History
Lisbon has been the seat of a bishopric since the 4th century AD (see Patriarch of Lisbon). After the period of Visigothic domination the city was conquered by the Moors and stayed under Arab control from the 8th to the 12th century, although Christians were allowed to live in Lisbon and its surroundings. In the year 1147, the city was reconquered by an army composed of Portuguese soldiers led by King Afonso Henriques and North European crusaders taking part on the Second Crusade (see Siege of Lisbon). An English crusader named Gilbert of Hastings was placed as bishop, and a new cathedral was built on the site of the main mosque of Lisbon.
This first building was completed between 1147 and the first decades of the 13th century in Late Romanesque style. At that time the relics of St Vincent of Saragossa, patron saint of Lisbon, were brought to the cathedral from Southern Portugal. In the end of the 13th century King Dinis of Portugal built a Gothic cloister, and his successor Afonso IV of Portugal had the main chapel converted into a royal pantheon in Gothic style for him and his family. In 1498, Queen Eleanor of Viseu founded the Irmandade de Invocação a Nossa Senhora da Misericórdia de Lisboa (English: Brotherhood of Invocation to Our Lady of Mercy of Lisbon ) in one of the chapels of the cloister of the cathedral. This brotherhood evolved into the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, a Catholic charitable institution that later spread to other cities and had a very important role in Portugal and its colonies.
Earthquakes have always been a problem for Lisbon and its cathedral. During the 14th and 16th centuries there were several of them, but the worst of all was the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, which destroyed the Gothic main chapel along with the royal pantheon. The cloisters and many chapels were also ruined by the quake and the fire that followed. The cathedral was partially rebuilt and, in the beginning of the 20th century, was given the appearance that it has today after a profound renovation. In recent years the central courtyard of the cloister has been excavated and shows signs of the Roman, Arab and mediaeval periods.
Read more about this topic: Lisbon Cathedral
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a “will to renewal.” This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of “crises”Mof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no “crisis,” there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“Like their personal lives, women’s history is fragmented, interrupted; a shadow history of human beings whose existence has been shaped by the efforts and the demands of others.”
—Elizabeth Janeway (b. 1913)
“It may be well to remember that the highest level of moral aspiration recorded in history was reached by a few ancient Jews—Micah, Isaiah, and the rest—who took no count whatever of what might not happen to them after death. It is not obvious to me why the same point should not by and by be reached by the Gentiles.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)