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Historical Village of Sortelha (Sambucus) (***)

June 3, 2010 by Castile
Categories: Municipalities , District-Guard , More , Sambucus , All items , notable towns and villages

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Sortelha "Village

The 760 meters of altitude, Sortelha behold, one of the most beautiful villages of Portugal, from Port Vila, which the people call for entry, travel in time and we stop at a small village of Medieval, perched on a hill. Sortelha is a thrill to the senses and is arguably one of the most beautiful villages of Portugal.
The granite served as support for all buildings: houses, churches, castle, some defensive, passing through the narrow cobbled streets, torn here and there in the rock, in a permanent gap. The whole town is surrounded by a medieval wall and lasting urban fabric adapts itself beautifully to the irregularity of the relief.
It is unknown whether the origin of the toponym, there is controversy around four hypotheses, the reader choose the one that pleases him.
First: the name derives from a ring, or Sortija Sortela used in a medieval game in which the riders tried to put his spear.
Second: According to Viterbo, a linguist, sortel is a ring of stones with special powers used by witches and wizards.
Third: The urban area has fortified oval track.
Fourth: To Marcos Osorio, the place name may derive from the medieval word Luck, small agricultural parcel.
Brief History Sortelha
The origin of Sortelha is dubious and is lost in the maelstrom of time. Curious are the intriguing fossetes probably anthropogenic in stone that supports the towering steeple. Also the Old Head, and the beautiful monolith cyclopean "Stone Kiss", with many brands appear to recall the litolatria other times.

Sortelha 300x220 Aldeia Histórica de Sortelha (Sabugal) (***)
In the parish there are several traces of the Bronze age and Iron and Roman materials. The most known is the Roman altar dedicated to a deity-Vordio Talaconio, teónimo of Sortelha, consecrated by a M (arcus) C (ornelius) O (?) Or M (arcus) C (aecilius) O (ptatus) (Osorio , 1999) discovered a wall of the Church of Our Lady of the Snows.
In 1181 King Sancho I, and populated the area in 1228, his grandson, Don Sancho II, gives it its first charter which is reconfirmed by the Farmer King, but his most important work was the castle.
Sancho II also promotes the construction of the castle Sortelha, essential not only to defend the village, but above all to defend the frontier with Castile, who stood on the river Coa.
It is the time of King Fortunate it is renewed charter letter and received the Castle, is built pillory, the House of Representatives and chain. John III, brings the medieval town of the county in favor of Luis Silveira, Guard chief of the King, whose body rests on Gois Church in a remarkable array of Renaissance Tomb (*), the county is abolished in 1617, in the reign of King ridiculous, there is the transfer and construction in-house the parish church under the invocation of Our Lady of the Snows replacing the old church of St. John, situated outside the walls. The wall and the castle to be rebuilt again during the War of Restoration. In 1855 the County was abolished and changed into a village of Sambucus. In 1910 its Castle National Monument is considered. In 1991, after dying and almost forgotten, was considered a Historical Village and then recovered under that program.
Castle National Monument is Sortelha (*)
When in Portugal, we cite one of the paradigms of medieval fortified village, immediately appears in Sortelha. It may have been the return of her castle, which grew the town that was protected with a fence and towers, in some cases, protect entrances flanking them.
The citadel is built in the thirteenth century is beautiful, with its spectacular donjon based on cyclopean granite outcrops to a height of 800 meters.
Access to your inner room through a door heavily guarded by a beautiful desk matacães (Balcony or the court of Pilate, the popular name), where he threw himself into what was possible and effective on the assailants. Inside, this typical thirteenth-century castle rocker, everything is medieval didacticism: the pure Tank, inaccessible castle keep, with high input, the loopholes, the false door, the walls afeiçoamento the Baroque ...
Only in the following centuries is built around the town with residents to alijarem within it. The main axis is the Fountain Street, which starts off in the Curro (where bullfights were the stick) and then continue right down the street, linking the East Gate or Gate of the Sun to the West Gate, facing the Serra da Estrela and where follows a well-preserved medieval street in his shoulder are recorded measures of length (rod and cubit) used by medieval merchants. Outside of this entry stretch is dismantled remains of ancient monuments (Church of St. John of the Cross of Mercy Hospital). Other real estate value are: the pillory with the armillary sphere, the Town Hall and the main church (with Mudejar ceiling) that structure a small town with wide streets along the axial said.
The landscape is a wonder then moving: granite, savage, rude far ...
The beauty of Sortelha is much in their singles granite buildings in your castle small, slim and incorrompido, the myriad of details to the senses and the sweeping views of exciting ways. The Historical Village of Portugal is a stimulus to contemplation and meditation.
Text Julio Gil, from the book "The Most Beautiful Towns and Villages of Portugal"-Word Editorial
"Around the granite dominates the landscape, giving rise to some limited patches of rye and small groves pinched by baroque. Get down to the green glen. About a vertical cliff, dominating, romantic castle.
The only practicable slope grew Sortelha, with its granite houses and solar (and some more modern face, less typical). It is the "people" as they call this neighborhood outside the walls. Up, following the Roman road (which is medieval-author's note) here and there and still identifiable, it enters the wall in the "village" area of ​​early medieval flavor, protected, attached to the castle.
Here there is great-even the stately houses are of modest size and touching simplicity, a fully integrated set of exceptional decorative value because of unquestionable value of these people. At each stage are reasons of grace and spirit - a door, a small ladder, a coat, an altar, the Pelourinho ... From the square we enter directly into the castle, a sequence identity that does not allow to understand who inspired whom, such the harmonic integration shapes.


