The Story of the Nations: Portugal

by H. Morse Stephens

This is the famous victory of 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 two hundred thousand 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. One ought, perhaps, to speak with more reverence of the legend which tells how Christ crucified appeared to Affonso in his tent, on the evening before the battle, and promised him the victory, even though there is no contemporary tradition referring to it; because it would have been quite in keeping with the mysticism of the Middle Ages for Affonso to assert that he had seen such a vision in order to encourage his soldiers. This tradition was certainly current a century after the battle, and the kings of Portugal to this day bear the five wounds of Christ in a chief upon their coat of arms in memory of it.[3] These legends all deserve record, if only to show how great was the fame of the victory of Affonso, rather from his courage in penetrating so far into the enemy’s country than from his success in the battle itself. That success was a victory over five provincial wālis in a country which hated the Almoravides, at a time when the flower of the Moslem chivalry was fighting in Africa, and it was not by such victories, but by hard struggles with his Christian cousin that Affonso achieved the independence of his country. If any other further proof that the victory was not all that poets and later historians painted it was needed, it might be found in the fact that in the very next year Ismar or Omar, the emīr who was defeated at Ourique, was able to raise a fresh army with which he took the castle of Leiria by storm.

For many years after the recognition of Affonso’s independence the history of his reign is filled by accounts of the wars against the Moors. But the warfare no longer comprised single expeditions, such as that crowned by the victory of Ourique, but steady persevering conquest of the Belatha. The efforts of the Portuguese were at first directed against cities and castles, and the country districts were ravaged and left to lie waste. The whole of the district between Coimbra and the Tagus was one great battle-ground, and Affonso had all he could do to take and hold the cities, and was obliged to leave the villages in a state of desolation. The population of his original kingdom was not large enough to colonize the new conquests, and Affonso therefore confined his efforts to laying waste the fields and garrisoning the cities he took from the Moors with any soldiers he could manage to take into his pay. It must be noted that the war was not one of extermination; the Mohammedan and Christian soldiers fought fiercely enough, but the Celtic inhabitants of the cities, and the large intermixture of Jews, who dwelt amongst them, passed from the dominion of the one race to that of the other quietly enough. The war was a war of soldiers, and Affonso’s difficulty was to get enough of them to make a successful attempt to maintain his conquests. The nobility of Portugal followed him gladly with their vassals, and the religious orders of knights repaid him by their services for the liberality with which Donna Theresa had received them, but neither of these sources of military strength were so valuable to him as the crusaders of northern Europe. He gained their assistance in two ways. Pope Innocent II. had declared it as praiseworthy to fight the infidels in Spain as in the Holy Land, and many crusaders fulfilled their crusading vows by coming to Portugal and taking service there. But most of the warriors of the cross preferred rather to make their way to Palestine, and as those from England, Flanders, and the north of France went round by sea, and invariably touched at Oporto, Affonso was able to persuade many of them to do a little fighting under his command against the Moors before proceeding to attack the Saracens in the Holy Land. This was what he did in 1143, when, with some French crusaders, he ravaged the district around Lisbon.

The history of the Portuguese conquest of the Belatha is of the greatest importance in itself, and it is noticeable that Affonso’s first incursion into the country, held by the Moors after the signature of the Treaty of Zamora, took place at the invitation of a Moorish emīr. Ahmad Ibn Kasi, Emīr of Mertola, wrote to him in 1144 under the name and title of Ibn Errik, Lord of Coimbra, and begged him to come to his assistance against the Emīr of Badajoz. But the Moorish soldiers of Ahmad Ibn Kasi refused to fight in the same ranks with the Christians, and Affonso was requested to retire and loaded with presents. After this he felt increasingly that it was more advantageous for him to conquer the neighbouring cities one by one than to make these distant expeditions. It was obvious that his first attack should be directed against the great and beautiful city of Santarem, which commanded the upper reaches of the Tagus, and lay at but one day’s march from his capital at Coimbra. Abu Zekeria, the “vezīr” of Santarem, was the most famous Mohammedan warrior in the Belatha, and had inflicted a signal defeat upon the Knights Templars at Soure, and in him Affonso had a worthy opponent. The only way to take his city was to surprise it, and for this end the Portuguese king made elaborate preparations. He told no one of his real intention, except one old soldier, Mem Ramires, and the first Portuguese canonized saint, St. Theotonio, then prior of the convent of Santa Cruz at Coimbra. On March 2, 1147, he led his army forth, and, surprising the city before its “vezīr” had time to provision it, he laid siege for a few days, and on March 15th carried it by storm with but slight resistance from the dispirited garrison.

