The history of Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal, and its development as a maritime trade and fishing hub, have been greatly influenced by its location at the entrance to one of Portugal's best natural ports.
Permanent settlement in the coastal plain of Póvoa de Varzim dates back to around four to six thousand years ago; around 900 BC, unrest in the region led to the establishment of a fortified city. The ocean has played an important part in its popular culture and economy, through maritime trade and fishing, leading it to establish a fiefdom in the 10th or 11th century, a municipality in 1308 and to become, in the 18th century, the main fishing port in northern Portugal.
Póvoa de Varzim and its region had relevant input that allowed the Portuguese discoveries, throw manpower, shipbuilding and seafaring knowledge. Since the 18th century, its beaches have helped it become one of the main tourist areas of the region, which prompted high-culture development since the late 18th century. Its development suffered setbacks due to feudalism, monastic domain, border disputes and, recently, the development of a highly centralized state. However, it gained significant privileges confirmed by successive Portuguese kings such as town limit exception and royal appeal rights.
Stone Age settlers Prehistory–900 B.C. Discoveries of Acheulean stone tools suggest Póvoa de Varzim has been inhabited since the Lower Palaeolithic, around 200,000 BC. The earliest artifacts, dating to the Paleolithic, were found in Northern Aver-o-Mar, proving the strong attractiveness that the ocean played since very remote eras.
The first groups of shepherds settled on the coast where Póvoa de Varzim is now located between the 4th millennium and early 2nd millennium BC. Their dead were deposited in tumuli, which are the oldest monuments found in the municipality. The necropolis, with seven tumuli, dated to end of the Neolithic, early Chalcolithic. Four around São Félix Hill, all have been broken, and three around Cividade Hill, including Mamoa de Sejães, in the hillside, that is still unopened after thousands of years of settlement. Five of the known tumuli are still visible. There's also evidence of Stone Age painting in Cape Santo André.
Castro culture urbanization and maritime trade 900–138 B.C.
Widespread pillaging by rival tribes led the resident populations of the coastal plain of Póvoa de Varzim to raise a fortified town atop the hill that stood next to the sea. The city area covered and had several hundred inhabitants. The City prospered due to its strong defensive walls and its location near the ocean, which facilitated trade with the maritime civilizations of the Mediterranean Sea, especially during the Carthaginian dominion of the southern Iberian Peninsula.
The city had some urbanization stages: during the first centuries, the small habitations were constructed with adobe mixed with vegetable additive. The first constructions made out of rock started to appear in the 5th century B.C., due to iron peaks technology that appeared in Asia Minor, brought to the Iberian Peninsula by Phoenician settlers in the Atlantic Coast during the 8th and 7th centuries B.C.
The visits of Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, and Romans had as purpose the exchange of textiles and wine for gold and tin, despite the scarcity of terrestrial ways, this was not a problem for Cividade de Terroso that was strategically located next to the sea and by the Ave River, thus an extensive trade existed in the city.Autarcia e Comércio em Bracara Augusta no período Alto-Imperial The external commerce, dominated by tin, was complemented with domestic trade in tribal markets between the different cities and villages of the Castro culture, they exchanged textiles, metals (gold, copper, tin and lead) and handicrafts including exotic products, such as glass or exotic ceramics, brought from trading with the peoples of the Mediterranean or other areas of the Peninsula.
The population worked in agriculture, fishing, gathering, shepherding and worked metals, textiles and ceramics. Cultural influences arrived from inland Iberian Peninsula, beyond the ones proceeding from the Mediterranean through trade.
In the area of the modern city, ceramics surfaced during a highway construction in 1998 and walls were detected in 2002, the site may have been a Castro culture farmhouse.
Roman conquest and Establishment of Varzim 138 B.C.–411 Resistance and Roman conquest
During the Punic Wars, the Romans became aware of the Castro region's rich deposits of gold and tin. Viriathus, leading Lusitanian troops, hindered the expansion of the Roman Republic north of the river Douro. His murder in 138 BC opened the way for the Roman legions. Over the following two years, Decimus Junius Brutus advanced into the Castro region from south of the Douro, crushed the tribal armies, and left Cividade de Terroso in ruins, by burning the city to the ground. A celebrated milestone refers that Brutus victories extended to the ocean.
Appian mentioned two battles led by Brutus, in which women fought alongside the men and both ended in Roman victory. Archaeological data in the site and tribesmen's Last stand behavior, highlight the barbarity of the conquest.
Brutus settlements Proclaimed Roman mercy comes throw the establishment of Brutus's peaceful settlements. Soon after the conquest and under Roman reform, the Cividade was rebuilt. In the shoreline, Villa Euracini and fish factories were constructed. The Castro people returned to the coastal plain and a gradual abandonment of the hill started as the region was pacified under Caesar Augustus's Pax Romana. In time, Villa Euracini would evolve to Póvoa de Varzim.