On the edge of Pelourinho, with a bow in the helm, perhaps related to the toponym Sortelha, which means "ring"-stands a bell on the eaves of the Parish Council, Old House of Representatives, delicious and sober architecture of small size, railing on the balcony paved entrance, shops semienterradas, girls glass in the sash windows. Dominates the charming off to the back which is also another old facade of a similar character. The parish church of architectural austerity contrasts with your precious Mudejar ceiling and greater with decorativism Baroque high altar 1.
Here is not surprising that the first Earl of Sortelha, Luis da Silveira, chief guard of John III, was intrepid military, but also a poet of the General Songbook (and is buried in a remarkable renaissance moimento (*) on Gois, we say) .
If everything in town is remarkably sober and severe, adding even more sobriety and severity of this bass rocks mulltiformes - where not missing profiles that encourage the identification, granite whim - it is also paradoxically tender, warm and lyrical. "
Text-José Saramago of Portugal Travel - Editorial Way, 1981
"From Belmonte (**) is the traveler Sortelha on roads that are not good and landscapes that are surprising. Join Sortelha is entering the Middle Ages, and when this is not the traveler declares that sense you would say that going in, for example, in the church of Belmonte (2), whence. The medieval character that gives this cluster is the enormity of the walls that surround it.
The thickness of them, and also the hardness of the pavement, steep streets, and perched on giant rocks, the citadel, the last refuge of the besieged, final and perhaps futile hope. If someone won the Cyclopean walls out there-have been rendered by this little castle that seems to play. "


Text-Appointment of Alexander Herculaneum Travel, Aug. 28, 1853 - Circle of Readers.
"Visit the village contained within the fence. Sidewalk that goes through it the suburbs: the right huge rocks overlapping each other; cliffs to the left a very deep Valeiro, you enter the door of the fence: On the left is the castle built on peaks of rock, is a small enclosure oblong shape: the town is in an amphitheater for the right height above the castle: the wall surrounding it is turreted and comes with the arrest of the castle: the aggregate of one overlapping the other cliffs on which it rests is similar to a bread sugar: it rocks more than three fathoms high. Over the door a counter with a hole to throw combustible materials, etc.. We stayed in the suburbs: at night I take notes. On the threshold of a door of the fence pole and the measure cubit ".
My Notes:
1 - Unfortunately the church is closed to the public. Of the two (or three) I was in Sortelha never had occasion to visit the interior of the temple.
2 - Refers to the Church of Santiago, the pantheon of the Manor House (**)
Fotográgicos Credits: The photographs were kindly provided by excellent photography site: matarbustosfotografias

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