Igreja de Santa Maria do Castelo, Tavira - Algarve - 26

Igreja de Santa Maria do Castelo is a church in

Tavira Tavira () is a Portuguese town and municipality, capital of the ''Costa do Acantilado'', situated in the east of the Algarve on the south coast of Portugal. It is east of Faro and west of Huelva across the river Guadiana into Spain. The Gilão ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. It is classified as a

National Monument A national monument is a monument constructed in order to commemorate something of importance to national heritage, such as a country's founding, independence, war, or the life and death of a historical figure. The term may also refer to a spec ...

. It is believed this church was built in the 13th century after the

Reconquista The ' (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid ...

of the city of Tavira from

Moors The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a distinct or ...

. The church was built as an initiative of the Order of Santiago (1242) by D. Paio Peres Correia to replace the Arab

mosque A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...

that existed here. The mosque is believed to have served the Medina (fortified city) of Tavira. The mosques existence hasn't been proven archaeologically. However, in 1718, a tomb was found with a corpse and an Alfange (type of Moorish sword). At the time, it was decided to bury it again with the Alfange.''Crónica da Conquista do Algarve''

References

Churches in Faro District National monuments in Faro District Former mosques in Portugal {{Portugal-church-stub

See also

References