Vow to St James

– In the article Patron Saints (III-36) we have already dealt at some length with the apostle St James, chosen as patron saint of the Diocese of Funchal in the first quarter of the 16th century, and with the ‘vows’ solemnly made to him on that occasion. Foremost among these was the building of a church dedicated to his cult and to the celebration of the various religious ceremonies.

The passages from the records (autos) transcribed in that article were taken from the ‘Notes’ to ‘Longing for the Homeland’ (Saudades da Terra), whose illustrious commentator tells us that he had copied them from an old and unknown ‘Miscellany’. Funchal Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal do Funchal) rendered a valuable service by publishing, as a pamphlet, a complete facsimile copy of these important documents, following the originals entered in one of the books belonging to the Council’s old archive. The booklet bears the title ‘Auto do Milagre do bem-aventurado Apostolo São Tiago Auto do Voto feito pela mesma Cidade do Funchal, ao mesmo Apostolo– 1521-1538, extract from Volume I of the General Register of the Municipal Council of Funchal, deposited in the District Archive of Funchal’. It is preceded by an interesting ‘Introduction’ and closes with these words: ‘Introductory article, reading and conversion into modern language by the conservator, acting as Director of the District Archive, Alvaro Rogério Manso de Sousa’.

Because of the genuine authenticity of this publication, and the discrepancies between it and the transcription in ‘Longing for the Homeland’, we have decided to reproduce in full the text of these documents, which are most closely bound up with the subject of this article.

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Record of the Miracle – In the year of the birth of Our Saviour Jesus Christ one thousand five hundred and twenty-one, on the seventeenth day of the month of March, Lazarus Sunday, in this city of Funchal, Doctor Pero Vaz being in it as corregedor (royal district magistrate) for the King Our Lord in this jurisdiction of Funchal, many were found sick of plague, and for days already people had been dying of the said illness without its being discovered. By means of guards and the regulations (regimento) of the land they set apart all those infected and removed them from the city; and notwithstanding the said separation the illness went on increasing, so much so that the Captain and the corregedor and officials and most of the people left the city. In the month of January of the year one thousand five hundred and twenty-three, the evil growing greatly, Captain Simão Gonçalves and the Judges and councillors (vereadores) and the people who were in the city gathered in council, and went to the choir of Funchal Cathedral (Sé) of the said city, where they joined the dean and Chapter of the said Cathedral. And all, in praise of God, cast lots upon the twelve apostles, so that one of them should come forth as patron and advocate of this city; and at once, in the said choir, all being together, the lot fell upon the Blessed St James, whom they accepted as their defender and advocate. And all swore and promised that on his day they would hold a solemn procession for him and celebrate his feast, and that two councillors would always be stewards of the church of the said apostle, which was then newly built for him, and that the procurator of the city would be its clerk (escrivão), and that this ordinance should stand for ever. And from the said year of twenty-one until January of thirty-eight there were always Chief Guards, who had charge of the infected persons in the city and of sending them into penal exile (degredo); and in the meantime there were runners through the city, who every day went through the streets and learned of the sick in the city and reported them to the Chief Guards. And no master nor bloodletter let blood without licence from the said guards; and always, in the meantime, every year, there were infected persons in the said city, and the practice was always to set the infected apart and send them into exile outside the city, and for this purpose some houses were built on the islets, where the sick were washed. And with all these measures the plague never ceased; and in the year five hundred and thirty-eight, on the second day of January, the earth shook very greatly, and from then until the month of May many fell ill and died of the said evil, and the outbreak was so great that no year was worse. And throughout this time there were the said Chief Guards and men set apart to bury the dead who died of the said evil, whom they buried by night in the churchyards, it seeming to those who governed the land that, the evil being contagious, they did right to separate the sick from the healthy. And with all the separations the evil went on increasing; seeing which, the councillors of the said year five hundred and thirty-eight determined that from then onwards those who fell ill should be treated in their own houses and be buried by day, inside the churches, with the pomp that was fitting. And so, as this began to be relaxed, the evil began to diminish; and on the day of the Blessed Apostle, as the procession was about to set out, suddenly, not without divine permission, the hearts were touched of those who had charge of guarding the city, namely the Licentiate Gaspar da Nóbrega, who served as lieutenant of the Captain, and the Judges João Lourenço Leitão and Diogo Paes, and the councillors Manuel Afonso Ferreira Dromondo and Simão Darja and Heitor Homem de Sousa, and the municipal procurator (procurador do concelho) Manuel Carvalho. And all with one voice agreed that from that day onwards there should be no more guards in the city, and that those who fell ill of this evil should be treated as those with other illnesses are, and should be visited by whomever they wished, since in so long a time so many measures, at times very rigorous, had availed so little, which could well have remedied it had the remedy been a human one. But since that saying of the Blessed St James is true, that every good gift and every perfect gift always comes from Heaven, from the Father of Lights, so in this too it came to us from there, for all the aforesaid together recognised and confessed the truth: that the health of the city lay not in their guarding and rigour, but in the hands of the Lord God, to whom they commended themselves and from whom they hoped for the health of the city. And that from that day onwards they handed over the guarding of the city to the Blessed Apostle St James, Patron and Advocate of the said city, that he might be its guard and obtain from Our Lord health for it and for its people.

