Curral das Freiras (parish)

This small parish lies in the interior of the island, on the floor of the crater of an extinct volcano, as several geologists affirm. To reach this lugar (settlement ranking between a town and a parish), one must climb high, steep mountains and descend the sloping ravines that ring the deep valley, which, seen from the mountain peaks, appears to us as a dreadful and fathomless abyss. It is perhaps the spot in Madeira where nature shows itself at its most remarkably grand and most surprising. This is owed to the great height and fanciful shapes of the mountains, the towering, sheer slopes, the gorges and chasms scattered everywhere, and the rugged, wild tone of the landscape. All this gives the whole such an air of grandeur and majesty, and of such extraordinary and enchanting beauty, that the visitor, even the least observant and sensitive, is astonished and entranced on coming upon this scene of so many incomparable wonders. ‘We saw a channel,’ says a distinguished writer, ‘many metres wide and cut almost sheer, a fearsome gulf, an immense hollow around which, except to the south, rise titanic peaks of fantastic outline, and, at the bottom of the abyss... the rustic miniature of a paradise...’ Above Curral das Freiras (‘nuns’ fold’) rise some of the highest peaks in Madeira, foremost among them the well-known Pico Ruivo (‘russet peak’), which reaches an altitude of approximately two thousand metres above sea level. Numerous Portuguese and foreign works contain extensive references to the Curral, and this lugar has been much visited by many illustrious men, among them some who achieved distinction in the fields of science and letters.

In the earliest days of colonisation it was called simply Curral (fold), a name that came from its being a centre of abundant pasture for sheep and goats, where shepherds, living an almost nomadic life, grazed their flocks freely. Some slaves gathered there who, fleeing the settled areas, gained what amounted to their letter of manumission there, as did various criminals who had escaped the hand of justice. In this way a small nucleus of settlement formed in that remote and isolated wilderness, which distance and the difficulty of communications, across mountains thick with woodland and strewn with perilous chasms, made almost inaccessible. The clearing and cultivation of the land then began, and by the end of the 15th century there was already a small centre of population there, with inhabitants in fixed residence, lawfully established. It then ceased to be a haunt of fugitives and criminals. This early nucleus of population grew little, for in 1794 its inhabitants numbered only one hundred and ten.

In 1480 the Curral belonged to Rui Teixeira and his wife Branca Ferreira, who lived in Campanário. On 11 September of that year they signed the deed of sale of this vast property to the second captain-donatary of Funchal, João Gonçalves da Câmara. The estate stretched ‘from the Passo da Cruz (‘pass of the cross’) and the Ribeirão dos Socorridos up to where it rises, from rocky crest (arrife) to rocky crest, on either side’. The purchase price was ‘23,500 réis at five ceitis to the real (pl. réis; old Portuguese money unit, 1,000 réis = 1 milréis) and 50 gold cruzados, each worth 380 réis’. The captain-donatary intended this land for the endowment he made to his daughters, Dona Elvira and Dona Joana, when they took their vows at the Convent of St Clare (Santa Clara), the convent that he himself had founded in 1492 and which the first nuns entered in 1497. The endowment of the Curral must have been made at some point between 1492 and 1497, and from that time onwards it became known as Curral das Freiras (the Nuns’ Fold).

In 1560 the city of Funchal was sacked by French Lutheran corsairs, of whom the old Madeiran chronicles speak with such horror. The nuns of St Clare were forced to abandon their convent so as not to fall victim to that horde of savages and, as Frutuoso says, ‘they went out through the cane fields and took refuge, and did not stop until they reached their Curral, which lies a good distance from the city, and so they departed without saving any ornament, leaving everything in the convent except the monstrance of the Most Blessed Sacrament...’. The French remained in Funchal, busy with destruction and slaughter, from 3 to 17 October. Soon after they left the island, the nuns left the Curral and returned to their convent in the city. We do not know whether the nuns of St Clare had by then already built in the Curral the chapel of St Anthony of Padua (Santo António), which stood there until the middle of the 19th century and belonged to the same convent.

Before it was raised to a parish (freguesia), Curral das Freiras belonged to the parish of Santo António (‘St Anthony’), from which it was separated in 1790. The Curral nevertheless had its own chaplains, who lived there more or less permanently; in 1678 a chaplain’s licence was issued to Father Cristóvão Vieira. Services were held in the chapel of St Anthony. When it was inspected in 1756 by the episcopal visitor (visitador, ecclesiastical inspector) Dr António Mendes de Almeida, he ordered, in a visitation decree (provimento) recorded in the archive of the parish of Santo António, that the abbess of the Convent of St Clare be told to supply the chapel with the objects needed for worship, as she was obliged to do, on pain (pena) of further proceedings.

For the building of a new church and a residence for the chaplain – no doubt already with the coming foundation of the parish in view – the Convent of St Clare, by a deed executed on 24 July 1784, gave the mitre of this diocese six alqueires of land, subject only to an annual quit-rent (foro) of one pullet, payable on 12 August each year. The buildings were to be for the use of the chaplains and their successors.

The learned annotator of ‘Longing for the Homeland’ (Saudades da Terra) says that the parish of Curral das Freiras had its seat in the chapel of Santa Quitéria (St Quiteria), founded by Simão de Nóbrega. This is a plain mistake, for that chapel stood in the parish of Santo António, at the locality (sítio) that still bears that name today. It is an established fact that the small chapel of St Anthony, which stood in the Curral and belonged to the Convent of St Clare, served as the base and seat of the new parish when it was created by royal decree (alvará régio) of 17 March 1790.

We cannot state exactly when the new church was built, nor the year in which the parish seat was transferred to it. We do know, from the inscription in the church itself, that it was built in the reign of Maria I, and we conjecture that the work was carried out in the first years of the 19th century. Its patron saint is Our Lady of Deliverance (Nossa Senhora do Livramento), in whose honour a pilgrimage festival is held on the last Sunday of August. Its interior underwent considerable repairs in 1917 and 1918.

The centre of the parish lies 14 kilometres from the parish church of Santo António and 17½ kilometres from the city of Funchal. After crossing the Ribeira de Vasco Gil and climbing the slope of the lombo (ridge between valleys) of Empress Elisabeth, one joins a level road that runs as far as the Eira do Serrado (‘threshing floor of the ridge’), at an altitude of 1026 metres, from where the whole settlement of the Curral can be seen far below. There begins the steep, winding descent known as the Passo da Chave (‘key pass’), which leads to the centre of the parish.

Besides wine, the Curral had an abundant production of cherries, chestnuts and citrons; the last was very important and almost exclusive to this parish.

On the rugged slopes of this parish rises the Ribeira dos Socorridos (‘stream of the rescued’), the most important watercourse in the south of the island. The important Levada dos Piornais (‘broom thickets’) and Levada Nova do Castelejo (levada: irrigation channel) have their intakes on this stream.

For some years now Curral das Freiras has had an official boys’ school, yet in 1846, on a visit there, the worthy civil governor José Silvestre Ribeiro found that only the parish priest and the regedor (parish administrative officer) could read and write!

Its principal localities are Lombo Chão, Serra Velha, Balseiras, Terra-Chã, Capela, Murteira, Casas Próximas, Achada, Ribeira do Cidrão, Fajã dos Cardos, Pico do Furão, Colmeal and Fajã Escura. It has a population of 1430 inhabitants.