Portugal of the Portuguese

by Aubrey F. G. Bell

His son, Sancho I, second King of Portugal (1185-1211), and perhaps also her first poet (in a poem addressed to the fair Maria Paes), had proved himself in his youth worthy of his father’s great reputation. The conquest of the south of the Peninsula from the Moors continued. Silves was taken in 1189, retaken by the Moors in 1191. But Sancho did not confine himself to war: he founded towns and encouraged agriculture to such an extent that he became known as the Lavrador or the Poblador. In his reign occurred the first disagreement between Church and State, which was soon to grow to so serious a conflict. The religious orders for their past and prospective services against the Moors had received huge grants of land from his father and from King Sancho himself. Often an Order would be given the whole of a vast tract of land still unconquered from the Moors. It seemed a little thing at the time, but when conquered and cultivated, made the possessors as powerful as the King or more so. King Sancho, however, left a prosperous kingdom at his death. By his will he bequeathed certain important towns to his daughters absolutely.

Affonso II.

Their brother, King Affonso II, refused to waive his right to these towns, and the first years of his reign were occupied with civil war, while it ended in a first serious disagreement with the Clergy and Rome. The most welcome event of his reign was the capture of the strongly fortified town of Alcacer do Sal from the Moors in 1217, with the help of Crusaders who had sheltered in the Tagus and sailed up the Sado to the attack.

Sancho II.

In the reign of his son, Sancho II (1223-46), the strife with the Clergy developed and the powerful nobility took part against the King, the dissatisfaction being fanned apparently by the report that the King intended to marry his distant cousin, Mecia Lopes de Haro, daughter of the Lord of Biscay. The King, who had continued the conquest of Algarve, and won the important town of Tavira, was powerless to withstand the forces united against him. A deputation of Portuguese prelates and nobles waited on the Pope at Lyon, and persuaded him to depose King Sancho, or rather to appoint his brother Affonso as Regent. The cynical and ambitious Affonso had been long resident in France, and he now accepted the offer with some alacrity, taking whatever oaths were required of him before he set out for Portugal. The King fled at his approach, and died two years later an exile at Toledo (1248).

Affonso III.

As he was childless, Affonso was his natural successor. His ambitions realised, he made a good king—he seems to have had great personal attractions—and continued successful in all his undertakings. The conquest of Algarve was completed, Faro, facing out towards Africa, falling to the King in 1249. A dispute between Affonso III and Alfonso X, the Learned, of Castille, arose out of these Portuguese victories in Algarve. The Guadiana was not yet a boundary between Spain and Portugal, and it seemed as if the victorious Portuguese might eventually deprive Castille of the potential possession of the whole southern strip of the Peninsula, even to Almería. A treaty settled their differences in 1253. By this treaty Affonso III was to marry Brites, illegitimate daughter of Alfonso X. The wedding, as well as the bride, was illegitimate, for the Portuguese King was already married to the French Countess Mathilde. The dowry now offered was a glittering temptation, and the Pope, who excommunicated Affonso III for bigamy, should have included in his ban the Castilian monarch, fellow-conspirator with Affonso in this wickedness.

Diniz.

When Affonso died his eldest son, Diniz or Denis (1279-1325) was in his eighteenth year. Owing to the illness of his father—bedridden for years before his death—he had early taken a part in affairs. Indeed, at the age of six, we find him a full-blown diplomatist, sent on a mission—connected with the independence of Algarve—to his grandfather, King Alfonso the Learned, at Seville. As King, his activities were many-sided, and in all of them he showed the same strong will and good sense, always directed towards the strengthening of Portugal, and making the interests of throne and people one. The quarrel between the State and the Church in Portugal, backed by the Vatican, which had caused his father to die excommunicate, continued, but by an attitude of equal firmness and justice. King Diniz contrived to bring about a settlement, and to check the acquisition of real property by the religious orders. The same firm hand dealt with the overweening nobility. Some discontent was felt among the nobles, and Diniz’ real popularity was with the workmen, peasants, and small farmers, whose interests he so unflaggingly protected. Throughout the country he built and rebuilt walls and towns and towers, and encouraged the cultivators of the soil as “the nerves of the republic.” He founded in 1290 at Lisbon the University, which after several removals from Lisbon to Coimbra and from Coimbra to Lisbon, is now definitely fixed at Coimbra. And, as if he foresaw all Portugal’s destined task and glory, he encouraged ship-building, imported an admiral for his fleet from Genoa, and planted the country about Leiria with pines. As a poet he has left us a greater number of lyrics than any other early king, with the exception, perhaps, of his grandfather of Castille. And he wrote them not only in the Provençal manner, but characteristically encouraged the indigenous poetry derived from the soil of Galicia. He was a thorough Portuguese, and ruled over a clearly defined region with the boundaries of modern Portugal. The first years of his reign were clouded by civil strife with his brother, who based a claim to the Crown on the fact that Diniz was born before the Countess Mathilde died, and his last years were saddened by disagreement with his eldest son. This only did not come to battles even more serious than those actually fought owing to the untiring mediation of King Diniz’ wife, the Queen Saint Elizabeth.