The Legend of Cayo Carpo

Index

What is a legend? The Legend of Cayo Carpo Cultural Context Matosinhos Real/Fake Happenings Likely Explanations What does it explain? The Characters

Santiago de Compostela The Apostles Cláudia Lobo Cayo Carpo The Guests

The Christian Influence Christianity It looks different… Historical Recreation 2014 Copyrights Sources

What is a Legend?

A legend is a fanciful narrative transmitted by oral tradition through the ages and which is part of the local culture.

With fantastic or fictional character, legends combine real historical facts with unreal facts that are merely the product of human imagination. It is also possible that the explanation made by legends actually is real.

With clear examples in all countries of the world, legends often provide plausible explanations, and to some extent acceptable to things that have no proven scientific explanations, as mysterious or supernatural events.

A legend should not be confused with a myth (story used to explain, in antiquity, facts that the time didn´t allow to understand, only resorting to the supernatural and fantastic elements).

As the saying goes “Who tells a tale adds a tail”. Legends, because they are passed orally from generation to generation, are altered as they are retold.

The Legend of Cayo Carpo

Palestine. The year is 44 a.c.. One of the disciples of Christ, James the Greater, returns to his homeland. In previous years, and obeying the call that Jesus cast him when he ascended to heaven - "Go, scatter the Good News" - became an apostle and had been spreading the message of Christianity by one of the most isolated regions of the vast Roman Empire, across the Mediterranean Sea, on the Iberian Peninsula.But this return to Palestine wasn´t happy. Accused of being a Christian, he was arrested, tortured and killed. His disciples, some of which he converted along his way in the peninsula, decided to bury James there, in one of the places he had been preaching and developing its apostolic mission. Collected the body, placed it in a stone boat which couldn´t sink and, in just seven days, made a trip full of other miracles, that took them to Galicia, on the banks of the Ulla river, where they disembarked the body and gave him grave in a place that, centuries later, would be known as Compostela.

Meanwhile...A wedding. A beach. A party. The place is in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, the vast beach that starts south of the river Leça. The date is the same. The year 44 a.c., during the Roman rule in the region. Cayo Carpo, the main lord of this territory, chose this site as ideal for his wedding with Cláudia Lobo.  The party had been planned: a large number of guests, banquets, exhibition fighters, musicians and dancers, tournaments and an endless number of games, all of which meant a big space.And among all of his territory, this beach, yet unnamed, was the one that presented the desirable conditions, and so the chosen one.

The religious ceremony - pagan, since Christianity had not yet come to these parts and their Roman elite - was over. The meals had been successful, to the sound of music and dancing.

Then the groom decided to challenge some of his guests, other lords and proficient Roman knights, to a horse race on the sand. But a curious feature: the aim would be unable to achieve in the first place a particular target placed somewhere on the beach, but come up with the horses towards the sea, penetrate this and take riding, through the waters, as far as possible. Who could move more of the coast would win the race.

There were many riders who took on the challenge of Cayo Carpo and embarked on the ride towards the Atlantic.The worst riders and the ones with weaker horses were quickly left behind. The boldest, however, put forward their horses to surprising limits. But no one could match the young groom. The distance he gained from his pursuers left everyone stunned. Also because something miraculous was happening: his horse wasn´t getting inside the water.  No. Miraculously the animal rode, without sinking on the ocean surface! And was useless to try to stop the rider mounted.The horse continued, rampant, on the sea, in the direction of a small boat which was heading north.Cayo Carpo was apprehensive, but the crowd, curious, all this watched from the beach expecting the encounter with the boat.

And when that happened, the Roman lord was even more surprised: the boat had been carved in stone and, inside, followed a corpse! The crew, however, quieted him and explained that they were Christians and that they would take the body of their master, James, to give him burial.

  Deeply amazed by all that he´d seen and which was also participatory witness in, and also after acquainted travelers of the message and teachings of Jesus, Cayo Carpo converted immediately to Christianity.

