history of Portugal

The kingdom and the Reconquista

Although Afonso I granted charters to new settlements, it was his son Sancho I (reigned 1185–1211) who enfranchised many municipalities (concelhos), especially in eastern and central Portugal. The privileges of these communities were embodied in charters (forais), which attracted settlers from the more feudal north. Even Muslims were enfranchised, though many of them were enslaved. Assisted by transient Crusaders, Sancho captured Silves in the Algarve in 1189; however, the following year an Almohad army from Africa advanced to the Tagus, and, although Lisbon, Santarém, and Tomar stood firm, the Muslims recovered Silves in 1191, together with most of the land south of the Tagus. But peace was made before Sancho’s death, and it was left to his son Afonso II (1211–23) to endeavor to strengthen the power of the throne at the expense of the church.

Although Afonso II was an unwarlike king, his followers were beside the Castilians at the great Christian victory in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 and, again assisted by Crusaders, recovered Alcácer do Sal in 1217. Meanwhile, Afonso repudiated the bequests of large estates made by his father to his brothers and accepted those to his sisters only after a war with León and in a form, settled by the pope, that recognized Afonso’s sovereignty. In the first year of his reign, Afonso called a meeting of the Cortes (parliament) at Coimbra, to which the nobility and prelates were summoned (representatives of the commoners were not to appear until 1254). Both estates obtained important concessions; in fact, the position of the church and the orders was now so strong that Afonso II and his successors were involved in recurrent conflicts with Rome. Afonso himself instituted (from 1220) inquirições, or royal commissions, to investigate the nature of holdings and to recover whatever had been illegally taken from the crown.

Little is known of the reign of his son Sancho II (1223–c. 1246), but the reconquest of the Alentejo was now completed, and much of the Algarve had also been retaken. When Sancho became king, he found the church in full ascendancy as a result of the agreement made before his father’s death. At all events, his younger brother Afonso, who had become count of Boulogne through his marriage (1238) to Matilde, daughter of Raynald I, comte (count) de Dammartin, was granted a papal commission in 1245 to take over the government, and Sancho was ordered to be deposed by papal bull. When Afonso reached Lisbon in late 1245 or early 1246, he received the support of the church and of the inhabitants of Lisbon and other towns. After a civil war lasting two years, Sancho II retired to Toledo, dying there in January 1248.

On his arrival the count of Boulogne had already declared himself king as Afonso III, and the death of Sancho without issue gave his usurpation the mantle of legality. He brought together the divided kingdom, completed the reconquest of the Algarve, transferred the capital from Coimbra to Lisbon, and, fortified by the support of the towns, summoned the Cortes at Leiria, where in 1254 commoners representing the municipalities made their first appearance. Afonso III’s conquest of the Algarve aroused the jealousy of Castile. Campaigns were fought in 1250 and 1252, and peace was made only by means of a marriage pact. Although still the husband of Matilde of Boulogne, Afonso married Beatriz, illegitimate daughter of Alfonso X of Castile, holding the disputed territory of the Algarve as a fief of Castile until the eldest son of the marriage should reach age seven, at which time the Algarve was to return to Portugal. This marriage led to a dispute with the Holy See, in which Afonso was placed under an interdict. Though beholden to Rome, Afonso refused to give way; in 1263 the bigamous marriage was legalized and his eldest son, Dinis, legitimized. Shortly afterward Afonso launched inquirições that deprived the church of much property. The prelates protested these actions of the royal commissions, and most of them subsequently left the country. Although Afonso was excommunicated and threatened with deposition, he continued to defy the church until shortly before his death early in 1279.

The achievements of Afonso’s reign—the completion of the Reconquista, the assertion of royal power before the church, and the incorporation of the commoners in the Cortes—indicate important institutional advances. Under his son Dinis (1279–1325), Portugal came into closer contact with western Europe. The chartering of fairs and the increased use of minted money bore witness to the growth of commerce, and the planting of pine forests to hold back the advancing sand dunes near Leiria illustrated Dinis’s interest in furthering shipbuilding and agriculture. Having already adopted various measures to stimulate foreign trade, Dinis in 1317 engaged a Genoese admiral, Emanuele Pessagno, to build up his navy. He founded the University of Coimbra (originally in Lisbon) in 1290 and was both a poet and a patron of literature. Yet he was especially famed as the rei lavrador (farmer king) for his interest in the land.

