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Santiago do Cacém Municipality (Portugal)

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]
image by António Martins, 06 Nov 1998
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About the flag

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


Presentation of Santiago do Cacém

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


Previous flags

[Santiago do Cacém previous flag]
image by António Martins, 06 Nov 1998

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


Commune flags

Santo André Commune

[Santo André commune]
António Martins, 06 Feb 1999

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

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