São Jorge (parish)

This parish (freguesia) was originally made up of the land that forms it today together with the land that now belongs to the parishes of Santana (‘St Anne’) and Arco de São Jorge (‘arc of São Jorge’). Santana soon broke away, having remained dependent on the mother parish for only a few years, and Arco de São Jorge became an autonomous parish in 1676.

It is no longer possible today to determine with complete precision when the colonisation and settlement of this parish began. One of its earliest sesmeiros (holders of a land grant, or sesmaria) was Lopo Fernandes Pinto, ‘who, says Dr Álvaro de Azevedo, came to live on this island around the middle of the 15th century and died in the year 1500: he held as a sesmaria a good part of the parish of Santana, and the lands called da Ilha (‘island’), from which two entails were formed, the one founded by his son Jorge Pinto and the entail of Carvalhal (‘oak grove’)’. These lands of Ilha lie in the interior of this parish. The last administrator (administrador do concelho, government-appointed head of the municipality) of the entailed estate founded by Jorge Pinto was the holder of the entail Falcão, an Azorean, who some years ago sold those lands to the tenant farmers who cultivated them.

Another early sesmeiro who held land in this parish was Pedro Gomes Galdo, whom we have found cited in various genealogies of the nobility and who, we conjecture, came to this island at the end of the 15th century. We have no knowledge of any other settlers who established themselves in this parish at the end of the 15th century or in the first half of the 16th.

The date that the annotator of the Saudades gives for the creation of this parish seems to us to be inaccurate. The year 1517, which he indicates as such, can only refer to the appointment of a chaplain of its own, who was given authority to perform certain parochial functions. The creation of São Jorge (‘St George’) as an autonomous parish must be contemporary with that of Faial, and perhaps even somewhat later, since it is certain that the latter parish was created in 1550, having had its own chaplain since 1519. The oldest document we have found cited concerning the parish of São Jorge is that of 4 June 1552, which increased the parish stipend (côngrua) and fixed it at one moio (dry measure of grain, 60 alqueires) of wheat, one pipa (wine cask and measure, c. 400–500 litres) of wine and 8,000 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis) in cash; at that time the parish priest combined service in this parish with the chaplaincy with cure of souls (capelania-curada), not yet an autonomous parish, of Santana. We have reason to believe that the parish of São Jorge was created only a little before the date of that document. The royal decree (alvará régio) of 27 November 1572 granted the parish priest an annual salary of 25,000 réis, the parish then having 106 households (fogos, literally 'hearths'), and that of 20 April 1589 added to this salary a further thirty alqueires of wheat and a quarter of wine.

The new parish took its name from a chapel dedicated to St George, which later became the parish church. This chapel seems to have been built in the last quarter of the 15th century or the early 16th century. The parish church was built in the locality (sítio) of Calhau (‘pebble shore’), on one of the banks of the stream; we cannot at present say whether it stood on the same spot as the old chapel. Around 1660 the church was almost entirely destroyed by a flash flood (aluvião). It was then decided that the new church should be built on a safer and more sheltered site, one that would also be more convenient for the people, since the homesteads were spreading inland along the left bank of the stream.

The church built nearly a century later is the one that serves as the parish church today. Its construction must have begun towards the end of the second quarter of the 18th century, and the work was declared finished around the middle of the third quarter of the same century. Several orders of the Treasury Council (Conselho da Fazenda) of 1747, 1751 and 1754 authorised the payment of certain sums for the work. The vicar Marques de Mendonça contributed greatly to the completion of the building and the embellishment of the church, not only with his zeal and dedication but also with his own private fortune.

The visitor’s eye is caught at once by the gilt carved woodwork (talha dourada) of the high altar and by the sacristy furniture made to hold the vestments and church furnishings. In several foreign works, especially in a piece by the Marquis Degli Albizzi, we find some references to these works of art. It is worth quoting here the words of Dr Alfredo Leal, recently (1921) published in a magazine of this city: ‘It is certainly one of the most beautiful churches in Madeira, above all for the richness of the gilt carved woodwork of the high altar, which is also the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. It was in the sacristy, however, that I found an interesting feast for my eyes. The great table and the cupboards in til (Ocotea foetens, Madeiran laurel) or Madeira mahogany (vinhático, Persea indica), with turned columns in the style the French call rococo portugais, which is found in all the carved woodwork of the 17th and 18th centuries in Portugal, are very artistically executed, without the gilding that has been and still is so abused in Portuguese churches. It is astonishing how, in that sacristy and in some others in Madeira, these lovely carvings have escaped the barbarous brush of the makers of false marble, which imitates bar soap more than marble, as has so unfortunately happened to the slender columns of Funchal Cathedral (the Sé) (Sé do Funchal). In the middle of the cupboards above the sacristy table, facing the place where the priest vests for the sacred mysteries of the altar, is a crucifix in which the body of Christ is perhaps a metre tall. It is one of the most beautiful wooden sculptures I have ever seen. It is a marvel in which anatomy and the expression of the face and gestures unite, producing a feeling that is tenderly grand.’

This church holds another artistic gem: a small image of the martyr St Sebastian, four to five decimetres tall, which is a true marvel of sculpture. It belonged to a chapel that once stood in this parish, of which no trace remains today.

The growth of the population brought this parish a curate, a post created by the royal decree (alvará régio) of 11 February 1746.

Besides the chapel already mentioned, there was once that of Our Lady of the Rosary (Nossa Senhora do Rosário), in the locality (sítio) of Ilha, and that of St Peter still exists; we shall give a brief account of both elsewhere in this volume. Compared with other parishes of Madeira, this one has no great unevenness of terrain and is extremely picturesque. It offers the visitor beautiful and surprising panoramas and, like Santana, bears a strong resemblance to the enchanting landscapes of the Minho.

Principal localities: São Pedro, Achada Grande, Tanque, Farrobo, Ribeira Funda, Pico, Pé do Pico, Poço e Vale, Lombo do Cunha, Açougue Velho, Covas, Furna de Pedro Jorge, Lombo do Pico, Jogo da Bola, Pomar, Achada do Pico, Lanço, Fajã Alta, São Sebastião, Calhau, Pedra Mole, Loural, Tranquada, Banda do Sol and Ilha. In the locality of Ribeiro do Meio lies the well-known lignite deposit, which we have already discussed (volume II, page 271).

As for the Quinta de São Jorge, the property of the diocesan prelate, enough has already been said on page 13 of this volume. This parish has 2,142 inhabitants (1921).