Despite Dinis’s attachment to the arts of peace, Portugal was involved in strife several times during his reign. In 1297 the Treaty of Alcañices with Castile confirmed Portugal’s possession of the Algarve and provided for an alliance between Portugal and Castile. The mother of Dinis’s son, the future Afonso IV (1325–57), was Isabel, daughter of Peter III of Aragon. This remarkable woman, later canonized as St. Elizabeth of Portugal and popularly known as the Rainha Santa (the Holy Queen), successfully exercised her influence in pursuit of peace on several occasions.

Disputes with Castile

Afonso IV (the Brave) was also involved in various disputes with Castile. Isabel, who had retired to the convent of Santa Clara at Coimbra, continued to intervene in favor of peace. However, upon Isabel’s death in 1336 war broke out, and peace terms were not made until 1340, when Afonso, leading a Portuguese army, joined Alfonso XI of Castile in the great victory over the Muslims on the Salado River in Andalusia. Afonso’s son Peter was married (1336) to Constança (died 1345), daughter of the Castilian infante Juan Manuel. Soon after the marriage, however, Peter fell in love with her cousin Inês de Castro, with whom he had several children. Afonso was persuaded to allow the assassination of Inês in 1355, and one of the earliest acts of Peter I as king was to take vengeance on her murderers. During his short reign (1357–67), Peter devoted himself to the dispensation of justice; his judgments, which he executed himself, were severe and often violent, and his iron rule was tempered only by fits of reveling.

Ferdinand I (1367–83), Peter’s son by Constança, inherited a wealthy throne almost free of external entanglements, but the dispute between Peter, king of Castile and León, and Henry of Trastámara (later Henry II) over the Castilian throne was raging. On the murder of Peter in 1369, several Castilian towns offered Ferdinand their allegiance, which he was unwise enough to accept. Henry II duly invaded Portugal, and, by the Peace of Alcoutim (1371), Ferdinand was forced to renounce his claim and to promise to marry Henry’s daughter; however, he instead took a Portuguese wife, Leonor Teles, despite the fact that she was already married and against the wishes of the commoners of Lisbon. In 1372 Ferdinand made an alliance with the English through John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, who had married the elder daughter of Peter and claimed the Castilian throne. In 1372 Ferdinand provoked Henry II, who invaded Portugal and besieged Lisbon. Unable to resist, Ferdinand was forced to repudiate his alliance with John of Gaunt and to act as an ally of Castile, surrendering various castles and persons as hostages. It was only on the death of Henry in 1379 that Ferdinand dared to openly challenge Castile again. In 1380 the English connection was resumed, and in the following year John of Gaunt’s brother Edmund of Langley, earl of Cambridge (afterward Edmund of Langley, 1st duke of York), took a force to Portugal for the invasion of Castile and betrothed his son Edward to Ferdinand’s only legitimate child, Beatriz. In August 1382, in the middle of the campaign, Ferdinand came to terms with the enemy, agreeing to marry Beatriz to a Castilian prince. She did, in effect, become the wife of John I of Castile, and, when Ferdinand died, Leonor became regent and Castile claimed the Portuguese crown.

Leonor had long been the paramour of the Galician João Fernandes Andeiro, conde de Ourém, who had intrigued with both England and Castile and whose influence was much resented by Portuguese patriots. Opponents of Castile chose as their leader an illegitimate son of Peter I: John, master of Aviz, who killed Ourém in December 1383 and, being assured of the support of the populace of Lisbon, assumed the title of defender of the realm. Leonor fled first to Alenquer and then to Santarém, and the king of Castile came to her aid; soon, however, he relegated her to a Spanish convent. In 1384 Lisbon was besieged for five months, but an outbreak of plague forced the Castilians to retire.

Independence assured

A number of towns and castles still held out for Castile when in August 1385 John I of Castile and a considerable army made their appearance in central Portugal. Although quite outnumbered, the Portuguese won the great Battle of Aljubarrota (August 14, 1385), in which the Castilian chivalry was dispersed and John of Castile himself barely escaped. The victory assured John I of his kingdom and made him a desirable ally. A small force of English archers had been present at Aljubarrota in support of the Portuguese. The Treaty of Windsor, concluded on May 9, 1386, raised the Anglo-Portuguese connection to the status of a firm, binding, and permanent alliance between the two crowns. John of Gaunt duly went to the Iberian Peninsula in July 1386 and attempted an invasion of Castile in conjunction with John I. The invasion was not successful, but in 1387 the Portuguese king married John of Gaunt’s daughter Philippa of Lancaster, who introduced various English practices into Portugal. The truce arranged with Castile in 1387 was prolonged at intervals until peace was finally concluded in 1411.

