Church of Fontarcada
church building in Póvoa de Lanhoso, Braga District, Portugal
The Church of Fontarcada or Matriz de Fontarcada (Portuguese: Igreja Matriz de Fontarcada) was a Romanesque monastic church to a Benedictine monastery founded in 1067, now the parish church of Fontarcada. It was classified as a National Monument by decree on 16 June 1910. It is dedicated to Saint Saviour.
History
The monastery was founded by a donation of D. Godinho Fafes (or Falifaz), father of the rich count D. Henrique, responsible for building the hunting-lodge of Fontarcada, in whose yard the church was built, possibly at the start of the 12th century. Today nothing remains of the monastery buildings, the monastery having been extinguished in the 14th or 15th centuries.
The present church dates to the end of the 13th century and the early 14th century, when the Benedictine monks were entering into disputes as to the rights of the neighbouring aristocrats and landlords. In 1450 king Afonso V of Portugal confirmed the monastery's privileges, five years before the archbishop of Braga Fernando da Guerra decided to convert it into an archdeaconry. The church was restored in the 16th century. It is classified as a National Monument by Decree of June 16, 1910.
Design
The main facade is austere and has a main door with three archivolts supported by six columns with worked capitals and surmounted by a frieze and a tympanum of the Agnus Dei.
The public source identifies “Church of Fontarcada” as church building in Póvoa de Lanhoso, Braga District, Portugal. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Church, Fontarcada and church.
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Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5116876. Authority coordinates are 41.579, -8.246. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1067, 1910 and 1450.
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This entry incorporates text from “Church of Fontarcada” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.