The return to the land was followed in an expectant manner by those who watched all this from the beach. They needed an explanation and certainly the rider had it.

In the beginning, the horse was moving on top of the water, but suddenly the animal and its owner disappeared, swallowed by the sea. And when, after a few moments, despair began to take care of everyone, fearing for what might have happened to the young man, magically the rider and his mount reappear, leaving the waves to the beach.

And a new miracle had happened: Cayo Carpo and the horse came completely covered with scallops - a kind of shellfish that has since then started to be associated with the cult of Santiago and its pilgrimage routes. The crowd quickly approached the groom and is told about these wonderful events it had witnessed and following the explanations which then are supplied to it by the young Roman lord, all present also converted to Christianity.

Excerpt transcript and translated from:http://www.aphort.com/img_upload/A_vieira_matosinhos.pdf

Cultural Context

Matosinhos is a small town in the northern Coast of a country now called Portugal, in the Iberian Peninsula.

However, in the year when this tale occured, the city or the country of the happening weren´t yet formed, they were part of the roman empire.

It all kind of links also, because we know from our version of the legend that it´s talked about the marriage of a roman citizen.

In the story the legend is mentioned as beeing the origin of the name Matosinhos.As the rest of the story, this conclusion is also not very certain because the oldest appearences of this name linked with the city come as “ Matesinus” and are from the 10th century.

In the pictures we can see where is Santiago de Compostela, coloured in red. The river Ulla on the right (which is mentioned in the story) can also be seen in a representation of the Camino de Santiago, route done every year by thousands of christians also to honour this apostle.

Matosinhos

The village is prior to the founding of the Portuguese nation, as it already existed in the year 900, called by the name of “Matesinus”.

In 1258, figured the name of “Matusiny” during the inquiries of D. Afonso III. Belonged at the time to “Sandim” parish. D. Manuel I granted it a charter on 09/30/1514.

In 1833 was created the “Bouças” municipe, getting it to include the parishes of “Matosinhos” and “Leça da Palmeira”, among others. The town of “Matosinhos”, consisting of the parishes of “Matosinhos” and “Leça”, was established in 1853.

Thus, the Matosinhos municipality was definitely created on 6 May 1909 being one of the most important in the country and the city , being also one of the largest and most progressive. It became a city on 28 May 1984.

Matosinhos is a recent city to the Portuguese standards and is therefore influenced by the city of Porto. Incorporates fishing traditions of the north coast, in particular from the fishing communities of “Póvoa de Varzim” and “Vila do Conde”, the strongest in the city, but also rural traditions from the city. The main popular festival in Matosinhos is “Senhor de Matosinhos”, whose origin is an old legend of the image of Jesus Crucified.It´s the home-town of the consecrated architect Álvaro Siza Vieira and is also recognized by its different gastronomy, based on the fishing traditions of the population ( seafood, fish, …)It´s sea traditions have now evolved into beautiful beaches right in the heart of the city, which are now also very famous because of monuments like “She Changes” ( as seen in the image) by Janet Echelman.

As this is a legend, we know that some things are true and others aren´t, even when we want to believe they are, so we can divide them in those categories: real (or likely) and fake (or believable), this is, because we can´t prove anything, even when likely.

We can obviously know that the main story fits the traditions of the time. A pagan wedding, with great festivities, races, fights, and all needed to express grandness. We can obviously imagine the importance of this happening, because this was the wedding of the master of that place, and surely he wanted people to recognize him as so.

Real/Fake ElementsElements

Real (likely) Fake (Unreal or Believable)

o That´s when two stories merge and the knight encounters the stone barge. It´s very unlikely that a horse could actually “fly” on top the water until a boat in the middle of the ocean.

o Here we can see kind of a miraculous happening which would convert all the attendants at the wedding to Christianism.

o That surely hasn´t happened, at least not with our current knowledge of the universe, so we can only speculate. Besides that, we can face two ways: It´s either a miracle, and all we need to do it´s believe it happened, or assuming that people in the village suddenly started believing in Christ, we can´t, in any other way explain such story, so we can only admit that there was a wedding, with no correlation with the fact that the people of that village became, for some reason, Christian.