The victory of John I may be regarded as a triumph of the national spirit over the feudal attachment to established order. Because much of the older nobility sided with Castile, John rewarded his followers at their expense and the crown’s. Meanwhile, commerce prospered, and the marriage of John’s daughter Isabella to Philip III (the Good) of Burgundy was to be followed by the growth of close trading relations between Portugal and Philip’s county of Flanders. With the conclusion of peace with Castile, John found an outlet for the activities of his frontiersmen and of his own sons in the conquest of Ceuta (1415), from which the great age of Portuguese expansion may be dated.

In 1437, during the short reign of John’s eldest son, Edward (Duarte; 1433–38), an unsuccessful attempt to conquer Tangier was made by John’s third son, Prince Henry the Navigator, and his younger brother Ferdinand (who was captured by the Moors and died, still unransomed, in 1443). Edward’s son Afonso V (1438–81) was still a child when Edward died, and Edward’s brother Pedro, duke of Coimbra (Dom Pedro), had himself made regent in 1440 instead of the widow, Leonor of Aragon. However, Pedro’s own regency was later challenged by the powerful Bragança family, descended from Afonso, illegitimate son of John of Aviz, and Beatriz, daughter of Nuno Álvares Pereira. This family continued to set the young king against his uncle, who was forced to resign the regency, driven to take up arms, and killed at Alfarrobeira in May 1449. Afonso proved unable to resist the demands of the Braganças, who now became the wealthiest family in Portugal. Having married Joan, daughter of Henry IV of Castile, Afonso laid claim to the Castilian throne and became involved in a lengthy struggle with Ferdinand and Isabella in the region of Zamora and Toro, where he was defeated in 1476. He then sailed to France in a failed attempt to enlist the support of Louis XI, and on his return he concluded with Castile the Treaty of Alcáçovas (1479), abandoning the claims of his wife. Afonso never recovered from his reverse, and during his last years his son John administered the kingdom.

Consolidation of the monarchy

John II (1481–95) was as cautious, firm, and jealous of royal power as his father had been openhanded and negligent. At his reign’s first Cortes, John exacted a detailed oath of homage that displeased his greatest vassals. A suspicion of conspiracy enabled him to arrest Fernando II, duke of Bragança, and many of his followers; the duke was sentenced to death and executed at Évora in 1484. As well as attacking the power of the nobility, John lessened the effects of the unfavorable treaty with Castile. Calculating and resolute, he later received the epithet “the Perfect Prince.”

Predeceased by his legitimate son, John II was succeeded by his cousin the duke of Beja, as Manuel I (1495–1521), known as “the Fortunate.” Manuel, who assumed the title of “Lord of the Conquest, Navigation, and Commerce of India, Ethiopia, Arabia, and Persia,” inherited, because of the work of John II, a firmly established autocratic monarchy and a rapidly expanding overseas empire. Drawn toward Spain by the common need to defend their overseas interests as defined by the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), Manuel nourished the hope that the whole peninsula could be united under the house of Aviz; to that end he married Isabella, eldest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. However, she died in 1498 while giving birth to a son, Miguel da Paz. This child, recognized as heir to Portugal, Castile, and Aragon, died in infancy. Manuel then married Isabella’s sister Maria (died 1517) and eventually Eleanor, sister of the emperor Charles V.

As a condition of his marriage to Isabella, Manuel was required to “purify” Portugal of Jews. After Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, John II had admitted many Jewish refugees; he had taxed the Jews heavily but was also to supply ships for them to leave Portugal. This was not done, however, and Manuel now ordered all Jews to leave within 10 months, by October 1497. On their assembly in Lisbon, every effort was made to secure their conversion by promises or by force. Some who resisted were allowed to go, but the rest were “converted” under promise that no inquiry would be made into their beliefs for 20 years. As “Christians,” they could not be forced to emigrate, and, indeed, they were prohibited from leaving Portugal. In April 1506 a large number of these “new Christians,” or conversos, were massacred in Lisbon during a riot, but Manuel afterward protected the Marranos and allowed many to emigrate to Holland, where their experience with Portuguese trade was put to the service of the Dutch.

