The date of November 2nd, All Souls' Day, has long been dedicated by the Catholic Church to the dead and their souls, that is, a day of remembrance and homage to those who have already departed, which is why pilgrimages to cemeteries are a must on these days or in the days leading up to them.
The construction of cemeteries among us is relatively recent, just over 200 years old. Until then, bodies were buried inside churches, with the floor being purposely made of earth for this purpose, or in their churchyards, when the interior was momentarily full.
The richest were buried near the main altar, while the poorest were buried near the entrance to the temples. Although the decrees of March 27, 1805 and October 18, 1806 ordered the foundation of public cemeteries in Portugal, it was only from 1834, with liberalism, that their construction materialized.
This was helped by the decree of September 21, 1835, determining the creation of cemeteries in all locations in the country, improved by the public health law, published in 1844, which prohibited burials inside churches, whenever there was a public cemetery, establishing sanctions for those who did not comply with this obligation.
Its application led to some riots, the most famous of which was the so-called Maria da Fonte revolt, in the spring of 1846, which took place in Minho and spread to much of the north of the country. It resulted, among other things, from the opposition of the population to the obligation to bury dead in cemeteries, rather than in churches, as had always been the case with their ancestors.
This tension and opposition were, in fact, well portrayed by Júlio Dinis in the novel «Morgadinha dos Canaviais».
In the south of the country and in the Algarve, in particular, there are no known moments of insurrection in that period, against public health laws in particular.
In fact, cemeteries were already a presence in the Algarve landscape at the time of its publication.
The first one built in Portugal was in the Algarve, in the enlightened town of Vila Real de Santo António. Designed with a ruler and set square, the cemetery was drawn at one end, on a “spiritual axis of the town”, and it began operating in December 1776.
According to Maria Manuel Oliveira, in the magazine «Monumentos», no. 30, December 2009, it could even constitute, as a public facility, open and mandatory for all social classes, not only the first modern Portuguese cemetery, but even the first European one in operation.
On the other hand, the also enlightened bishop D. Francisco Gomes de Avelar, during his time in the Diocese of Algarve, between 1789 and 1816, published in 1805 a Pastoral prohibiting burials in churches, ordering the construction of cemeteries in defense of public health.
Granting, however, a provisional license for burials to be carried out in churchyards, to parishes that were not financially able to erect them.
This measure came about after the people of Sambraz resisted the prelate's ban on burials in the church of S. Brás de Alportel in 1801. The construction work on the cemetery was met with strong opposition, so much so that the work carried out during the day was destroyed at night, leading to four individuals being sentenced to prison in the fortresses of Cabo de São Vicente.
The punishment and persuasions calmed spirits and served as an example in the region, with its construction becoming widespread, as noted by Ataíde Oliveira in the «Biography of D. Francisco Gomes do Avelar» in 1902.
It should be noted that the increase in the population in the Algarve and the lack of churches for burials proved to be an additional problem for families and authorities.
According to Silva Lopes, in his «Corografia do Reino do Algarve», in 1756, the number of inhabitants in the region was 81 individuals, a figure that rose to 417 in 1802, reaching around 105 inhabitants in 412.
Now José de Beires, notable and diligent civil governor of Faro in the 1870s, which we have already recalled here, in its timely and decisive action during the terrible drought of 1875, it similarly left us a set of Reports full of information, today essential, about the Algarve and its history.
One of these reports, from 1873, included a “Map showing the state of all cemeteries in the same district in the year 1872”, which allows us to know when they were created, who financed them, the area they occupied, who managed them and the number of graves they housed.
Although the vast majority were built after 1834, there were 20 earlier ones, of which seven were described as having been founded in a “remote era”, such as those in the municipality of Aljezur (town, Odeceixe and Bordeira) and the parishes of Sagres (which already existed in 1795), Odiáxere (in 1798 burials were already taking place in the churchyard), Cacela (it was probably established at the end of 1805) and Budens (although this one cannot be earlier than 1837, we add).
In the case of Castro Marim, the date was unknown, while in Vila Real it was created in 1776, as we have seen. The remaining 11 were: São Brás (1800); Alcantarilha (1802); Alvor (1812); Conceição de Tavira (1816); Silves (1819); Estoi (1820); Martinlongo (1825); Azinhal (1827); Santa Bárbara (1827); Luz de Lagos (1829) and the Third Order of Carmel (1816) in Faro.
Of the 66 parishes in the Algarve in 1834, 19 had a public cemetery, which in terms of location were transversal to the region.
In 1835 two more were created, Fuzeta and Moncarapacho, and until 1844 nine more, Monchique (1836), Quelfes (1837), Alferce (1838), Guia (1840), SB of Messines and Estômbar (1841), Alte (1842), Alcoutim (1843) and the Third Order of St. Francis of Assisi (XNUMX). Faro (1844)
At the time of the Maria da Fonte revolt, there were 31 public cemeteries in the region. By the end of the 40s, three more had been built, and in the following decade, 18.
In 1860, another 12 were completed (often they had already been in use for several years, such as Albufeira, Boliqueime or Pêra) and finally in 1871, three more, Porches (although burials had been taking place in the churchyard since at least 1846 and in the cemetery since December 1855, as a consequence of the cholera, which we have already mentioned here, only the walls of the enclosure were finished in 1871), Querença and Ameixial. The latter were still not finished the following year, a situation that was repeated in Odeleite (1857), Lagoa (1856) and Boliqueime (1868).
Despite the various circulars issued by the civil government to the region's local authorities, such as in September 1851, in the municipality of Loulé, the construction of the Ameixial and Querença necropolises was successively delayed.
