Sé (parish)

As we have said elsewhere, the first parish (freguesia) created in Funchal was that of Santa Maria Maior (‘St Mary Major’), although in the very earliest days of colonisation parish functions were carried out simultaneously in various chapels and hermitages (volume II, page 52). This parish, created around 1438 and established in the church of Our Lady of Calhau (Nossa Senhora do Calhau), moved its seat to the new church that later became the Cathedral (Sé Catedral), some years before the diocese was instituted. The royal decree (alvará régio) of 18 November 1557 divided it into two separate parishes, with their seats in the Cathedral and in the church of Our Lady of Calhau. It was from the parish of the Sé that the parishes of São Pedro, Santo António, São Martinho, São Roque, Monte and, later, Santa Luzia were carved out.

Until 1562 parish duties were performed by the dean of the Sé. In that year the royal decree of 20 July created two curacies and relieved the most senior member of the cathedral chapter of those functions. The original stipend (côngrua) of each curate was 8,400 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis) a year; the decree of 30 November 1563 raised it to 17,450 réis, and that of 21 February 1600 to 20,000 réis, likewise a year. The first curates, as the aforementioned founding decree states, were removable, but the post later became a collative benefice (benefício colado) like the others of its kind in this diocese. Roughly fifty years ago the prelate Dom Manuel Agostinho Barreto provisionally suppressed one of these curacies, creating at the same time an assistant priest (coadjutor) at the Sé and another in each of the parishes of São Gonçalo and São Martinho.

We shall not discuss here the church in which the seat of this parish was and still is housed, since we deal with it at some length elsewhere (see Sé Catedral).

Within this parish stand the church of the College (Colégio), the church of Carmo (Carmelite church), the church of Bom Jesus (Good Jesus) and the church of the Misericórdia (Igreja da Misericórdia). The chapels of St Sebastian, St Bartholomew, St Lawrence, Our Lady of Pity, Jesus Maria José, Our Lady of Grace, Our Lady of Deliverance and Nossa Senhora dos Varadouros (Our Lady of the Varadouros) no longer exist; we have referred to all of them elsewhere in this work. Inside the courtyard of the customs house there still survives, though now deconsecrated, a chapel whose dedication was to St Anthony.

It was also within this parish that, for several centuries, stood the house of João Esmeraldo, in which Christopher Columbus is said to have lived. It stood in the street that today bears the great navigator’s name, as may be seen in more detail in the article we devoted to him on page 286 of volume I of this Elucidário. Between the Rua da Alfândega and the Rua dos Murças, where the Largo da Sé continues, there once rose an old building that for many years served as the gaol and also as the town hall; we have already given an account of it elsewhere (volume I, page 183). We made the necessary reference to the Varadouros gate, the old entrance to the city, in the article Nossa Senhora dos Varadouros, on page 467 of volume II. The principal building in this parish is the Cathedral (the Sé), which is classified as a National Monument (monumento nacional) and is indeed a magnificent church, worthy of the highest esteem for its beautiful appearance and majesty.

The parish (freguesia) of the Sé occupies the most central part of the city, and it is here that the city’s main commercial, administrative and official activity takes place. Here are the most important commercial establishments, including all the banks, and most of the public offices, and here the commercial traffic of the city’s landing place and customs house is conducted. The number of its residents is falling considerably, because commercial activity keeps expanding and dwelling houses are steadily being turned into business premises.

According to the Mappa Alphabetico of the city’s streets, approved by the civil governor on 15 December 1863, the following belong to the parish, and in most cases form its limits: the south side of the Rua do Carmo (Costa Ferreira), from the bridge to the Vale stream; the north side of the same street, between that stream and the Rua das Hortas (Alferes Veiga Pestana); the western side of the latter street, below the Rua do Bom Jesus; the Rua da Conceição (Correia Heredia); the Rua da Ponte Nova; the part of the Rua do Bom Jesus between the Rua da Conceição and the Rua da Princesa (31 de Janeiro); the eastern side of the Rua dos Ferreiros, above the Rua dos Netos; the south side of this last street as far as the Rua do Castanheiro, and its north side from the bridge to the Rua dos Ferreiros; the Rua das Pretas (Câmara Pestana), at the points where the houses numbered 64 and 43 stand, belonging respectively to Dona Maria Camacho Teixeira de Sousa and José Teodoro Clerouin (1921); the part of the Rua da Carreira (Dr Vieira) bounded to the west by the Rua de São Francisco, and the eastern side of this street; the Fort of São Lourenço (‘St Lawrence’); and finally the Rua do Anadia, from the pillory (pelourinho, stone column symbolising municipal jurisdiction) to the bridge opposite the Rua do Carmo. Some consider the whole of the Rua das Hortas as belonging to Santa Luzia, and the south side of the Rua do Bom Jesus, west of the Rua das Hortas, as belonging to the parish of the Sé. The parish of the Sé has 4,083 inhabitants (1921).