If Manuel failed to realize his dream of ruling Spain, his son John III (1521–57) lacked the power to resist Castilian influence. A pious, retiring man, he was ruled by his wife, Catherine, sister of Emperor Charles V, and encouraged the installation of the Inquisition (1536); the first auto-da-fé (“act of faith,” a public condemnation or punishment of so-called heretics during the Inquisition) was held in 1540. The Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), established in 1540, soon controlled education in Portugal. In 1529 the settlement by the Treaty of Zaragoza (Saragossa) of a dispute over the possession of the Moluccas (an island group part of present-day Indonesia) removed an obstacle to Portuguese-Spanish understanding, and the line dividing Portuguese and Spanish interests in the New World (established by the Treaty of Tordesillas) was matched by a similar line in the Pacific. Meanwhile, this dual theoretical division of new lands between the Portuguese and Spanish and the Reformation had come between Portugal and its English ally.

John III was succeeded by his grandson Sebastian (1557–78), then only three years old. As a child Sebastian became obsessed with the idea of a Crusade against Morocco. Fanatically religious, he had no doubts of his own powers and listened only to flatterers. He visited Ceuta and Tangier in 1574 and began in 1576 to prepare a large expedition against Larache; his forces departed in June 1578 and on August 4 were utterly destroyed by the Moors in the Battle of the Three Kings near Alcazarquivir (Ksar el-Kebir). Sebastian and some 8,000 of his forces were killed, some 15,000 were captured, and only a handful escaped.

Sebastian was succeeded by his great-uncle, Cardinal Henry (1578–80), a brother of John III. His age and celibacy made it certain that the Portuguese throne would soon pass from the direct line of Aviz. Philip II of Spain, nephew of John III and husband (by his first marriage) of John’s daughter Maria, had already made his preparations, and, when the cardinal-king died on January 31, 1580, Philip summoned the authorities to obey him. An army under the great duke of Alba entered Portugal in 1580; the resistance of António, prior of Crato (illegitimate son of John III’s brother Luís), acclaimed António I at Santarém, collapsed; and Philip II of Spain became Philip I of Portugal (1580–98).

Medieval social and economic development

Medieval Portugal comprised regions of considerable diversity. In the north the old aristocracy of Leonese descent owned large estates worked mainly by serfs. In the southern territory that had been reconquered from Muslim rule, there were many towns, often separated by districts almost barren and depopulated. Cistercian monks, who had reached Portugal by 1143, took the initiative in settling these areas; later kings such as Sancho I and Afonso III established concelhos (municipalities), granting them chartered privileges designed to attract settlers. Tax concessions were often given, and freedom was promised to serfs or Christian captives after a year’s residence. In the south, however, the concelhos were burdened with defense duties. The cavaleiros-vilãos (villein knights) were obliged to horse and arm themselves; the peões, or less-substantial men, were required to serve as foot soldiers in defense of the country and perhaps also on a fossado (raid) into Muslim territory.

At court the king was advised by his curia regis (court or council), comprising the majordomus curiae, the head of the administration, the military chief or signifer, the dapifer curiae (steward of the household), the chancellor (an official whose origins in Portugal were Burgundian rather than Visigothic), and any members of the greater aristocracy, the ricos-homens, who might be at court. The ricos-homens also comprised the bishops and abbots and masters of the orders of knighthood; many held private civil or military authority. The lesser nobility were without such rights. Below them came various classes of free commoners, such as the cavaleiros-vilãos and the malados, men who had commended themselves to protectors. There were numerous serfs and enslaved people.

There had been several shifts in the social structure by the end of the medieval period. Many of the old aristocracy lost their position at the advent of the house of Aviz, and the new nobility, exemplified in the house of Bragança, was often of bureaucratic or ministerial origin. Representatives of the commoners, first attending the Cortes in 1254 on behalf of the concelhos, took an increasing part in politics. The Cortes were very frequently called during the reigns of John I, Edward, and Afonso V, but the avenues of power had become wider by the 16th century, and John III’s proposal in 1525 to call them only every 10 years aroused no opposition. Although the trade guilds were slow in developing, they took some part in determining local taxation in the 13th century. Trade increased, Portuguese merchants having had connections with the Low Countries from the time of Afonso Henriques and with England from the early 13th century. The political crisis of 1385 was followed by inflation and debasements; thereafter there was no national gold currency until 1435, when West African sources began to be tapped.

The discoveries and the empire