Part 67

"The early history of the country, which took the name of Portugal from the county which formed the nucleus of the future kingdom, is identical with that of the rest of the Iberian peninsula, but deserves some slight notice because of an old misconception, immortalized in the title of the famous epic of Camoens, and not yet entirely eradicated even from modern ideas. Portugal, like the rest of the peninsula, was originally inhabited by men of the prehistoric ages. … There seems to be no doubt that the Celts, the first Aryan immigrants, were preceded by a non-Aryan race, which is called by different writers the Iberian or Euskaldunac nation, but this earlier race speedily amalgamated with the Celts, and out of the two together were formed the five tribes inhabiting the Iberian peninsula, which Strabo names as the Cantabrians, the Vasconians, the Asturians, the Gallicians and the Lusitanians. It is Strabo, also, who mentions the existence of Greek colonies at the mouth of the Tagus, Douro, and Minho, and it is curious to note that the old name of Lisbon, Olisipo, was from the earliest times identified with that of the hero of the Odyssey, and was interpreted to mean the city of Ulysses. … {2569} The Carthaginians, though they had colonies all over the peninsula, established their rule mainly over the south and east of it, having their capital at Carthagena or Nova Carthago, and seem to have neglected the more barbarous northern and western provinces. It was for this reason that the Romans found far more difficulty in subduing these latter provinces. … In 189 B. C. Lucius Æmilius Paullus defeated the Lusitanians, and in 185 B. C. Gaius Calpurnius forced his way across the Tagus. There is no need here to discuss the gradual conquest by the Romans of that part of the peninsula which includes the modern kingdom of Portugal, but it is necessary to speak of the gallant shepherd Viriathus, who sustained a stubborn war against the Romans from 149 B. C. until he was assassinated in 139 B. C., because he has been generally claimed as the first national hero of Portugal. This claim has been based upon the assumed identification of the modern Portugal with the ancient Lusitania [see LUSITANIA, an identification which has spread its roots deep in Portuguese literature, and has until recently been generally accepted. … The Celtic tribe of Lusitanians dwelt, according to Strabo, in the districts north of the Tagus, while the Lusitania of the Latin historians of the Republic undoubtedly lay to the south of that river, though it was not used as the name of a province until the time of Augustus, when the old division of the peninsula into Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior was superseded by the division into Betica, Tarraconensis, and Lusitania. Neither in this division, nor in the division of the peninsula into the five provinces of Tarraconensis, Carthaginensis, Betica, Lusitania, and Gallicia, under Hadrian, was the province called Lusitania coterminous with the modern kingdom of Portugal. Under each division the name was given to a district south of the Tagus. … It is important to grasp the result of this misconception, for it emphasizes the fact that the history of Portugal for many centuries is merged in that of the rest of the Iberian peninsula, and explains why it is unnecessary to study the wars of the Lusitanians with the Roman Republic, as is often done in histories of Portugal. Like the rest of the peninsula Portugal was thoroughly Latinized in the days of the Roman Empire; Roman 'coloniæ', and 'municipia' were established in places suited for trade, such as Lisbon and Oporto. … Peaceful existence under the sway of Rome continued until the beginning of the 5th century, when the Goths first forced their way across the Pyrenees. …

See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 410-419.