In Ameixial, until the summer of 1871, burials took place inside the church, and only then took place in the cemetery, from September of that year, which had been created next to the chapel of S. Sebastião.
The Ameixial Parish Council recognized and asked the Loulé Council, in September 1870, for authorization to levy a tax on its parishioners, «considering the urgent need to build a cemetery, in order to avoid the great inconvenience resulting from burial in the parish church», since «they had no other means with which to cover this expense».
A similar situation occurred in Querença, where the Loulé local authority authorized the Parish Council to levy a tax for the same purpose, as well as to finance works that the local church needed, on January 4, 1871, and in the following September, burials were already taking place in the cemetery (then on the side of the church). The limited revenues of the local authorities and the difficulties in acquiring land often proved to be complex, combined with a certain lack of awareness of the problem by the local elites.
Thus, only 36 years after the publication of the decree ordering the construction of public cemeteries, it was fulfilled in Ameixial and Querença, constituting the last cemeteries to be built in the Algarve, 95 years after the first, in Vila Real de Santo António.
In view of the above, in 1872 all parishes in the Algarve had their own cemetery, although some were not completed, as we have seen.
As for their construction, six were the responsibility of the municipal councils, such as Olhão (1852), Lagos (in 1855), Tavira (1857), Faro (Esperança cemetery, in 1859), Albufeira (1869) and Vila Nova de Portimão (1863), the rest, for the most part, were erected by the parish councils, although the one in Sagres was under the responsibility of the Ministry of War, and those in Conceição de Faro (1863), Budens, Odiáxere, Luz de Lagos (1829), Monchique (1836), Pechão (1859), Cachopo (1850) and Santa Catarina (1859), from alms from the people and parishioners.
The necropolises that served the religious orders had already been built at their expense and that of their respective brothers.
The size and number of graves they housed varied greatly. If in Faro each burial occupied 2,87 m2, in Albufeira or Paderne the average was only 73 and 80 cm2, respectively.
The largest cemetery in the region was Esperança, in Faro, with more than 6 m000 (including an area for non-Catholics), Loulé, very close to that surface, had 2 m5, and Olhão 986 m2, which contained 5, 100 and 2 graves, respectively.
In turn, the smallest, with very small areas, were Luz de Tavira with 13 m2, Almancil with 16, Querença with 22 and Ameixial with 23, which accommodated around 10, 12, 16 and 17 graves, respectively. In these locations the annual average number of deaths was much higher than the available capacity, in Luz it was 35, Almancil 38, Querença 40 and Ameixial 27.
This is despite the Public Health Council having determined, in 1863, that the number of graves in each cemetery should correspond to five times the annual number of deaths in the parish. In the region, Tavira recorded, on average, the highest number of deaths per year, with 460, followed by Loulé with 340 and Faro with 274 annual burials.
Of the 19 cemeteries built before 1834, almost all have been replaced to this day, the exceptions being Estoi (which dates back to 1816 and not 1820) and Vila Real de Santo António, despite several extensions.
Most of the rest were located in the vicinity of churches, such as in Silves, behind the Cathedral, or on the south side of the church of São Brás de Alportel, or even in the castle of Castro Marim, limited spaces that did not allow for major expansions, making them unviable with the increase in population throughout the 19th century.
In 1872, the population in the district was 192 inhabitants, that is, compared to 104 it had grown by more than 1756%.
In the case of Bordeira, Aljezur and Odeceixe, they were immediately rebuilt in 1869, 1870 and 1872, respectively. Silves and Alcantarilha saw their old necropolises completely deactivated in 1896 (the new ones had been built at the end of the 1870s), at which time São Brás also saw a new space completed, while in Alvor this happened in 1906.
If the construction of public cemeteries in the Algarve was very early, like the pioneering one in Portugal, that of Vila Real de Santo António, or the relevant action in this field by D. Francisco Gomes do Avelar during the almost three decades in which he occupied the episcopal chair, it is no less true that their construction, in some cases, took years.
It is true that this was a peripheral region with limited economic resources, but the main reason was probably due to some indifference, or even ineptitude, of the elites in terms of local governance. This is the only way to understand why there were parishes that immediately set about building it, while others did so more than 66 years after the episcopal determination and 35 years after it became legally mandatory.
In the national context and considering that in the city of Lisbon public cemeteries were only built after 1835 (Prazeres in that year and Alto de São João in 1841), as happened in Porto (Repouso in 1839 and Agramonte in 1855), the Algarve was thus a precursor and example on several levels, in addition to the fact that, in the district of Porto, in June 1882, there were still parishes without their own cemetery.
The terrible Spanish or pneumonic flu and the high mortality rate it caused in 1918 led to the expansion and/or creation of new spaces, such as in Loulé (now in a third location) or in Tavira, places where they are still located today. The increase in population in the following decades forced other expansions or the construction of new cemeteries, throughout the region, up to the present day, of which the following are mere examples: Alte (1929), Salir (1942), Santo Estêvão (1953), Alferce (1964), Albufeira (1990) or Faro (2005)
In recent years the construction of crematoriums in Albufeira and Faro This accelerated the change in the habits of the Algarve people, as many of them were no longer buried, but now cremated.
It is still too early, however, to say that cemeteries will disappear from the Algarve landscape, just as they disappeared from the interiors of churches a long time ago.
Author Aurélio Nuno Cabrita is an environmental engineer and researcher of local and regional history, as well as a regular collaborator of the Sul Informação.
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