ExplanationsA miracle

A normal wedding

All there is in the middle, from slight to radical changes

Likely Explanations

Taking now my last approach, almost everything was said about the explanations for this legend, which are very limited and then can be spread into millions of different ideas. I would just like to leave mine but this is most certainly a bit of work to take and think about, and there are definitely no limits for imagination.

In my opinion, everything could´ve happened exactly the same way without some of the spectacular things like the stone boat and the flying horse.

It would be much more likely that a boat, with or without the body of Santiago, with Cristian people and loaded with scallops stopped at the beach to ask for help, through their explanations and beliefs turned everyone Cristian, having the same bases of the legend, only leaving aside the magical elements that are most probably just the result of transmitting the story throughout thousands of years.

The wedding

The boat meets the beach ( actual tale)

The lord and the Guests are converted to Cristianism

Same final result

What does it explain?

This legend explains how, since ancient times, the inhabitants of this region have become Christians; how is that the scallop came to be associated with devotion to “Santiago de Compostela”; and also explains how the name of this beach appeared. This is because in older versions of this legend written in is described that when Cayo Carpal reappears coming from the sea bed, he and his horse came all “Matizado“*(covered) of scallops.

  And so the rider came to be popularly referred to as “o matizadinho“* and the beach where all this was done by the beach ... “matizadinho”*. And, according to legend, was from the further evolution of this designation that the “Matosinhos”* place name appeared.

*- Portuguese designations, here not translated to better explain the origin of the final name The Beach in Matosinhos

The Characters

“Santiago de Compostela”

James the Greater, also called James the Great and “Santiago de Compostela”*, was born in Bethsaida, in Syria and was the first martyr of the 12 apostles of Jesus Christ, in 44 a.c. He was a son of Zebedee and Salome, and brother of John the Apostle.

According to Bishop Isidore of Seville, after the ascension of Jesus, would have been the first to evangelize Spain, and later became his patron.

*-This designation of this apostle can´t be used in English. It matches the worldwide name of the place where this apostle was buried, as described In the next slide.

• It was made holy and called James the Great to differentiate him from another apostle of Jesus of the same name, known as James the Minor and also of James the Just.

• It was also assigned its name to the city of Santiago de Compostela, traditionally assigning that name because his remains were found in the place that gave birth to the city in the ninth century by Bishop Teodomiro. This made that an important point of Christian pilgrimage routes.

The Disciples of Santiago

In this story, they´re mentioned as the ones that ride the boat until the final destination of James, however the number of men on the boat is unknown.

They, even that not very emphasized, play a key role by converting Cayo and consequently his guests to Christianism, and basically making this tale possible.

Cláudia Lobo

Cláudia Lobo was born in Vila Nova de Gaia, a recent city in the District of Porto and not very far from Matosinhos. Her family arrived in the peninsula after the Roman invasions. She was the descendent of romans, being her father a praetor*.

* - Praetor was a title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to an elected magistratus (magistrate), assigned various duties (which varied at different periods in Rome's history).

Cayo Carpo

This is the young leader about to get married. He is the main caracter of this story, and as such, the most relevant on it, but outside of this tale, he is completely irrelevant.

He is a Maiato Palaciano Noble, and the ruler of the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. A truly gifted warrior, becomes, after this episode, a Christian and completely disobeys the Rules of the Roman Empire.

The Guests

The attendants at the wedding of Cayo Carpo, during the beginning of our ages were very distinguished, being part of the elite of the roman empire and being very powerful too. They also merged with the population from the places ruled by Cayo Carpo. The magistrates, lords and knights represented the young leader´s intention to mark his ways but still to be accepted by his people.

The roman empire, at the time, not long after the death of Christ, not only didn´t have a religion, but also pursuited christians, so we can very clearly see the objective of this story.