The Visigothic Empire left but slight traces in Portugal." The Mohammedan conquest by the Arab-Moors, which began early in the 8th century, extended to Portugal, and for a general account of the struggle in the peninsula between Christians and Moslems during several succeeding centuries the reader is referred to SPAIN: A. D. 711-713, and after. "In 997 Bermudo II., king of Gallicia, won back the first portion of modern Portugal from the Moors by seizing Oporto and occupying the province now known as the Entre Minho e Douro. … In 1055 Ferdinand 'the Great,' king of Leon, Castile, and Gallicia, invaded the Beira; in 1057 he took Lamego and Viseu; and in 1064 Coimbra, where he died in the following year. He arranged for the government of his conquests in the only way possible under the feudal system, by forming them into a county, extending to the Mondego, with Coimbra as its capital. The first count of Coimbra was Sesnando, a recreant Arab vizir, who had advised Ferdinand to invade his district and had assisted in its easy conquest. … But though Sesnando's county of Coimbra was the great frontier county of Gallicia, and the most important conquest of Ferdinand 'the Great,' it was not thence that the kingdom which was to develop out of his dominions was to take its name. Among the counties of Gallicia was one called the 'comitatus Portucalensis,' because it contained within its boundaries the famous city at the mouth of the Douro, known in Roman and Greek times as the Portus Cale, and in modern days as Oporto, or 'The Port.' This county of Oporto or Portugal was the one destined to give its name to the future kingdom, and was held at the time of Ferdinand's death by Nuno Mendes, the founder of one of the most famous families in Portuguese history. Ferdinand 'the Great' was succeeded in his three kingdoms of Castile, Leon, and Gallicia, by his three sons, Sancho, Alfonso, and Garcia, the last of whom received the two counties of Coimbra and Oporto as fiefs of Gallicia, and maintained Nuno Mendes and Sesnando as his feudatories." Wars between the three sons ensued, as the result of which "the second of them, Alfonso of Leon, eventually united all his father's kingdoms in 1073, as Alfonso VI." This Alfonso was now called upon to encounter a new impulse of Mohammedan aggression, under a new dynasty, that of the Almoravides

See ALMORAVIDES.

"The new dynasty collected great Moslem armies, and in 1086 Yusuf Ibn Teshfin routed Alfonso utterly at the battle of Zalaca, and reconquered the peninsula up to the Ebro. … Alfonso tried to compensate for this defeat and his loss of territory in the east of his dominions by conquests in the west, and in 1093 he advanced to the Tagus and took Santarem and Lisbon, and made Sueiro Mendes, count of the new district. But these conquests he did not hold for long. … In 1093 Seyr, the general of the Almoravide caliph Yusuf, took Evora from the Emir of Badajoz; in 1094 he took Badajoz itself, and killed the emir; and retaking Lisbon and Santarem forced his way up to the Mondego. To resist this revival of the Mohammedan power, Alfonso summoned the chivalry of Christendom to his aid. Among the knights who joined his army eager to win their spurs, and win dominions for themselves, were Count Raymond of Toulouse and Count Henry of Burgundy. To the former, Alfonso gave his legitimate daughter, Urraca, and Gallicia; to the latter, his illegitimate daughter Theresa, and the counties of Oporto and Coimbra, with the title of Count of Portugal. The history of Portugal now becomes distinct from that of the rest of the peninsula, and it is from the year 1095 that the history of Portugal commences. The son of Henry of Burgundy was the great monarch Affonso Henriques, the hero of his country and the founder of a great dynasty."

_H. M. Stephens, The Story of Portugal, chapter 1._

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PORTUGAL: A. D. 1095-1325. The county made independent and raised to the rank of a kingdom. Completion of conquests from the Moors. Limits of the kingdom established.

