At the Royal Palace of Sintra with Tiago Viúla de Faria: A space to relax, hunt, gather and eat

Sintra's beauty and resources

The toponymy of the site of the Royal Palace of Sintra is unequivocal. The palace stands on Chão de Oliva, a designation already in use during the reign of King Dinis, and likely much older, possibly dating back to the Islamic period. Indeed, Sintra is described in Arabic sources as an unusually pleasant place, set between the mountains and the sea, blessed with streams of fresh water, abundant vegetable gardens, and flourishing orchards. Undoubtedly, throughout the Middle Ages and in the centuries that followed, the stays of the kings of Portugal—who owned the Palace of Sintra—and members of their immediate family confirmed both the central importance of this building in the life of the Portuguese court and the magnetism that the surrounding territory exerted upon it.

In this guided tour of some of the most emblematic rooms of the Palace of Sintra, we will uncover the close relationship between this royal residence and the entire territorial domain that, for centuries, was connected to it. Even today, this remains a remarkable landscape, not only for its beauty but also for the environmental resources it provides. The palace, the monarchs who resided there, their families, retinues and guests were the main beneficiaries of these resources—whether forestry, agricultural, pastoral or hunting-related. As a result of royal preferences, prevailing cultural trends in Europe at the time, and the gradual transformation of the functional and recreational uses of palace space, hunting came to assert itself in the culture of the Portuguese court in Sintra and, quite evidently, in the very form that the Royal Palace still retains today

About the speaker

Tiago Viúla de Faria is a researcher at the Institute for Medieval Studies at NOVA University Lisbon and a visiting lecturer at the University of Coimbra in the field of Medieval History. He completed his doctorate at St John’s College, University of Oxford (2012), with a thesis on Anglo-Portuguese relations in the Middle Ages. Since then, he has taught at universities in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and Portugal. His research activity has earned him several international awards and fellowships—in Brazil, France, Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom. Focusing on the intersection of history, literature and heritage studies, his main scholarly contributions revolve around courtly culture in the medieval period, exploring themes such as diplomacy in politics and society, animals in medieval culture, and chronicle writing as an ideological tool. He is the president and founder of the Network for the Environment in Medieval Uses and Societies (NEMUS) and principal investigator of the multidisciplinary project FALCO (Rethinking relationships between humans and other animals in medieval Portugal). Associate curator of the Fernão Lopes Portal, he is also responsible for its pedagogical coordination. He has published in the Journal of Medieval Studies, The English Historical Review, Presses Universitaires de France, Boydell Press, Brill, Cambridge and Oxford University Press, among other leading publishers. He coordinated the volume Philippa of Lancaster and the Court Culture of Medieval Portugal (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024).

More information

• Location: National Palace of Sintra
• Date: May 28, 2026
• Time: 7:00 PM
• Duration: 1 hour 15 minutes
• Audience: Youth and adults
• Meeting Point: Main entrance of the Palace
• Accessibility: Route not accessible
• Additional Information: The activity concludes with a cocktail for socializing and informal discussion of ideas and experiences, lasting 30–45 minutes. Participation in this event carries a symbolic fee of €3, directly contributing to the planting of trees that will reforest the cultural landscape.