Sé de Lisboa: The Fortress Cathedral
Why is it significant?
Face the cathedral and take in its two square towers and the heavy, battlemented front, more like a castle gate than a church, with a great rose window set between them.
Key Facts
| Place | Sé de Lisboa: The Fortress Cathedral |
|---|---|
| Address | Largo da Sé, 1100-585 Lisboa, Portugal |
| Geo Coordinates | 38.70970, -9.13360 |
| Part of Walk | Saints, Sieges and Stairways: Alfama and the Castelo de São Jorge in Lisbon |
| Generated | Generated |
Face the cathedral and take in its two square towers and the heavy, battlemented front, more like a castle gate than a church, with a great rose window set between them. A yellow tram grinds round the corner in front of it, and the whole scene could be a postcard from any decade of the last hundred years.
Work on the Sé began soon after the conquest of 1147, and tradition places it on the site of the city's main mosque. Its first bishop was Gilbert of Hastings, an English crusader priest who had taken part in the siege. The fortress look was not decoration: a cathedral in a freshly conquered frontier city was meant to be defended.
And defended it was not, at least not for one bishop. In December 1383, during the crisis that would bring King João the First to the throne, an angry crowd accused the Castilian-born bishop, Martinho, of siding with the enemy. They dragged him up one of these towers and threw him to his death. History has not always been gentle in this square.
Inside, find the font where, tradition says, the baby who became Saint Anthony was baptised... your first stop is just across the road. Then go into the Gothic cloister, built around 1300 under King Dinis. Archaeologists have dug deep into its garden and found layer upon layer of Lisbon: a Roman street with shops, houses from the Islamic city, and medieval foundations. The whole history of this walk is stacked in one hole in the ground.
Like the rest of Lisbon, the Sé was badly hit in 1755, and much of the interior was later rebuilt. Then, in the twentieth century, restorers stripped away many later additions to give it back a stern medieval look, so even this old face is partly a modern idea of the past. You have walked from a saint's birthplace, through a Moorish wall, a royal castle and a Roman stage, to the church that started Christian Lisbon. The tram stop is right in front of you... and Alfama will still be here tomorrow.