St John Lateran (chapel)

This chapel, which was completely demolished some twenty years ago (1921) and had long before fallen into total ruin, stood in the locality (sítio) to which it gave its own name. It was built at the behest of Nuno Fernandes Cardoso and his wife Leonor Dias, who, by a will made in 1511, founded the entailed estate (morgadio) of São João de Latrão (‘St John Lateran’), which took its name from the chapel that served as its seat. Referring to this will, the annotator of the Saudades says: ‘This will, of which we have a copy, is a model of its kind, for the sound probity, simplicity of faith and virtuous pride that dictated it. The moral and historical justification of entails finds in that venerable document a most honourable commemorative pillar (padrão) in its favour. The pure type of entails (instituições vinculares) is there. Our age cannot accept them, that is evident. But the just and enlightened historian judges by a subtler and loftier standard than the mere comparison of the past with the present.’

The last representative of this entailed house (casa vinculada) was Nuno Fernandes Cardoso e Vasconcelos, grandfather of Luís Cardoso de Castro e Abreu, the present schoolteacher of the parish (freguesia) of Gaula (1921).