Count Henry of Burgundy waged war for seven years with his Moorish neighbors; then went crusading to Palestine for two years. On his return in 1105 he made common cause with his brother-in-law and brother-adventurer, Count Raymond of Gallicia, against the suspected intention of King Alfonso to declare his bastard, half-Moorish son, Sancho, the heir to his dominions. "This peaceful arrangement had no result, owing to the death of Count Raymond in 1107, followed by that of young Sancho at the battle of Uclés with the Moors, in 1108, and finally by the death of Alfonso VI. himself in 1109. The king's death brought about the catastrophe. He left all his dominions to his legitimate daughter, Urraca, with the result that there was five years of fierce fighting between Henry of Burgundy, Alfonso Raimundes, the son of Count Raymond, Alfonso I. of Aragon, and Queen Urraca. … While they fought with each other the Mohammedans advanced. … On May 1, 1114, Count Henry died, … leaving his wife Theresa as regent during the minority of his son Affonso Henriques, who was but three years old. Theresa, who made the ancient city of Guimaraens her capital, devoted all her energies to building up her son's dominions into an independent state; and under her rule, while the Christian states of Spain were torn by internecine war, the Portuguese began to recognize Portugal as their country, and to cease from calling themselves Gallicians. This distinction between Portugal and Gallicia was the first step towards the formation of a national spirit, which grew into a desire for national independence." The regency of Theresa, during which she was engaged in many contests, with her half-sister Urraca and others, ended in 1128. In the later years of it she provoked great discontent by her infatuation with a lover to whom she was passionately devoted. In the end, her son headed a revolt which expelled her from Portugal. The son, Affonso Henriques, assumed the reins of government at the age of seventeen years. In 1130 he began a series of wars with Alfonso VII. of Castile, the aim of which was to establish the independence of Portugal. These wars were ended in 1140 by an agreement, "in consonance with the ideas of the times, to refer the great question of Portuguese Independence to a chivalrous contest. In a great tournament, known as the Tourney of Valdevez, the Portuguese knights were entirely successful over those of Castile, and in consequence of their victory Affonso Henriques assumed the title of King of Portugal. This is the turning-point of Portuguese history, and it is a curious fact that the independence of Portugal from Gallicia was achieved by victory in a tournament and not in war. Up to 1136, Affonso Henriques had styled himself Infante, in imitation of the title borne by his mother; from 1136 to 1140 he styled himself Principe, and in 1140 he first took the title of King." A little before this time, on the 25th of July, 1139, Affonso had defeated the Moors in a famous and much magnified battle—namely that of Orik or Ourique—"which, until modern investigators examined the facts, has been considered to have laid the foundations of the independence of Portugal. Chroniclers, two centuries after the battle, solemnly asserted that five kings were defeated on this occasion, that 200,000 Mohammedans were slain, and that after the victory the Portuguese soldiers raised Affonso on their shields and hailed him as king. This story is absolutely without authority from contemporary chronicles, and is quite as much a fiction as the Cortes of Lamego, which has been invented as sitting in 1143 and passing the constitutional laws on which Vertot and other writers have expended so much eloquence. … It was not until the modern school of historians arose in Portugal, which examined documents and did not take the statements of their predecessors on trust, that it was clearly pointed out that Affonso Henriques won his crown by his long struggle with his Christian cousin, and not by his exploits against the Moors."

_H. M. Stephens, The Story of Portugal, chapters 2-3._

"The long reign of Affonso I., an almost uninterrupted period of war, is the most brilliant epoch in the history of the Portuguese conquests. Lisbon, which had already under its Moorish masters become the chief city of the west, was taken in 1147, and became at once the capital of the new kingdom. The Tagus itself was soon passed. Large portions of the modern Estremadura and Alemtejo were permanently annexed. The distant provinces of Algarve and Andalucia were overrun; and even Seville trembled at the successes of the Portuguese. It was in vain that Moorish vessels sailed from Africa to chastise the presumption of their Christian foes; their ships were routed off Lisbon by the vessels of Affonso; their armies were crushed by a victory at Santarem [1184], the last, and perhaps the most glorious of the many triumphs of the King. … Every conquest saw the apportionment of lands to be held by military tenure among the conquerors; and the Church, which was here essentially a militant one, received not only an endowment for its religion but a reward for its sword. The Orders of St. Michael and of Avis [St. Benedict of Avis] which were founded had a religious as well as a military aspect. Their members were to be distinguished by their piety not less than by their courage, and were to emulate the older brotherhoods of Jerusalem and of Castile. … Sancho I. [who succeeded his father Affonso in 1185], though not adverse to military fame, endeavoured to repair his country's wounds; and his reign, the complement of that of Affonso, was one of development rather than of conquest. … The surname of El Povoador, the Founder, is the indication of his greatest work. New towns and villages arose, new wealth and strength were given to the rising country. Affonso II. [1211] continued what Sancho had begun; and the enactment of laws, humane and wise, are a testimony of progress, and an honourable distinction to his reign." But Affonso II. provoked the hostility of an arrogant and too powerful clergy, and drew upon himself a sentence of excommunication from Rome. "The divisions and the weakness which were caused by the contest between the royal and ecclesiastical authority brought misery upon the kingdom. The reign of Sancho II. [who succeeded to the throne in 1223] was more fatally influenced by them even than that of his father. … The now familiar terrors of excommunication and interdict were followed [1245] by a sentence of deposition from Innocent IV.; and Sancho, weak in character, and powerless before a hostile priesthood and a disaffected people, retired to end his days in a cloister of Castile. The successor to Sancho was Affonso III. {2571} He had intrigued for his brother's crown; he had received the support of the priesthood, and he had promised them their reward in the extension of their privileges"; but his administration of the government was wise and popular. He died in 1279. "The first period of the history of Portugal is now closed. Up to this time, each reign, disturbed and enfeebled though it may have been, had added something to the extent of the country. But now the last conquest from the Moors had been won. On the south, the impassable barrier of the ocean; on the east, the dominions of Castile, confined the kingdom. … The crusading days were over. … The reign of Denis, who ruled from 1279 to 1325, is at once the parallel to that of Affonso I. in its duration and importance, the contrast to it in being a period of internal progress instead of foreign conquest. … That Denis should have been able to accomplish as much as he did, was the wonder even of his own age. … Successive reigns still found the country progressing."

