Procession of the Bull of the Holy Crusade

This procession was already being held in Funchal at the beginning of the 19th century, and apparently with great splendour. The Council (Câmara) invited six persons of the governance (pessoas da governança, notables eligible for municipal office) to carry the poles of the canopy, after receiving a letter from the deputy of the commissary of the papal bull informing it of the day on which the procession was to take place. At the Council session of 31 January 1807 it was resolved ‘that persons who fail to attend the procession of the Bull of the Holy Crusade (Bula da Santa Cruzada) without just cause shall be punished in the manner prescribed by the latest orders of His Highness’.

The votive procession of 1 May

In the article Plague, on p. 77 of this volume, we transcribed what Frutuoso says about the origin of this procession. It set out from the Cathedral (Sé Catedral) and made its way to the church of Santa Maria Maior (St Mary Major), originally dedicated to Saint James the Less, accompanied by the Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal) and the principal authorities of the district. In the latter church the ceremony of the handing over of the staffs of office took place, together with a sermon on the miracle performed by the Patron Saint of the City in 1538. After the proclamation of the Republic, it was only in 1918 that the procession of 1 May followed its old route, accompanied by two members of the Administrative Committee (Comissão Administrativa) of the Municipal Council.

In former times it was the Council that directed the procession of 1 May, issued the invitations to the confraternities and authorities, and paid the preacher. Custom required that the Council be censed in the church of São Tiago by one of the three canons who said the Mass. When, in 1815, this ceremony was performed not by a canon but by a chaplain, the Council resolved to complain to the bishop, considering itself slighted by the substitution».

On 5 May 1829 the Council decided that the market inspector (juiz almotacé) should penalise, ‘in accordance with the municipal by-laws (posturas), the examined officers of the mechanical trades who were absent from the procession of 1 May, as well as the fishermen belonging to the confraternity of St Elmo (Corpo Santo) and its guild who failed to attend, also imposing the appropriate penalty on the residents of the streets through which the procession passed who had not swept the frontages of their houses and adorned their windows’.

In recent times we have often seen the Council represented by only three or four councillors (vereadores) in the procession of 1 May, because it is an old local custom for many people to spend this day in the countryside. We knew one president who invited almost the whole city to join the votive procession, since it was, as he put it, ‘a vow of our forefathers greatly respected by the municipality’, yet who never accompanied the procession himself, nor even took the trouble to justify his absence (1921). In the days of absolute government such an absence would probably have been punished with a fine or a few days in prison, since it was regarded as a sign of little respect for the Patron Saint of the City.

In former times the procession of 1 May, which, as we have said, set out from the Cathedral, returned to that church only eight days later. During the octave various festivities were held in the church of São Tiago Menor, which has been the parish church since the flash flood (aluvião) of 1803. The procession still takes place today, but it goes only round the churchyard of the Cathedral (the Sé), and the Council has no part in it (1921).

As we have already stated in the article Patron saints and on p. 37 of this volume, in 1942 the Municipal Council revived the old traditions of the Funchal Senate (senado, the municipal council), taking part in the various acts of worship held in honour of the patron saint São Tiago. (See Vow to São Tiago.)