Legend of Our Lady of Nazaré

A curious legend attributes the name Nazaré to a statue of the Virgin Mary brought from Nazareth, in the Holy Land, by a Greek monk to the Spanish monastery of Cauliniana, near Mérida, in the 4th century. In the 8th century arrived at the Monastery the fugitive King Rodrigo, the last Goth king of the Iberian Peninsula, after his defeat before the Moors at Guadalete Battle.

In the Monastery he met Friar Romano, who accompanied him in his escape, bringing with them the statue of the Virgin and a box with the relics of Saint Blaise and St. Bartholomew.

Before his death, the friar hid the statue inside a grotto in the promontory of Sítio, where it laid forgotten for 4 centuries, until it was discovered by some shepherds who started to worship it.

The legend tells that the Commander of the castle of Porto de Mós, D. Fuas Roupinho, was hunting on these lands, one foggy morning of September 1182, when, chasing a roe deer, the animal suddenly disappeared over the edge of the cliff. Aware of the danger before him, the nobleman invokes the protection of the Virgin of Nazaré and immediately the horse stopped, saving the knight’s life. In thanksgiving he ordered the little Memory Chapel to be built on the spot.

Worshipped since then, the statue of the Virgin would have probably given origin to the name of the place – Sítio of Our Lady of Nazareth.