who in Pedrógão made some cuts in the land and acquired by purchase other items found there, but knowing, as was said for a long time, of the things that were appearing in Ramalheiras, he carried out some surveys there, noting that the Roman remains were between 80 centimeters and 1.15 m deep and that the estimated area of these Roman ruins «must have occupied an area of about 300 meters for 200 meters from the west of the road to Caldas» (Carvalhaes, 1903) - the quadrilateral of this estimated area should border the road to Alfeizerão from the traditional Entroncamento where the road to Caldas met the road to Alcobaça (in Image 1 we traced this hypothetical area of Roman remains, partially urbanized, which enters the grounds of Quinta do Vale da Cela, owned by the parish).
At an undetermined date in the first quarter of that century, a Roman milestone was unearthed, also in this sensitive area of Ramalheiras, which would have been used as a support for rabbit hutches. In the second half of the 20th century, Virgílio Pereira dos Santos had the merit of realizing its importance and of having preserved it in his house on Rua 25 de Abril, together with another column or frame without inscription. The milestone was first transcribed by José d'Encarnação and was also studied by Eduíno Borges Garcia, but the academic study of the milestone was published by Vasco Gil Mantas in 1986 (see Annex 3, Adriano's Milestone, by Vasco Gil Mantas ). The milestone, like our kilometer milestones, progressively marked the miles (the Roman mile corresponded to 1,480 m) elapsed since the beginning or head of a road, almost always the center of the forum of a city of some importance and, every mile, or every five miles (the quinaries) on minor Roman roads, a new landmark was raised with its number engraved by inscription or painted on the monolithic cylindrical column. Among the forms that the milestone could take, the most common on the Peninsula was the cylindrical milestone - the column and its cubic base were carved from the same stone, which was below ground level and was consolidated with mortar, the dimensions of the column oscillated close to of the two meters high in its emerged part, in the milestone of Alfeizerão, the epigraphed upper half of the milestone survives with dimensions of 98x46 cm (see in image 2, the graphic reconstitution of Adriano's milestone found in Alfeizerão).
The milestone of Alfeizerão, and this is of paramount importance, is not an intermediate milestone between two important cities, but a first, inaugural milestone of a Roman road “made” by Emperor Hadrian. The text of the inscription reads that «The Emperor Caesar Trajan Adriano Augusto, son of the divine Trajano Pártico, grandson of the divine Nerva, maximum pontiff, made in his 5th tribunician power, consul for the 3rd time». We thus know that it was erected during Adriano's lifetime, on a date that Vasco Mantas, from the text of the inscription, concludes to be the year 121 of our Era (Mantas, 1986:220); What turns out to be a mystery is the reason why Emperor Hadrian would start a new Roman road on the “vicus” of Alfeizerão (we will not call it via), since it was not a city but a medium-sized population cluster, and as such it was not had a forum (uncovered in the ruins of Quinta das Janelas). The question may have an indirect, contextual explanation.
The study of the Roman roads that crossed this region (Mantas, 1996; Barbosa, 2008) outlined a coastal road that crossed the region to the west of the Montejunto/Aires-Candeeiros system, connecting Olisippo to Conímbriga, passing through the “civitates” of Eburobrittium (Gaeiras). , Óbidos) and Collipo (S. Sebastião do Freixo). Up to the water bodies formed by the Alfeizerão and Pederneira lagoons, this coastal route could have more than one route, plausibly, one that would conjecturally follow higher terrain, less vulnerable to the physical changes caused by rivers, lagoons and marshes (and more suitable for the rapid response and movement of military resources) and another for lower ground, linking the moorings, farms and industries of these fertile and rich areas. The Roman port “vicus” of Alfeizerão, located on the north bank of Alfeizerão, would also be connected to the east by the main coastal road between Eburobrittium and Collipo, which followed the more inland lands and at higher elevations, which came from the south through the Roman bridge over the rib
The copy of a letter addressed by the President of the Board to the Director of Posts and Telegraphs in Leiria in 1927, consulted by us in the Board's archive, reminds us of how mail arrived in Alfeizerão at that time. Correspondence arrived by train at S. Martinho and at the post office in that locality, the mail bag for Alfeizerão was picked up and brought on foot by a courier to this place to be distributed here, taking the opposite route two hours later, 40 minutes it was the regular time indicated on the chart for that route between the two locations.
We reproduced the curious content of this letter, in the transcription, updated the spelling and developed the abbreviations, perfectly natural as it is a handwritten copy of a letter issued by the municipality:
To Hon. Mr. Director of the C.T. of the District of Leiria
The Administrative Commission of the Parish Council of Alfeizerão, as a representative and defender of the interests of its inhabitants, trusting in the high criteria and justice spirit of Your Excellency, knowing even more how much it is interested in the comfort of the people of our District, providing always provided them with all the facilities within the good norms of justice, this Board comes to ask Your Excellency. the high service so that the postal bags of this parish are exchanged, with the ambulance instead of with the postal station of S. Martinho do Porto, which causes them a lot of damage. Does not ignore V. Exa. of Alfeizerão's commercial, agricultural and wine-making importance, with a reasonable correspondence exchanged today, as evidenced by the statistics on franchise sales.
Ordinarily, mail arrives in Alfeizerão from 2.45 pm to 3 pm; the departure for S. Martinho is at 17:00, as Your Excellency. has the opportunity to appreciate, there are only 2 hours apart, and for that reason some correspondence with an immediate response is impaired, sometimes a courier is sent to the station to take correspondence that, due to its urgency, needs to be followed that day. Train 201 (Lisbon mail) arrives at S. Martinho at 12.20: the 206 (Northern post) arrives at 20.34; the driver of the suitcase, walking normally, spends 40 minutes covering the distance between Alfeizerão and S. Martinho. Therefore, dignifying Your Excellency. If this just intention had been met, the inhabitants of Alfeizerão could receive correspondence at 1 pm and send it to the post office at 7 pm, with an interval of 6 hours, which is important for the ease of responding to urgent correspondence. Regardless of the inconveniences pointed out, we have another no less important one, which is: the detention of correspondence in S. Martinho, both coming and going to the North. Correspondence to the North, which leaves in the suitcase at 5 pm, is only on the next day on 201. The one coming from the North, which comes on 206, only goes to Alfeizerão the next day. This has resulted in some losses, especially with regard to correspondence with the county seat. There are cases in which interested parties are called to Alcobaça, believing the signatories that the correspondence is received on the same day. This lack has resulted in some losses. Once the suitcase has been exchanged with the ambulance, mail coming from the North is distributed here at 9 pm, as in the past, and the recipient can respond the next day or go, in case of a call. Correspondence exchanged between these two villages (Alfeizerão and S. Martinho) can be done [with] the exchange of bags between the respective couriers.
We do not believe that there is an increase in the cost of transporting bags in this, since the number of trips are the same, but only a change in hours and, for the postal employee, just a little work in packing two bags instead of one .
For this small exposition you can V. Exa. appreciate the advantages for this parish, if this Administrative Commission deserves the support of Your Excellency. in this very just aspiration.
Hoping that this request of ours has the honor of being met, we wish you.
[Health and Fraternity]
A.F. [João Augusto Ferreira]
Alfeizerão, 1-8-1927
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