Last modified: 2005-08-26 by antonio martins
Keywords: santiago do cacém | coat of arms | knight | horse (white) | landscape | waves: 2 | branch: orange tree | raven |
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![[Santiago do Cacém municipality]](../images/p/pt-stc.gif)
City rank. The flag is red and blue
gyronny and the coat of arms shows knight — in an incredible landscape
like depiction that I’ll not dare to blazon. This kind of “postcard arms”
is not very common in portuguese heraldry, but the even uglier
Ovar comes to the mind. Strangely, the coat of
arms doesn’t include the sword-cross of the Santiago
Order, considering the city name and the ubiquity
of that symbol in municipal heraldry throughout the area conquered and
administered by this warrior-monk order. This coat of arms shows a christian
knight in a horse and a dead moor lying before him, all in natural colors —
or supposedly in natural colors, since usually only white is used for the
figures, against a landscape of blue sky and red ground, complete with a
house or town in the horizont and a cloud in the sky.
António Martins, 06 Nov 1998
Santiago do Cacém was recently upgraded to city rank and is capital
of a municipality with 1059 km2 and 31 460 inhabitants in
10 communes.
Currently belongs to the Setúbal district
(traditional province: Baixo Alentejo) and
will be in the future region Alentejo.
António Martins, 06 Nov 1998
![[Santiago do Cacém previous flag]](../images/p/pt-stc0.gif)
This coat of arms appeared until recently with unusual crown (ducal,
with silver stemms and alternating red and blue sides!) and shield shape
(samnitic). It was one of the few that remained unchanged in the 1935
municipal heraldery reordering, having been “standartized” recently,
undoubtlessly when Santiago do Cacém was upgraded to city rank and minor
changes were introduced in the flag. Note the differences: quartered to
gyronny and "VILA" to "CIDADE",
usual when rank is upgraded, and
standartized shield and crown. My source shows no clouds in the previous
version, but that’s is probably only a variation. The background colors
could have been standartized too — this is becoming quite often recently,
as towns became cities and the Heraldry Institute makes not only the
expected chanes from 4 to 5 towers and from quarterly to gyronny, but also
some “corrections”. But though red and blue are an eye sore aginst the
metal on tincture rule, there is no alternative with such a coat of arms,
since monocolor backgrouds are currently being evitated by the Heraldry
Institute. I’d like to know why it wasn’t changed for good — other
non-orthodox coats of arms (but not this unorthodox!) were changed in
similar circumstances…
António Martins, 06 Nov 1998
![[Santo André commune]](../images/p/pt-stcsa.gif)
Coat of arms: Shield of silver with two green branches of orange tree,
fruited in orange, crossed (St. Andrew’s cross), whith a black crow above and three
blue and silver waves below. Three-towered mural crown in silver. White scroll with
black lettering, in capitals, reading "SANTO ANDRÉ- SANTIAGO DO
CACÉM". Flag: blue, rope and tassels in silver and blue.
Jorge Candeias, 06 Feb 1998, quoting and translating from the
commune website
