Évora History

History

The Celtic settlement of Ebora had been established here before the Romans arrived in 59 BC and made it a military outpost, and eventually an important centre of Roman Iberia, when it was known as ‘Ebora Liberalistas Julia’.

After a depressing spell under the Visigoths, the town got its groove back as a centre of trade under the Moors. In AD 1165 Évora’s Muslim rulers were hoodwinked by a rogue Portuguese Christian knight known as Giraldo Sem Pavor (Gerald the Fearless). The well-embellished story goes like this: Giraldo single-handedly stormed one of the town’s watchtowers by climbing up a ladder of spears driven into the walls. From there he distracted municipal sentries while his companions took the town with hardly a fight. The Moors took it back in 1192, clinging on for another 20 years or so.

The 14th to 16th centuries were Évora’s golden age, when it was favoured by the Alentejo’s own House of Avis, as well as by scholars and artists. Declared an archbishopric in 1540, it got its own Jesuit university in 1559.

When cardinal-king Dom Henrique, last of the Avis line, died in 1580 and Spain seized the throne, the royal court left Évora and the town began wasting away. The Marquês de Pombal’s closure of the university in 1759 was the last straw. French forces plundered the town and massacred its defenders in July 1808.

Ironically, as in many other well-preserved ancient cities, it was decline itself that protected Évora’s very fine old centre – economic success would have led to far greater redevelopment. Today the population is smaller than it was in the Middle Ages.