Introduction

The following is a study of the popular saints in Portugal and the legends or traditions surrounding their worship.  It is a translation of Chapter Seven—entitled “Gallery of Saints”—in Moisés Espírito Santo’s groundbreaking, but almost unknown, study of Portuguese religion, Origens Orientais da Religião Portuguesa.  This translation has been adapted for reasons of space.  I do not have the author’s permission to translate these pages, which as far as I know, have never been rendered into English.  As there is very little written about popular religion in Portugal, I thought it would be interesting to make this information available to a larger segment of readers.  For more detailed information about these saints see The Golden Legend  by Jocob Voragine, which deals with many of these saints.  An academic site produced by the University of Fordham, the Internet Medieval Sourcebook, deals with Saints Lives.  Other useful sites, although highly biased, are Catholic Forum and  For All the Saints Index.  Other sources can be found below:  

• Christian Hagiography
  The web site of the Bollandists, a society within the Jesuits which for three centuries has lead the way in the scientific investigation of hagiography and the cult of the saints.

•    Hagiography Site [At ORB]
  Web site by Thomas Head, one of the leading experts on Western Hagiography. This site contains translations made by Prof. Head, truly excellent bibliographies, and an incipient encyclopedia of hagiography.

•   St. Pachomius Library; Lives of Saints
  The St. Pachomius Library is a Greek Orthodox project to put Byzantine texts on the internet.

•   Vitae
  Comprehensive listing of online source texts (including those here) in alphabetical order.

• The Military Martyrs
  A web site by David Woods focused on the military martyrs.

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