A Slideshare on "The legend of Cayo Carpo", an ancient Portuguese legend.

1. The Legend of Cayo Carpo

2. 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

3. 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.

4. The Legend of Cayo Carpo

5. 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.

6. 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.

7.  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.

8. 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.

9.  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.

10. 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.

11.  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

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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.

16.  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 Elements
Elements
Real (likely)
Fake (Unreal or
Believable)

17. 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.
Explanations
A miracle
A normal wedding
All there is in the middle, from slight to radical
changes

18. 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

19. 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

20. The Characters

21. “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.

22. • 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.

23. 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.

24. 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).

25. 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.

26. 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.

27.  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

28.  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

30. 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.

31. 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.

32. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc2qTbPgGK0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIiTs3_oJKk

33. Copyright
As 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 evening
I´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
display
Thank you for your attention.”
Nuno Feliz: Good Evening
If 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

34. 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 Porto
Projeto desenvolvido no âmbito do projeto Erasmus
Ano letivo 2014/2015