The story is basically another christian tale and miracle, of which we can never proof if it is or not true, depending on personal beliefs. The main character, even against all rules of the empire he belonged to, has , in front of such irrefutable proof, to believe that christian faith is real, and so he is converted and converts the people attending the wedding too, making everyone involved in this story christian. It also shows, because of the importance of the people attending the wedding, that we can distinguish that it was a higher status of society which was converted, even knowing the consequences of it because of their power .

The Christian Influence

Chase made to Christians in Ancient Rome

With about 2.1 billion followers nowadays, Christianism is the largest religion in the world, being predominant in Europe, America and Oceania. The religion began through the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, considered the savior of the human race.

The followers of Jesus are called "Christians"; that name was first used at Antioch, a Greek military colony. The holy book of Christians is the Holy Bible, composed of the Old and the New Testament. The first part tells the story of the world's creation, laws, Jewish traditions, etc. The New Testament tells us about Jesus' life, as the early Christians lived, etc.

Christianity

• Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, Judea (Palestine), about the year 6 BC His moral teachings, as the love of God and neighbor, made his life to become an example to be followed. At 33, Jesus was crucified unjustly and rose on the third day.

• There are three branches of Christianism: Protestantism, Catholicism and the Orthodox Church. As a result, there are also different concepts and aspects in each one of them. However, universally, we can say that Christians believe in the existence of one God, creator of the universe, Jesus Christ, the central element of religion which is considered the savior of humanity, and life after death.

• Christianity spread widely across Asia, Europe and Africa. The religion grew so much that in the year 313, the emperor Constantine granted the Christians freedom of worship; and in 392, it was considered the official religion of the Roman Empire.

It looks different…

• Before ending this assignment I think that probably you already know a lot about this tale, however in case you do more investigation, don´t forget that you might not only find different ideas and thoughts but also different versions of the legend all over the web, because, as it was previously explained, the story has thousands of years and throughout them people have changed small things that have resulted in similar stories with slight changes.

• The reason why, between all of those versions I chose the one previously presented to base my work was simply because it was very complete and fitted the best way possible with the historic probabilities that we have about this story.

• Also, this was the version published by APHORT, a Portuguese organization for tourism, which means it was the right one to show, since it was made exactly to be spread outside of Portugal.

Historical Recreation

Firstly, and in case you think this iniciative is indead interesting and different, I must warn you that because of budget problems, infortunately it won´t be possible to do another one during the year 2015.

Still, they were made in previous years. This is what they were like, some plans made and a lot more.

Finally, on your right you have the poster for the 2014 edition of the project, that has already been showed on this presentation a large number of times.

How it was prepared :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc2qTbPgGK0

And how it actually happened:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIiTs3_oJKk

CopyrightAs you´ve seen there were some copyrighted photografs, I decided to clarify all legal matters by e-mailing the autor of the amazing photografs that go togheter with the description of the legend, Nuno Feliz:

Me: “Good eveningI´m a student at “Conservatório de Música do Porto and I´ve developed a presentation in the scope of the Erasmus program, where I used some of the pictures that you´ve taken in the historical recreation of the legend of Cayo Carpo.I would like to know if it could be possible for you to autorize me to use your pictures for public displayThank you for your attention.”

Nuno Feliz: Good EveningIf you mention the author I have no objection to the use of the photos for academic purposes. I ask that if possible, I would like you to send me a copy or show me where I can see the final result of your presentation.Greetings,Nuno Feliz

Copied and translated from Gmail, 16/12/14

Sources

www.aphort.com www.youtube.com www.wikipedia.com www.cm-matosinhos.pt www.brasilescola.com terrasdeportugal.wikidot.com www.nunofeliz.com www.dicionarioinformal.com.br users.med.up.pt www.bestguide.pt

Tomás Pinto, 9ºA, Conservatório de Música do PortoProjeto desenvolvido no âmbito do projeto Erasmus

Ano letivo 2014/2015