Braga

The archbishops were lords of the city as well as its pastors. The count and countess of Portugal gave Braga to them in 1112, Afonso Henriques confirmed the gift, and whether royal justice reached inside the walls was never settled, so the town changed with each strong prelate. Between 1505 and 1532 one archbishop cut new streets and squares and carried Braga beyond its medieval walls. In 1566 another summoned the bishops of his province to put the decrees of the Council of Trent into force, and in 1571 he opened what is held to be the first seminary in the Iberian Peninsula. Their 18th-century successors rebuilt the churches and palaces in the baroque, and in 1722 work began on the sanctuary of Bom Jesus do Monte, its stairway climbing the wooded hill above the city.