And at once they set out with the said procession for the church of the Blessed Apostle, with all solemnity, where, as soon as they arrived, the councillors handed over the staffs of the Chief Guards and laid them on the altar, and there they remained and still are, in remembrance. And Father Licentiate Friar Vicente, preacher of the city, forthwith in his sermon publicly announced to all the people the decision of the governors, praising it greatly, together with the trust they had placed in the hands of the Lord God. This greatly pleased all the people, and they gave much praise to the Lord God for such a decision, which was not within their own power; and all, with one will and heart, at once held that the evil had been miraculously lifted by the Lord God and that health had been sent to the land. And the said governors at once ordered that all who were in exile might enter the city and their houses, and stay in them and go wherever they wished, which was carried out that very day. And all who were in exile, many with open sores and others with swellings not yet burst, came into the city and mingled with everyone; and from that day onwards the evil was miraculously lifted, the city was healthy, and there was never again any infection.

And the Lord God lifted the evil not only from the land but also from the hearts and mouths of men, for which we give Him many thanks and praises.

And so that so great a miracle and royal grant received from the Lord God should not be forgotten, since we had been freed from a plague no less than that of Pharaoh, the councillors of the said year had it written in this book of the register (tombo), to remain in memory for ever, together with the great debt we owe to our Patron and Advocate, through whose intercession we obtained so high a benefit and grant from the Lord God; and they signed here, with the judges and representative (procurador). And I, Simão Lopes, clerk of the Council (escrivão da Câmara), who wrote it.

