Page 267 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Portugal

The colourful São João festival in Braga, in memory of St John the Baptist

MINHO

The province of Minho occupies land between the
Douro river in the south and the Minho river in the
north. Fortified hilltop stone forts (castros) remain
as evidence of the Neolithic history of the region.
When Celtic peoples migrated into the area in the
first millennium BC, these sites developed into
citânias (settle ments) such as Briteiros.
In the 2nd century BC, advancing Roman legions
con quered the land, introduced vine-growing
techniques and constructed a network of roads.
When Christianity became the official religion of
the Roman Empire in the 4th century AD, Braga
became an important religious centre, a position
it holds to this day. The Suevi swept aside the
Romans in the 5th century, followed by the
Visigoths, who were ousted in turn by the Moorish
invasion of 711. The Minho was won back from
the Moors in the 9th century. The region rose to
prominence in the 1100s under Afonso Henriques,
who pro claimed himself the first king of Portugal
and chose Guimarães as his capital.
Since then, the Minho has been the territory of
farmers and the region’s fertile farms and estates
have been handed down within families for
centuries, each heir traditionally receiving a
share of the land.
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