This feat of arms was surpassed in the same year by a still greater event, the capture of Lisbon, the important city at the mouth of the Tagus, the future capital of Portugal, and the port from which the Portuguese ships were to sail forth on their voyages of discovery both to the east and the west. Affonso Henriques had long wished to capture this great city, for if he possessed it as well as Santarem, he would be able to defend the Tagus as his southern boundary, and have a much better base of operations. This ancient city was, from its position on the Tagus, the natural capital of the western coast of the Iberian peninsula, and had been an ancient Greek colony. The legend that it was founded by Ulysses, who gave its name, Ulyssipo, afterwards corrupted into Olisipo and Lisbon, is an ancient one; and it certainly held that name up to the time of Augustus, when a Roman colony was fixed there, and its name was changed to Felicitas Julia. Its capture by the Moors in 714 had marked one of their greatest stages of advance, and it remained the capital of their province of the Belatha for more than four hundred years. It had three times been captured by the Christians—in 792 by Alfonso the Chaste, of Castile; in 851 by Ordonho I., of Leon; and in 1093 by Alfonso VI., the father-in-law of Count Henry, but had only remained in their possession twenty years after the first recapture, and only a few months upon the second and third occasions. On this occasion Affonso hoped to be permanently successful, and to make it the capital of his kingdom.

It is very doubtful if the Portuguese king would have entered upon this hazardous feat of arms so soon after his capture of Santarem, had not the news reached him from Oporto that a great fleet of crusaders had put in there, and that the Bishop of Oporto had persuaded the soldiers of the cross to commence their holy war against the infidels by assisting to take Lisbon before they proceeded on their way to Palestine. The bulk of these crusaders were Englishmen, and as a letter describing the expedition and siege by one of their number has lately been discovered and published,[4] it is possible to trace the whole history of this most important event in the history of Portugal. The fleet which had sailed from Dartmouth consisted of 164 ships, under several captains, of whom the most important were Arnold of Aerschot and Christian Ghistell, commanding the Germans, Flemings, and men of the county of Boulogne; Hervey Glanvill, constable of the men of Norfolk and Suffolk; Simon of Dover, “constable of all the ships of Kent;” Andrew of London, and Saher de Arcellis. The English crusader tells in his letter that the proposition of the Bishop of Oporto was not universally well received, and that two “pirates,” named William Vitulus and Ralph his brother, succeeded in leading away for a time the men of Hampshire, Bristol, and Hastings, whose cooperation was, however, soon secured by the eloquence of Hervey Glanvill. The northern crusaders thus re-united set sail for the Tagus, and having disembarked at the mouth of the river, marched up to join Affonso and his Portuguese knights. Even with this large reinforcement, the King of Portugal had not sufficient soldiers to blockade the great city, and he concentrated all his efforts on one particular spot, where at last he forced an entrance on October 24th. The resistance does not seem to have been very obstinate; the Moors of the Belatha had been dispirited by the capture of Santarem; those of the provinces to the south were either distracted by internecine war or paralyzed into inaction by fear of the Almohades; and Affonso was allowed to achieve and consolidate his conquest.

In addition to its intrinsic importance, the capture of Lisbon is worth noticing because of the assistance rendered to the Portuguese by the English; it is the first instance of the close connection between the two nations, which has lasted down to the present century, a connection which makes the history of Portugal of especial interest to Englishmen. After the conquest, most of the crusaders sailed on their way to the Holy Land, but the Portuguese king, by liberal offers, managed to persuade a few to settle down in his dominions, some of whom founded great families. It was no wonder that Affonso was almost astounded at his own success. Cintra, Palmella, Mafra, and Almada surrendered to him without a blow in 1147; Alemquer, Obidos, Torres Novas, and Porto de Moz in 1148; and he found himself master of the whole of the southern Beira and of Estremadura. His great difficulty was how at the same time to occupy and settle his new possessions, and to prepare for a further advance, and it was only sheer lack of men that checked his conquering career. Gilbert of Hastings, an Englishman, whom he had made Bishop of Lisbon, went to England to preach the crusade in Portugal with the full consent of King Henry II., but he did not bring many men back with him, and Affonso had to wait ten years before he made his next decisive step in advance. He spent these years in strengthening the fortifications of his new cities, and attracting inhabitants to them from his older cities; nor did he forget to show his gratitude to the Church, which had allowed its sworn soldiers to help him; for he founded, in 1153, the magnificent monastery of Alçobaça, the future resting-place of the kings of Portugal, and the finest specimen of mediæval architecture in the whole country. All this time he was impatiently longing to take a step further in advance and to capture the wealthy city of Alcacer do Sal. In 1152 he was beaten back in his first attack on that city; in 1157 he was again repulsed, although he had the assistance of Thierry of Alsace and a body of crusaders; but at last, on June 28, 1158, he was successful, and reached the height of his greatness and prosperity.