terras da maia
The Maia Municipality is the natural heir to the
ancient land of the Maya, which extended in the mid- thirteenth century, from the city of Porto, formerly limited to brief space, to the left
bank of the river Ave
Inside the military protohistorical Portugal, Terra da Maia and area of
great political significance , was the birthplace of Mendes da
Maia , powerful regional warlords ' portugalenses ', which , together
with the first king, shall be considered as co -founders of a
politically autonomous nationality in the West of Iberia: Portugal.
The Mendes da Maia , Paio and Gonçalo mainly assumed so, truly , the
role of builders of the Fatherland.
On December 15, 1519 , D. Manuel granted a charter to the Municipality
of Maia. By that time the county embraced the whole seafront between
Porto and Ave, extended from the sea to a line of small heights, yet
detached from the land,
pulled from Rio Tinto, the eastern
boundaries of Alfena, Covelas and Bougados at that time and until 1902, the seat of the county was at the Maia Castle a building today
for other purposes. Since 1986 , the Maia Castle was elevated to a
town consisting of the parishes of Barca, Gemunde, gondim, Sta. Mary
and St. Peter of Avioso.
In 1836 , administrative reform was planned by Mouzinho da
Silveira. And by virtue of this action, conceived in the manner of
costumes from Napoleonic France, and depending on the appetites of
various warlords adjacent land , Maia found himself slashed, and
several pieces have been thicken its neighboring counties .
So it was with Porto , so with Matosinhos, so with Vila do Conde, who
will have received the lion's share in this wrenching action of a
secular united land, so with Santo Tirso, a city also thickened with a
large sum of parishes; so with Valongo, and even with Gondomar.
Throughout the nineteenth century, a few more parishes were to stick to
Vila do Conde, always at the mercy of political constraints to
which the interests of the people and history commonly experienced
mattered little.
Sleeping during the early twentieth century, the Maya would awaken
thanks in good part, a new way of looking at municipal initiative.
José Vieira de Carvalho
José Augusto Marques Maia
(adaptation )