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Record of the Vow – In the year of the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand five hundred and twenty-three, on Saturday the twenty-fourth day of the month of January, on the island of Madeira, in the Cathedral (the Sé) of the city of Funchal, in the choir of the said Cathedral, there appeared the Lord Captain Simão Gonçalves da Câmara, and the councillors (vereadores) and officers of the Council, citizens and guild representatives (mesteres) and many other people, and likewise the Lord Dean and Chapter with all the rest of the clergy (clerezia). And straightway it was set before them that on the eleventh day of the month of June of the year fifteen hundred and twenty-one, the said city being in great tempest and tribulation of plague and famine and many other hardships, it was agreed in the Council by the officers then serving, namely: João Correia, councillor, Vicente Gonçalves and Pero da Luz, judges, and the bachelor (bacharel, university graduate) João de Évora, representative, and the guild representatives, to take a roll of saints, namely: the name of Jesus Our Lord, and the Virgin Mary, Our Lady, and St John the Baptist and the twelve apostles, each by his own name. Of these they made fifteen slips, each with its own name, and cast them into a cap, and they were drawn by a boy named João, seven years of age, all first kneeling in prayer and promising to build a house in honour of whichever saint should come out by lot. And it pleased the Lord God that by lot there came out the blessed apostle St James the Less, in whose honour a feast was held throughout the city on that same day. On the twenty-first of July they began his house, the city and the said Chapter going in solemn procession, barefoot, with the schoolmaster Gonçalo Martins bearing the altarpiece (retábulo) with the image of the blessed apostle, and he struck the first blow of the hoe at the corner of the chantry (capela), on the Gospel side. This house was built on a piece of land that Antonio de Spinola gave for the said house. And because the said plague began once more to strike the said city somewhat, they, mindful of the foregoing, namely the Lord Captain and the officers of the Council and the guild representatives and citizens and people and the Dean and Chapter, resolved to have the said house finished at once, and from this day forward they took him as their protector and defender before Our Lord Jesus Christ, that he might be intercessor with the eternal God for the hardships of this people who commended themselves to him. And they vowed it, the Lord Captain as well as the officers of the Council and the guild representatives and the Lord Dean and Chapter, namely: the said Lord Captain in his own name and that of those descended from him, the officers of the Council in the name of the said City, and the said Lord Dean and Chapter in the name of all the clergy of the said Cathedral and city, forever, in every year of the world, to praise and celebrate the feast of the said glorious Saint, which is the first of May. For it they shall hold a solemn procession, which shall set out solemnly from the Cathedral of the said City and go to the said house of the said blessed saint, where they shall sing solemn vespers for him; and the same shall be done on the day itself, with solemn mass and procession, these processions to be held as on the very day of Corpus Christi. And it pleased the said Citizens to have the said saint painted in the Council chamber and on the banner and Seal of the City, just as St Vincent is borne on the banner of the City of Lisbon. And the aforesaid vowed this into the hands of the said Dean, to fulfil it all, for themselves and for their successors, and in witness and true faith thereof they signed it here. And I, António de Almada, notary public, now clerk (escrivão) of the Council, in the absence of Afonso Anes, wrote it. And likewise it pleased them to take as their protectors the blessed St Sebastian and St Roch, and to hold the said solemnity for them.

On page 280 of this volume of the Elucidário there is a brief account of the church of St James the Less, today the parish church of Santa Maria Maior, to which we wish to add some further information.

The vow (promessa) was about to be fulfilled and the chapel dedicated to the patron saint built. Perhaps for lack of funds, or because the first enthusiasm shown at the time of the solemn ‘vow’ had cooled, the new church of the patron saint was in fact conceived on the most modest plan and built on very cramped proportions. It was no more than a poor, rustic chapel (ermida), like others scattered in various places on this island.

This regrettable failure, or mistaken understanding, of the obligations contracted in 1521 and 1538 was partly remedied in the second quarter of the 17th century with the construction of a new chapel, and later fully discharged when the present church was built, in the second half of the 18th century, as we shall see below.

In the first years of the second quarter of the 17th century, the Funchal Senate (senado, the municipal council) resolved to build a new chapel, in view of the smallness of the old chapel and the advanced state of ruin it was already in. Once the building was finished, the Council renewed, on 22 June 1632, the old commitments made by previous councillors (vereações), and on 25 July of the same year the diocesan bishop, Dom Jerónimo Fernando, gave the new chapel the ritual blessing with the greatest solemnity. The old fervour and veneration for the patron saint were reawakened, and the festivities then held in his honour were of great splendour and unusual brilliance, which lasted for many years.

At the council session (vereação) of 30 January 1754, the Funchal Senate took an important decision that seems to us somewhat strange today, since we do not know the reasons behind it: to demolish the chapel of São Tiago and build a church of larger proportions, more worthy of the purpose for which it was intended.

The image of the patron saint was taken to Funchal Cathedral (Sé) and the old chapel demolished, and construction of the new church began in that same year of 1754. The building work was slow: although it is stated somewhere that it was declared complete in 1768, the truth is that the venerable image was only transferred from the Cathedral to the new church in 1789, an act carried out with unusual solemnity and exceptional brilliance. It must be conjectured that the lengthy construction came to an end at approximately that time.

According to the Arquivo Histórico da Madeira (1-4 ff.), the archive of the Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal) holds the books Reedificação da Igreja de São Tiago and Inventários e Rendas da Igreja de São Tiago, which we have not had the opportunity to consult. They should contain some valuable information on the construction of the new church and on the weighty reasons that led the Senate to take this decision. It is to be presumed that the canonical blessing was given without much delay and that the church was at once handed over for worship.