The Story of the Nations: Portugal

by H. Morse Stephens

II.
THE COUNTY OF PORTUGAL.

COUNT HENRY of Burgundy, his wife Theresa, and his son Affonso Henriques, were the three founders of Portugal, and they were all of them individuals of marked personality. They were typical figures of their epoch, possessing the curious mixture of virtues and vices which characterized the age of chivalry.

Count Henry was the second son of Henry, who was the third son of Robert, first Duke of Burgundy, and he was like his father and grandfather, a knight of the old French school, combining a passionate love for adventure and for war with an ambitious and self-seeking temperament. He had come to Spain to the assistance of the Christians, as much with the purpose of founding a dynasty as for the love of war, and from the first he turned his thoughts more to the hope of succeeding his father-in-law, Alfonso VI., in one at least of his kingdoms, than to carving a kingdom for himself out of the dominions of the Arab caliphs. He received his county of Portugal, the dowry of his wife, Theresa, illegitimate daughter of Alfonso VI., as a direct fief of the crown of Gallicia, one of the three kingdoms of his father-in-law. This kingdom Alfonso had granted, as a fief, not as a kingdom, to Count Raymond of Toulouse, who had married his legitimate daughter, Urraca, and Count Henry highly disapproved of being in some sort a feudatory of his fellow-adventurer. At first the jealousy between Henry and Raymond did not show itself; for Count Henry had to fight hard to defend his southern frontiers against the incursions of the Mohammedan general Seyr. To his help he summoned the chivalry of France, and the knights of his native country flocked to his assistance, and were promoted to high military positions and to feudal dignities by him. Battle succeeded battle without either side gaining any decisive victory, until after seven years’ hard fighting both Christians and Moors decided to rest awhile to recover from their exhaustion.

Count Henry was, however, too much the restless knight of the Middle Ages to remain quiet long. Since his Portuguese warriors were weary, and the battle-ground for miles on each bank of the Tagus was laid utterly waste, he could fight no longer in his own country against the unbelievers, and so hurried off in 1103 with Maurice, Bishop of Coimbra, to fight them in Palestine. For two years he served in the expedition known as the Second Crusade, and when he returned he was still ready for more fighting at home. His restlessness was typical of his epoch. The knights of the Crusades were always knights-errant, always in search of adventure, and never satiated with war. This spirit was encouraged by the Church, and while the Almoravide caliph Yūsuf was organizing his military forces for a fresh assault on the Christians, Count Henry, on the other hand, went off in search of adventure abroad, leaving his county under the government of his wife, Theresa.

Fortunately for Portugal, Theresa was a singularly able woman. Beautiful and accomplished, the idol of poets and musicians, and capable of inspiring the deepest devotion, she threw herself heart and soul into the task which her restless husband abandoned, and spent the years of his absence in training the Portuguese for fresh struggles. She too possessed all the faults and virtues of her epoch; passionate to a degree in every sense, she became the adored divinity of her nobles, and prepared herself during this brief regency for the longer regency of her widowhood. Her great aim at this time, as it was throughout her stormy life, was to make the Portuguese nobles regard themselves as Portuguese, and not as Gallicians, and thus prepare them to make their country independent. But though her chief endeavour was to heighten and animate the spirit of her nobles, she did not neglect other classes of her subjects; she encouraged the citizens of her cities in their ideas of municipal independence, and urged them to keep their fortifications in good repair, and to be ready to go forth to war under captains of their own choice, instead of under hereditary leaders from among the nobility. The result of this policy was that, in the next generation, the military retainers of the great nobles, who resided in their castles, went forth to fight side by side with the free citizens under their elected leaders, and that her son was able to lead two distinct classes of soldiers under his banners, who vied with each other in prowess against foreign foes, while they were a check upon each other at home, and could be played off against one another in case either class became dangerous to their suzerain.

When Count Henry returned from Palestine in 1105, he became united with his former brother-in-arms, Count Raymond of Gallicia, by a common feeling of jealousy. Both looked forward to inheriting portions of King Alfonso’s dominions, and were extremely suspicious lest the old monarch should favour his natural son, Sancho, whose mother was a Moorish princess, Zaida, daughter of Ibn Abbad, Emīr of Seville. In their dislike for Sancho they were encouraged by the priests, to whom Alfonso’s affection for a Moorish woman was abhorrent, and an agreement was made between the brothers-in-law by an ambitious French monk, named Hugh of Cluny, afterwards Bishop of Oporto, to oust the son of the infidel. 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.