_C. F. Johnstone, Historical Abstracts, chapter 4._

ALSO IN: _E. McMurdo, History of Portugal, volume 1, books 1-4, and volume 2, book 1._

PORTUGAL: A. D. 1383-1385. The founding of the new dynasty, of the House of Avis.

"The legitimate descent of the kings of Portugal from Count Henry, of the house of Burgundy, terminated with Ferdinand (the son of Peter I.) … in 1383. After wasting the resources of his people in the vain support of his claims to the crown of Castile, exposing Lisbon to a siege, and the whole country to devastation, this monarch gave his youthful daughter in marriage to the natural enemy of Portugal, John I., at that time the reigning king of Castile. … It was agreed between the contracting parties that the male issue of this connection should succeed to the Portuguese sceptre, and, that failing, that it should devolve into the hands of the Castilian monarch. Fortunately, however, the career of this Spanish tyrant was short, and no issue was left of Beatrix, for whom the crown of Portugal could be claimed; and therefore all the just pretensions of the Spaniard ceased. The marriage had scarcely been concluded, when Ferdinand died. It had been provided by the laws of the constitution, that in a case of emergency, such as now occurred, the election of a new sovereign should immediately take place. The legal heir to the crown, Don Juan [the late king's brother], the son of Pedro and Ignes de Castro, whose marriage had been solemnly recognised by an assembly of the states, was a prisoner at this time in the hands of his rival, the king of Castile. The necessity of having a head to the government appointed without delay, opened the road to the throne for John, surnamed the Bastard, the natural son of Don Pedro, by Donna Theresa Lorenzo, a Galician lady. Availing himself of the natural aversion by which the Portuguese were influenced against the Castilians, he seized the regency from the hands of the queen-dowager, … successfully defended Lisbon, and forced the Spaniards to retire into Spain after their memorable defeat on the plain of Aljubarota. … This battle … completely established the independence of the Portuguese monarchy. John was, in consequence, unanimously elected King by the Cortes, assembled at Coimbra in 1385. … In aid of his natural talents John I. had received an excellent education from his father, and during his reign exhibited proofs of being a profound politician, as well as a skilful general. … He became the founder of a new dynasty of kings, called the house of 'Avis,' from his having been grand master of that noble order. The enterprises, however, of the great Prince Henry, a son of John I., form a distinguishing feature of this reign."

_W. M. Kinsey, Portugal Illustrated, pages 34-35._

PORTUGAL: A. D. 1415-1460. The taking of Ceuta. The exploring expeditions of Prince Henry the Navigator down the African coast.