S. Vincente - Patron Saint of Lisbon
 

The legend says that St. Vincent died young, tortured by the Romans. Born in Huesca, he begins his religious career in Saragossa under the guidance of Valerio, a stuttering bishop, who bestows on him the role of preacher.
 
 
sao_vincente In the year 304, his sermons get him into prison, and he is tortured according to the law of emperor Diocletian.He dies as a result and his body is left in the fields to be eaten by wild animals, but crows protect it from wolves and carnivorous birds.They then resolve to tie a stone to the body and throw it into the sea. A woman though, finds it on the beach and Christians take the remains to Valencia, where they remain until the arrival of the Muslims in the 8 th century.

Fearing sacrilege, the relics are taken by sea to the Algarve and placed on the Sacred Promontory, where a sanctuary is built to hold the holy bones of the martyr. Safety in a place designated in Latin as Cape of St. Vincent of the Crow and in Arabic as 'elkenicietal corabh', that is to say, Church of the Crow. It soon became a place of worship between Christian mozarabics who during the period of the Al-Gharbe Empire pilgrimated to the "Point of the Crows".


In the year 1173, king Dom Afonso Henriques decides to bring the relics to Lisbon. The bones are found thanks to the help of two mozarabics. The cargo is taken on board and brought to Lisbon. The load arrives there, September 15, and during the night it is put in the Church of Santa Justa. Ever since, the relics remain in the chapel of the dead in the cathedral.
Several miracles are attributed to the saint of the crows. Already before the conquest of Lisbon, D. Afonso Henriques wanted to find St. Vincent's relics. In Lisbon there was already a temple of St. Vincent, an important Mediterranean cult, frequented by many mozarabics. St. Vincent was a prestigious saint, adored by Christian medieval courts, especially the one of France - that sought, without success, to obtain the worshipped relics.
Later, king Dom Afonso IV is buried in the cathedral, where St. Vincent's remains are kept, making the church a basilica, an alternative to the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. In the cathedral of Lisbon are kept, in two silver boxes, the remains of the tortured religious priest who died in Valencia. One arm was up to 1992 kept in the Italian city of Bari, but Pope John Paul II ordered it returned to Spain.
brasao_lisboa The emblem of the boat and the crows is almost exclusive to the Portuguese representations of the legend.
The city of Lisbon used his legend for the coat of arms of the city. These motifs are to be found all over the city. Inlaid stone boats indicate the property (municipal) of a building. They refer to the ship that brought the body to Lisbon and to the birds that protected it.
They appear first in 1190, in a seal from St. Vincent's monastery, although just with one crow. This seal will be completed later with a ship and the illustration of the body of the martyr. In 1233 another seal, one of the county of Lisbon, exhibits the two crows in a boat, without the body.
Today, St. Vincent, the patron saint of the city of Lisbon since Dom Afonso Henriques, is almost forgotten.