As the power of Castille grew, Portugal called in a new world to redress the balance of the old. Unfortunately in reaching out for this support Portugal fatally overstrained her strength, and the brilliant reign (1495-1521) of King Manoel I (“that great, fortunate, and only Emanuel of Portugall,” Sir Peter Wyche called him) resembled the Cid’s famous coffers, all crimson and golden without, but containing more sand than gold. Those who look at the bedraggled coffer hanging in Burgos Cathedral wonder how it can have deceived the two Jews, and those who see the present somewhat penniless and forlorn condition of Portugal are apt to forget that it was once a great world-empire. Before Portugal became that we have glimpses of the Portuguese as a contented people, fond of song and dance, a pipe and drum at every door, living rustic, idyllic lives as cultivators of the soil in a “land abounding in meat and drink, terra de vyandas e beveres muyto avondosa” (fifteenth century).
ROMAN TEMPLE, EVORA
Discovery of the Indies.
But the discoveries and conquests followed, the magic of the sea, the mystery of the East wove a spell over the imagination of the Portuguese, the country was drained of men, devastated by plague and famine. Lisbon and the East absorbed energies hitherto given to the soil. Portugal, moreover, was doomed to share Spain’s losses during the period 1580-1640, and later was ravaged by frequent civil wars. In fine one might expect to find a dwindling miserable population, dying out from sheer exhaustion. But this would be very far from being a true statement of the case. Portugal is only lying fallow. There are reserves of health and energy, especially in the north, in the sturdy peasants of Beira and Minho. Politically it is only a potential strength, and the real people of Portugal has never yet come into its own, although it was on the point of doing so at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It was not allowed to develop naturally after the first third of that great century. Even to-day there are said to be certain politicians who would dress it up in a suit of ready-made clothes which has caught their fancy in some shop window when they were on a visit to Paris. The Portuguese people deserves better than that, and if it can be given a national government, and a national policy and ideals, it may yet surprise Europe. It is a question of encouraging the indigenous side of Portuguese civilisation—in language, literature, dress, legislation, drama, cookery, in everything—which since the sixteenth century has been set aside for the imported foreign-erudite; to develop as it were the Saxon element at the expense of the Norman. The people have succeeded in keeping many of their old and excellent customs—but by the skin of their teeth now—as they have their own names for many of the Lisbon streets and their own words side by side with those of learned origin.
Foreign Ingredients.
But in order to become acquainted with the Portuguese people it is necessary to go far afield, to the remote villages of Alemtejo or Minho or of the Serra da Estrella, and, the means of doing this being often primitive or non-existent, the traveller contents himself with swift generalities derived from observation of the inhabitants of the towns, precisely, that is, where the Portuguese most displays his weaknesses and where the population is most mixed. Reclus considered the Portuguese “très fortement croisés de nègres,” and other foreign observers have denied the existence of a Portuguese nationality, dismissing it as a mere pot pourri of many races. If this is an exaggeration, it cannot be denied that the many peaceful or warrior invaders—Phoenician, Celt, Carthaginian, Greek or Goth—attracted by this lovely land from age to age, and the numerous slaves imported from Portugal’s overseas dominions have contributed to form a mixed population, especially in and around Lisbon. At Lisbon many persons evidently have negro blood in their veins, and others are of Jewish descent. Sobieski, the Polish traveller, wrote in 1611: “There are in Portugal very many Jews, so many that various houses have a Jewish origin. Although they have burnt and expelled them, many live hidden among the Portuguese.” This was 114 years after the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal.
The Provinces.