Convent of San Francisco - Convent of San Francisco

To visit

I loved it

Beautiful building that could be used for a museum

The Franciscan Convent Teodósia da Paixão, or Teodósia Vaz, was born in S. Vicente da Beira and here, together with other nuns, she founded a female Franciscan convent. To this end, he asked the Court for help, having received from the Queen D. Catarina, under the age of D. Sebastião, a large bell, cantochon books and 100 cruzados. Teodósia da Paixão was a nun in the Franciscan convent of Nossa Senhora do Loureto, in the parish of Nave, Sabugal, and from there she went, with other sisters, to found the convent of Nossa Senhora do Loureto, de Almeida. Then he returned to his homeland. In 1572, she already lived here, in community with other nuns. The work Agiologio Lusitano, by George Cardoso, published in 1652, made reference to the death of Ser Maria da Visitação, showing some features of his religiosity: «In the convent of S. Vicente da Beira, Bishopric of Guarda, Ser Maria da Visitação left her present life, a religious of such rare abstinence, that she fasted almost continuously every year and, in the last years of her life, never eat meat, usually bringing one like a cilice mane, girding himself with a rough esparto rope, walking barefoot most of the time, adding to these mortifications, harsh disciplines. Humbly asking the lowest ministries in the house, and particularly the garden, to have more convenience of vacating contemplation. And when that bodily exercise she was tired, given that it came wet from the rain, she would retire to the choir, taking relief from the continuous prayer. Among other holy exercises, which he used to devote, on Thursday night to Friday he did this: nailing a crown of thorns on his head, with a cross on his back, wounding his chest with hard stone, he ran the house bitterly in celebration of the Passion of Christ. With the help of other like-minded women religious, she established the Procession of the Steps in this convent. (…) » This was the origin of the Holy Week ceremonies, in S. Vicente da Beira. The cult of Santo Cristo da Misericórdia, the largest in São Vicente, also originated here, devotion brought by the nuns, from Nave, Sabugal. The female Franciscan convent had a church of the invocation to San Francisco, next to the street, on the west side. In the houses opposite, the Franciscan confessor's house and an inn were located. The income of the convent came to him from pious donations, in cash, income and, above all, landed properties, which the nuns offered to the peasants, in exchange for the payment of the forum. One of these properties was the village of Paradanta, in the parish of São Vicente da Beira. In turn, the Chamber donated to religious women, around 1629, the annual forums that the inhabitants of Freixial do Campo owed them annually: each resident a bushel of rye, being married, the widows or single women, half a bushel, and the municipality (parish council) of said place, sixty réis. The convent was extinguished in 1835, and was then half ruined and only the abbess resided there. It was demolished and the stone sold by the Chamber, to individuals, in a public auction. Only two porches remain, one from the 17th century and the other from the 17th century, the altarpiece (in the chapel of Senhora da Orada) and the images of Santo Cristo and Senhor dos Passos (in the Church of Misericórdia). "Dos Enxidros"