Vila do Conde

Camino Portugués de la Costa

Distrito do Porto · Distrito de OportoPortugal

Compound toponym. Vila, from the Latin villa, designates the medieval settlement. Do Conde commemorates count Henrique de Borgonha, father of Afonso Henriques (first king of Portugal), who granted the town's first charter in 1095. One of the oldest seafaring towns on the Portuguese coast.

The formula villa Comitis ('count's town') is documented in medieval charters of the Portucalian county from the 11th century. The titular count was Henrique de Borgonha, a French noble married to Teresa of León, daughter of Alfonso VI of Castile, to whom Alfonso gave the county of Portucale as a dowry. Henrique fortified the Atlantic coast against Muslim incursions and granted charters to several towns to attract settlers. His son Afonso Henriques (1109-1185) proclaimed himself king of an independent Portugal in 1139, founding the kingdom. The seafaring town specialised since the Middle Ages in shipbuilding and deep-sea fishing: during the 15th and 16th centuries, Vila do Conde's shipyards produced vessels for the Portuguese expansion to India, Brazil and Africa. Today it preserves the matrix church of the Assumption (Gothic, 16th century), the convent of Santa Clara (14th century) and a historic centre by the estuary of the river Ave.

Evolution of the name

  1. villa Comitis medieval Latin 11th — 12th centuries
  2. Vila do Conde medieval Portuguese from the 12th century

Reflections, to the letter

The count who names the town is Henrique de Borgonha, father of the first king of Portugal. Married to Teresa of León, he received the Portucalian county as a dowry and granted the first charter to this seafaring town in 1095. Forty-four years later his son Afonso Henriques proclaimed himself king of Portugal —⁠and the kingdom was born with this Atlantic coast as its core. The Santa Clara convent (14th century) and the shipyards where the vessels of the Portuguese expansion were built are the visible memory.

Languages of origin

Themes

Origin status

confirmed

Sources

  • Câmara Municipal de Vila do Conde — Arquivo histórico

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Camino Portugués de la Costa

  1. ··· toward Santiago
  2. Vila Praia de Âncora
  3. Viana do Castelo
  4. Fão
  5. Esposende
  6. Apúlia
  7. Póvoa de Varzim
  8. Vila do Conde
  9. Porto
  10. Vila Nova de Gaia
  11. Grijó
  12. São João da Madeira
  13. Oliveira de Azeméis
  14. Albergaria-a-Velha
  15. ··· toward the start