In the matter of buildings King Dinis not only fortified many towns with castles and walls, but founded numerous churches and convents. The traveller in Portugal even now can scarcely pass a day without coming upon something to remind him of the sixth King of Portugal. The convent of Odivellas, the cloisters of Alcobaça, the beautiful ruins of the castle above Leiria are but three of many instances which show how King Dinis’ work survives even in the twentieth century.
It was said of him that—
Whate’er he willed
Dinis fulfilled.
But he nearly always wrought even better than he knew. He realised no doubt that Portugal was an all-but-island, especially when the relations with Castille were unfriendly; but he could scarcely foresee that of his pinewoods would be built the “ships that went to the discovery of new worlds and seas”; that a future Master of his new Order of Christ would devote its vast revenues to the great work of exploring the West Coast of Africa, the work which bore so important a share in transforming Europe from all that we connect with mediævalism to all that is modern; that his embryo fleet would grow and prosper till Portugal became the foremost sea-power; or that the treaty with England would still be bearing fruit six centuries after his death.
The University, too, lasted and became one of the glories of Portugal, and a source of many of her greatest men in the sixteenth century. Since the sixteenth century, after being several times moved from Coimbra to Lisbon and from Lisbon to Coimbra, it has been fixed in the little town on the right bank of the Mondego and remains one of the most treasured possessions of modern Portugal. The quality that explains how so many of King Dinis’ institutions endured and prospered marvellously in succeeding centuries was thoroughness, the conviction that any work, however humble, if thoroughly done must bear excellent fruit, and a certain solidity which finds little satisfaction in feeding beggars precariously, but great satisfaction in setting them to work on the land.
Perhaps, then, it may come as a surprise that King Dinis was also a poet, one of the greatest of Portugal’s early poets. We have nearly one hundred and fifty poems under his name. He may not have written them all, some may have been composed by the palace jograes, but he showed his good taste and inclination for the national and popular elements in writing or collecting not only poems in the Provençal manner, then on the wane in Portugal, but that older, indigenous poetry which is the most charming feature of early Portuguese literature.
And King Dinis’ poems are among the most charming of all. Here is one of his quaint popular songs, the fascination of which is only faintly discernible in translation:
Friend and lover mine
—Be God our shield!—
See the flower o’ the pine
And fare afield.
Friend and lover, ah me!
—Be God our shield!—
See the flower on the tree
And fare afield.
See the flower o’ the pine
—Be God our shield!—
Saddle the colt so fine
And fare afield.
See the flower on the tree
—Be God our shield!—
The bay horse fair to see
And fare afield.
Saddle the little bay
—Be God our shield—
Hasten, my love, away,
And fare afield.
The horse so fair to see
—Be God our shield!—
My friend, come speedily
To fare afield.
It was King Dinis’ affection for his illegitimate son, Dom Affonso Sanchez, also a poet, that brought trouble on the latter years of his reign. His eldest son and the heir to the throne, Affonso, jealous of the regard, the lands, and privileges bestowed upon Dom Affonso Sanchez, afraid perhaps that the King might devise a way of leaving him the throne, rose in rebellion in 1320 and advanced through Minho to Leiria and Coimbra, ravaging the country as he came. The King, now nearly sixty years old, set out against him and several engagements were fought: it was not till 1322 that Queen Isabel succeeded after strenuous exertions in bringing about peace.
The reconciliation was but temporary. Dom Affonso Sanchez retired to Spain, but returned, and the Prince Affonso rose in arms again in 1323. Again Queen Isabel, going from one to the other, exerted herself to make peace. King Dinis, his anger now thoroughly roused, was not easily appeased. Finally he agreed to increase the Prince’s income, and, much against his will, to part once more from Dom Affonso Sanchez.