Terreiro da Sé

Beside the cathedral lies a spacious square created after several medieval quarters were cleared away. The granite tower with a glass wall repeats the volume of the burned-down Casa dos Vinte e Quatro, where the city's craft guilds gathered. The old building had also served as a prison and a shelter. The stone column in the middle of the square recalls the municipal court, although this copy was made from an old engraving and no one was tried here.

On the fourth of May, sixteen sixty-one, popular procurators entered the city hall by the cathedral. This was the name given to elected advocates for Porto's craftspeople: they demanded that the city council submit the queen a protest against the new levy. Women, children, and several men waited outside.

The hall was housed in a stone tower that stood on the site of the present granite structure with a glass wall. It was called Casa dos Vinte e Quatro. The number referred to representatives of the city's trades—shoemakers, coopers, barbers, and other craftsmen. They earned their living in their own workshops, while here they discussed trade regulations and elected procurators able to speak for them before the council.

The queen regent, Luísa de Gusmão, who governed the country during the youth of Afonso VI, was raising money for the continuing war with Spain. By her order, licenses, contracts, wills, lease records, and many other documents could be drawn up only on paid stamped paper.

Most of the people at the hall used such documents less often than merchants, landowners, clergy, and lawyers. A rumor had brought the crowd here: that the procurators inside were being forced to agree to the levy. People decided that the city councilors were making their representatives withdraw the protest they had submitted.

Shouting began, and new participants joined those already waiting. Doors and windows in the administrative offices were smashed, and sheets of stamped paper were torn up by hand. The crowd then went to the treasurer, the customs judge, and other officials who were supposed to introduce the levy. Priests managed to calm the people, but the disturbances resumed the next day.

The queen accused Casa dos Vinte e Quatro of its representatives' failure to restrain the townspeople. Four thousand infantrymen and five hundred horsemen were brought into Porto. Casa dos Vinte e Quatro itself was abolished, the procurators were removed, and the craftspeople were deprived of their former place in city government. The women who took part in the unrest were pardoned; the others received relatively light punishments. Seven years later, the city secured the restoration of Casa dos Vinte e Quatro.

The old tower later served as a prison and a shelter, and a fire in eighteen seventy-five destroyed it. In two thousand two, the architect Fernando Távora built a modern tower on the former foundations, repeating the volume of the lost building and leaving part of the ruins exposed.

Terreiro da Sé means the square in front of the cathedral. At the time of the revolt, the present spacious terreiro did not yet exist: houses stood around it, and narrow streets ran through the area. City services cleared away several medieval quarters in nineteen forty, and five years later placed a pelourinho—a stone column that served in old Portuguese towns as a sign of the municipal court—in the middle of the new square. This example was made from an engraving of seventeen ninety-seven; Porto's former pelourinho stood in Ribeira, and no one was tried at the present column.

Exposed old masonry survives beside Távora's tower. It marks the site of the city hall that the procurators entered while women, children, and craftspeople waited outside for their decision.