Lamego - Sé de Lamego

Lamego became Catholic when the Visigothic king Rekared I converted to Catholicism. During the reign of Sisebuto (612-621), the Visigothic monarch coined currency from Lamego, indicating the importance of the region to commerce and culture.

The region alternated between Christian and Muslim hands during the early Reconquista Period. The city was first conquered by Alfonso I of Asturias in 741and repopulated in 868 by Alfonso III. It fell into Islamic hands briefly again during the late 10th century, until Ferdinand I of León and Castile conquered the region definitively in 1057.

The most significant moment in the town's history was in 1139, when nobles declared Afonso Henriques to be Portugal's first king.

The diocese of Lamego may have been founded around 570; in any case, as bishop's names are known from this period. After the reconquest of the north of what is now Portugal by Ferdinand I of León in 1057, it continued to exist de facto, but it was not until four years after Portugal's independence (1139) that the bishopric was refounded by King Alfonso I in 1143. The bell tower of the current cathedral dates back to this time, but it was fundamentally altered in the 16th century in the late Gothic/Renaissance style. In 1881, Pope Leo XIII attached the bishopric of Lamego to the archbishopric of Braga.