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From Gallaecia to the Euro-Region
of city representatives would have met.
Its name comes from this, “house of the
municipality”. The other building that
stands out is one of the most symbolic
ones in the city of Ourense, and
occupies the centre of the old town:
the former Episcopal palace, currently
seat of the Archaeological Museum
(temporarily closed for renovations).
Although the different enlargements,
Gothic and especially Baroque,
surround the whole of it, the original
building from 1131 is still maintained,
complete and practically unaltered.
It is made up by two floors and two
wings, open to a cloister. Its first big
remodelling, still in the 12th century,
consisted of a winery where the bishop
could store the in-kind rents that the
inhabitants of his territory had to pay:
cereals and especially wine.
While the most powerful figures in
Galicia at the time were the big
monasteries and the bishops, with their
important possessions and estates, in
Portugal there was a different context,
since the kings tended to limit the
ecclesiastical power.
Did you know?
“The first Portuguese kings did not hesitate to confront the bishops,
even if they risked being excommunicated because of it. When king
Sancho II claimed the estate of Porto, which was in the bishop’s hands
since its donation by Dona Teresa, the consequence was not only the
excommunication: he was also removed from the throne by order of
the Pope. Alfonso III, his successor, gave their privileges back to the
church, but this did not avoid him to be excommunicated too (only in his
deathbed was he forgiven) by the bishops of Porto, Coimbra and Braga,
who complained that the king had favoured the concelhos (“town halls”)
over the ecclesiastical estate. An example of this is the exemption that
the king gave to Gaia in 1255 –even if both localities were separate, the
exemption of Vila Nova had to wait to Don Dinís in 1288-.”
Domus Municipalis (“municipal house”) (Bragança)
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