Legend of Nazaré

It has it that on the early morning of September 14, 1182, Dom Fuas Roupinho, alcalde of Porto de Mós, Portugal, was out hunting on his domain near the coast, when he saw and immediately began chasing a deer.

It remained there until 711, the year of the battle of Guadalete, when the Christian forces were defeated by the invading Moorish army coming from North Africa.

Meanwhile, the defeated king, Roderic, who was able to flee the battlefield alone and disguised as a beggar, anonymously asked for shelter at the monastery.

So the statue of Our Lady of Nazaré, which received its name from the village in the Holy Land where it was first venerated, was brought by friar Romano and by king Roderic to the Atlantic coast.

When they reached their destination they settled in an empty hermitage on the top of a rocky hill, the Monte de S. Bartolomeu, and there they stayed for a few days.

The holy statue, a black Madonna, stayed on the altar where he left it until 1182, when Dom Fuas, after the miracle, moved it to the chapel built over the grotto as a memorial to the event that saved his life.

[1] The holy image is now on display in the main chapel in a small niche above the altar that can be accessed by a staircase leading from the sacristy.