"[3] The document holds that James, one of the apostles of Christ, visited the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula in AD 44.

On that spot, the Romanesque Monastery of Rates was built, and the relics kept there until 1552; in that year the body was transferred to Braga Cathedral, where it is still kept.

[citation needed] In the civil parishes of Balasar and Rates in Póvoa de Varzim, there are two fountains that the population believes are miraculous because they were used by Peter.

In the 18th century, there are descriptions that Peter of Rates was beheaded while drinking the waters of the fountain in Balasar.

Due to that belief, on 26 April every year, the feast day of Saint Peter of Rates, the pregnant women and female animals do not work in some villages.