Évora Monte Castle Friendship Association (LACE)


OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES

• The LACE (Evoramonte Castle Friendship Association) was founded in the year 2000 through a public deed held in the Tower of the Castle of Evora Monte with the aim of “civic, cultural and social intervention, using all legal means to afford the defence, the dynamization and the valorization of the architectonic, historical and cultural patrimony related with the Castle of Evoramonte”. To get it, it is allowed “to promote and make, inside and outside the Castle, debates, conferences, concerts, theatre and cinema performances, teaching and learning courses, shows or entertainment activities, parties, meetings, legal games, funds`gathereings, to render honour to someone and every activity that is conform to its objectives.”

EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES

The LACE has been promoting a lot of activities and events since its foundation to accomplish its aims:

• 1st National Presentation of the Concert of Medieval Music “TE-DEUM” by the group “Music Flowers” (St. Peter`s Church).
• Reveillon 2000/2001 which gathered more than 500 people in the Tower of the Castle
• Participation in the Quizz about the Euro (currency), in Brussels, promoted by the European Parliament (2001).
• Euro Convention of Evora Monte with varied activities and events about the introduction of the Euro (currency) and the Euro`s Fair of the Schools with the participation of every official public and private schools of the Basic Grade from all over the municipalities (councils) of Estremoz (2002).
• Reveillon for the 3rd Millenium (2002).
• Musical Festival “Evenings in the Castle” (6 concerts).
• Festival of Arts and Music “Evenings in the Castle” (10 performances).
• Celebrations of the Treaty of Evoramonte`s Signature (yearly).
• Activity “Evoramonte – Castle with Life” with the duration of 10 days which included exhibitions, conferences and cultural shows (yearly).
• Activity “Evoramonte – Castle of Peace” which included a Street`s Crib (see photos in …link…) with figures and elements totally made in Evora Monte by a team of its inhabitants and varied entertainment activities related with the period of time it took place – Christmas and New Year`s Eve (yearly).
• “The Imaginary Tour of Evoramonte”, which is a theme`s route that shows in ten scenes taken place in ten different places in Evoramonte, like theatre on the street, where the actors and all the people who show off are all dressed according to the different historical periods. They are all amateurs and inhabitants of Evoramonte. (See Photo Gallery).


THE CONCESSION OF EVORAMONTE

The Concession of Evoramonte was signed on May 26, 1834 and ended the only Portuguese civil war in almost 900 year of History.

In early 19th century, liberal ideas were spreading to most European Monarchies, and Portugal was no exception.

The Civil War broke out in Portugal in 1831 after D. Miguel, an absolutist and traditional monarch, overwritten the Constitutional Charter, in 1828, that he had previously sworn to upheld. The Charter had been in force ever since 1826.
His older brother, D. Pedro, a Constitutional Regime’s protector, that was occupying the throne in Brazil, came to Portugal and from the archipelago of Azores he formed an army of mercenaries and exiled. In 1832 D. Pedro disembarked on the North of Portugal and took the city of Oporto, commencing a two years period of blood shedding battles, chases and of the Country’s destruction.

D. Miguel’s absolutists were decisively defeated on May 16, 1834, in the Battle of Asseiceira, in the Country’s central area, obliging this same monarch to seek refugee, along his remaining army, in the city of Évora, located 25 Km’s away from Evoramonte.
On the other hand, D. Pedro’s liberal troops were taking Estremoz.

With a weakened and sick army, D. Miguel is forced to ask for truce to his brother D. Pedro, after acknowledging the impossibility of continuing the War or of uniting with his cousin, Don Carlos, who was still fighting liberal ideas in Spain.

Both sides agreed to the signing of Peace in Evoramonte, in the residence of the then Mayor Mr. Joaquim António Saramago.

The Concession of Evoramonte, signed on May 26, 1834, by both army leaders, led D. Miguel to exile in Italy (and later on in Austria, where he would perish) and to the giving of the Portuguese throne to his niece, D. Maria II, D. Pedro’s daughter.

D. Maria II would come to re-establish the Constitutional Charter and, with the arrival of Peace, the commerce was modernized with the abolition of primogenitures, of internal dry ports and with the nationalization of convents and monasteries.
Public administration, justice and army were also modernized.

From this point on, Portugal undertook the same destiny of other European nations!

Photo Gallery: The Concession House of Evoramonte (link)


THE VILLAGE OF EVORAMONTE

Evoramonte is one of the oldest villages of the province of Alentejo (southern Portugal). Human occupation of this region dates back to the Upper Paleolithic and have had their heyday in the Late Bronze Age during which wad erected on this place one of major cities around the southwestern Iberian Peninsula, known as Dipo, which will been destroyed and abandoned by the Roman occupiers who left here very few traces of their passage.
Historical references to this village only come back after the Christian Reconquest of the territories in southern Portugal in the twelfth century, with reports that the town has received its first charter at the beginning of the next century (1248) from King Afonso III of Portugal.
In 1306, King Dinis of Portugal ordered the construction of the walls and later on, a couple of six seventeenth-century ramparts were built.
In 1531 an earthquake has destroyed a significant part of the village and the walls, that would later be rebuilt alongside the building by order of Don Jaime, 2nd. Duke of Braganza, the Tower / Palace of Evoramonte, monument of unique architectural features throughout the Iberian Peninsula and with a clear Italian influence.
In 1834, Evoramonte enter in Portugal's history since the 26th. May of this year it was signed there the peace treaty known as the Convention (or Concession) of Evoramonte that ended the only civil war that Portugal has known for almost 900 years of history.
Paradoxically, here begins the decline of the village and in 1855 lost its county, and its territory were divided among the neighboring municipalities of Estremoz, Évora and Arraiolos.
In the middle of the twentieth century, due to lack of work in agriculture Evoramonte suffers an intense emigration of its workforce for the industrial area of Lisbon, which had, as main consequence, a huge decline in its population, which remains to our days.
The main architectural monuments are the Old Town House, the House of the Convention, the Tower / Palace of Evoramonte (national monument), the medieval walls and gates (national monument), the Parish Church of Santa Maria, the Church of St. Peter, the Chapel of Mercy and more eight little chapels scattered by the surroundings.

Photo Gallery: Tour Around Evoramonte