Why go
The history gives the small rooms a human scale. Eight friars began the community, and stories of Brother Honório’s severe retreat show how its ideals of poverty and penance were remembered beyond Sintra. This is a specific story of patronage, withdrawal and later literary fascination in the Sintra Mountains.
The full story
Álvaro de Castro founded the convent in 1560, following an idea associated with his father João de Castro, a former viceroy of India. Eight friars arrived from the Convent of Arrábida and dedicated the new sanctuary to the Holy Cross. A story says João had dreamed of building a church here after becoming lost while hunting in the Sintra Mountains; it is a foundation legend rather than a verified event. A papal grant of indulgences followed in 1564. Later in the sixteenth century, the Chapel of Santo António and an enclosing wall were added. Among the early friars, Honório became the best known. Accounts say he spent decades living in a small grotto beside the convent as an act of penance and died in 1596. His story reached later English Romantic writers, including Robert Southey and Lord Byron. Royal visitors and patrons continued to support the community, yet its distinctive identity remained the contrast between powerful benefactors and deliberately humble religious life.