Around Villa Euracini's natural harbors, the fish industry developed. The cetariæ, a Roman fish factory was built for the production of garum, a fish sauce condiment. The factory had 2,40 m wide and deep tanks near the seashore, surrounded by houses, one of which probably dating to the 1st century and more recent buildings. A waterfront Roman road linked the area to Foz do Douro, to the south, and Caminha to the north. Another fish processing factory and salt evaporation ponds existed in Junqueira, near the core of Villa Euracini, where remains of buildings and a number of artifacts, including vases were found. These ruins could be older than those found in Alto de Martim Vaz. In the Old town of Póvoa de Varzim, the probable core of Roman Villa Euracini, vestiges of buildings, called aedificia, and ceramics also surfaced.
Aqualata, A Roman mining complex, was created at the steps of São Félix Hill, just north of Cividade de Terroso. The site is preserved as a small lake known as Lagoa Negra, the Black Lake. Before the Roman conquest, it is thought that the tribesmen also mined it, and the notorious Castro culture jewelry found scattered in Póvoa de Varzim is stated to have been mined there. These mines were intensively exploited during the Roman period and may have been the reason why the Via Veteris, a Roman road, crossed the coastal area.
Cape Santo André, a religious site, is the ancient Roman Auarius Promontorium referred by Ptolemy and with visible Romanization, the importance of the site, possibly, predated the Roman period. Archaeological data indicate the existence of a necropolis dating from the Roman period in the area of Giesteira. Remains of this necropolis were also found in the nearby area of Paredes, including Roman tegula.
A legendary foundation of Póvoa de Varzim stated that the town was established by a Roman consul named Cayo Varzinio (Caius Varzinius), giving his name to the town. This myth appeared by the 19th century and promptly disputed by researchers in the 19th and early 20th century.
Barbarian, Moor and Norse invasions 411–1033 Germanic settlements and the arrival of the Moors
With the fall of the Roman Empire, Suebi populations established themselves in the region. City quarters and former hamlets around Villa Euracini suggest Germanic naming, such as Regufe (from Rekaufus, rek- + wulf, 'wolf'), Argivai (from Argivadi) and Gresufes (from Grisulfus, possibly Gothic *gris- 'horror' and wulfs, 'wolf'). It was also believed that Varzim itself, due to its Germanic influence, started as a Germanic settlement, until archaeological finds expanded the settlement to the Roman period. The Germanic people were obliged to settle mostly in rural areas. Idacius (c. 400 – c. 469) is very explicit in this "the Hispanic, spread around the cities and oppida..." and the "Barbarians, rule over the provinces..." (HYDACE: I, § 49, pp. 117–119).
The Suebic kingdom of Gallaecia was incorporated as a province into the Visigothic one in 585. After the Moorish conquest of Hispania, since 711, the region maintained a significant share of its population, in a social and political area where there was no acting state powers. This Christian region that kept the structure of the Roman and Roman-Germanic past was reorganized as the County of Portugal, a government in the Kingdom of Galicia (Kingdom of Asturias), later known as Kingdom of León.
The Viking raids
The first Norman incursion occurred in 844 by a group of Danish Vikings, who after being defeated near the Tower of Hercules, looted all the coast reaching the south of the peninsula, then under Moorish rule, they returned north and vanished after passing by Faro, Beja, and Lisbon. According to Ibn Hayyan and other sources, they returned to Gallaecia and eventually settled there. A second huge attack, with plundering all over the coast, occurred in 859. Due to pillaging and the destruction of everything they found, the Vikings were seen as a worse threat to Hispania than the Moors.
Póvoa de Varzim was first mentioned on March 26, 953 during the rule of Mumadona Dias, Countess of Portugal between 924 and around 950. The countess ordered the construction of the Guimarães Castle in order to protect a Monastery against attacks by the "gentiles", reporting to the Normans, the Vikings. Instigated by the Duke of Normandy, there is a powerful incursion in 968 using a fleet of 100 ships led by the Viking Gundered (Gudrød), considered by them as the King of the Sea (sækonungr in old Norse). They landed in a seaport named Juncariae and from there they went to Iria Flavia, destroying hamlets and villages. They kept in there for a year, when their petty king and a good share of the attackers fell against the army led by the Galician count Gonçalo Sanches in 970.
The Normans attacked again in 984, 1016, 1018 and 1050. Various chronicles and documents suggest an incursion in Entre-Douro-e-Minho in 1008, which may have provoked the death of the Portuguese count, Mendo Gonçalves.
In the Norman incursion of 1015–1016, the Monastery of Vairão was sacked. Located in the South of the Ave River, the monastery hold and recorded events in the region since 921. In 1016, inland Vermoim Castle suffered a bloody assault, by Norman pirates, in which the Portuguese count Alvito Nunes was killed. In Póvoa de Varzim their incursions went from the coast to the Este River, and the Ave River established as the south limit. Various hints indicate a Norse settlement in Villa Euracini after those invasions came to an end. During the Middle Ages, the name Euracini evolved to Uracini, Vracini, Veracini, Verazini, Verazim, and eventually Varazim.
Clash of civilizations and the border lordships