St Catherine (chapel)

In his quaint and picturesque manner of speech, Father Gaspar Frutuoso tells us ‘that Captain João Gonçalves… sheltering the ships by the islets, resolved to build his wooden residence on land, which he at once built close to the sea on a height, where the captain’s wife (capitoa, wife of the captain-donatary) Constança Rodrigues founded a church of Santa Catarina’. In that humble and obscure corner, later called Santa Catarina, the first stone was laid of the auspicious settlement of this archipelago, and therefore of the Portuguese colonisation that can never be praised enough. From the high, solitary rocky crest (arrife) the first donatary (donatário) directed the early work of this titanic task. The dense forest cover, the incredibly rugged terrain and the great shortage of labour made it extremely arduous and beset by insurmountable difficulties.

João Gonçalves Zarco, the first and foremost pioneer of the colonisation of Madeira, had his modest and earliest residence built there, commanding the whole vast amphitheatre of Funchal. Dona Constança de Almeida, his heroic and pious companion, had a small, devout chantry (capela) built close by, dedicated to St Catherine, the learned and glorious martyr of the city of Alexandria.

Although the historian of the islands emphatically calls it a ‘church’, it would have been only a poor and modest chapel of cramped dimensions, built of wood like the first dwellings of that period. The material was perhaps chosen from the fragrant cedars (juniperus or oxycerbus) that abounded throughout the island, for it is known that other chantries were built with the precious wood of these trees.

The exact time of its rebuilding, when all the timber of the original structure disappeared, is not known, but it is conjectured to have taken place in the third or last quarter of the 15th century. The present chantry was a further reconstruction which, as we have read somewhere, was carried out around the end of the 17th century, and it has received various repairs over time. The upper lintel of the portal still bears the date 1425, which attests to its antiquity; it is not known, however, whether this inscribed stone belonged to the first or the second reconstruction.

For Madeirans this old chapel is a true historic monument, an object of the highest and most respectful veneration. In its humility, its smallness and even its poverty, it is an immemorial commemorative pillar (padrão) that eloquently recalls the discovery of our archipelago and the beginning of the admirable work of its colonisation. As such it must be preserved with patriotic and religious care by rulers and ruled alike, showing our contemporaries and generations to come the devoted esteem with which we know how to preserve the glorious traditions of the past.

Yet another weighty reason counsels and urges this: its venerable antiquity. Contrary to what the author of ‘Longing for the Homeland’ (Saudades da Terra) and his learned commentator asserted, when they named the church of Our Lady of Calhau (Nossa Senhora do Calhau) and the chapel of St Sebastian on the Largo do Chafariz (‘fountain square’) as the first chapels built on Madeira, it is now known, without fear of serious contradiction, that the little shrine of Santa Catarina was the first church raised on this island, as we already stated more than twenty years ago in the pages of the Elucidário Madeirense. This acknowledged priority should be regarded as yet another irrefutable claim on our heartfelt veneration and on our ardent support for the preservation and, where possible, the embellishment of so ancient and significant a monument. We believe that a stone inscription should be placed on one of the interior walls of the tiny church, bearing these or similar words: ‘This chapel, founded by the wife of João Gonçalves Zargo, was the first built on Madeira and recalls the discovery of this island and the beginning of its settlement.’

Since it is so closely related to what has been set out above, we cannot resist the wish to transcribe here the words we have already written elsewhere, which may perhaps be of some interest to the readers of this Elucidário:

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Around 1425 Constança Rodrigues de Almeida, wife of João Gonçalves Zarco, founded the chapel of Santa Catarina, and “beside it,” says Frutuoso, “she built many houses to lodge women of good life, poor mercieiras (almswomen: poor women kept on alms in return for serving a chapel), to whom she left alms so that they should for ever take care to clean and serve that house (the chapel), as is still the custom today.” These words are commented on by Dr Rodrigues de Azevedo as follows: “The Mercearia of Santa Catharina... was a kind of hospice, where poor women of good morals lived on alms and were responsible for keeping the saint’s chapel clean. Both have been preserved to the present day. They are the property of the Count of Castello-Melhor.”

We can add nothing to what has been transcribed, nor do we know whether Constança de Almeida’s foundation really survived until 1873, though doubtless in a form different from the original institution. What we can now affirm is that the institution disappeared long ago and that the houses and the chapel passed to other owners. This was certainly the first charitable institution in Madeira, and it lasted about four and a half centuries.

In the town (vila) of Porto Santo (‘holy harbour’), at the place still known today as Santa Catarina, stood the chapel of this dedication. We do not know when it was built or when it was demolished. We do know, however, that within the cemetery on the site of the old chapel a small chapel dedicated to the same saint was built, reserved solely for religious services in that cemetery. The image of St Catherine was greatly venerated by the inhabitants of Porto Santo. According to local tradition, Moorish pirates stole the image, and it was ransomed for a large sum and restored to worship in its chapel on that island.

The locality (sítio) of Santa Catarina, in the town of Santa Cruz (‘Holy Cross’), takes its name from the chapel of that dedication which Gonçalo de Freitas had built there in the 15th century.

In 1505 Rodrigo Enes founded the chapel of Santa Catarina in the parish (freguesia) of Calheta (‘small cove’), at the locality that still bears that name.

There was also a chapel of the same dedication in the parish of Ribeira Brava (‘wild river’).