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An Overview of Portugal's History
Adapted with permission from the New Advent Catholic website.
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 The reduction of the neighbouring strongholds followed, but the king had to wait for the arrival of another crusading fleet before he could take Alcacer do Sol, in 1158. The cities of Evora and Beja fell into his hands soon afterwards, but he could not hold so extensive a territory, and the country south of the Tagus was retaken more than once. At the end of his life an attack on Badajoz placed him in the power of King Ferdinand of Leon, and his last years were full of defeats and humiliations. Nevertheless, when he died, the independence of Portugal had been secured, its area doubled, and the name of the little realm was famous throughout Europe for its persistent struggle against the enemies of the Cross. A rough warrior and an astute politician, Alfonso Henriques was yet a man of strong faith. He corresponded with St. Bernard and put his country under the protection of the Blessed Virgin, decreeing that an annual tribute should be paid to the abbey of Clairvaux. For the Cistercian Order, to whose prayers he attributed the capture of Santarem, he founded the great monastery of Alcobaça, the most famous in Portugal, and endowed it handsomely, so that its lands stretched to the ocean and contained thirteen towns in which the monks exercised authority and levied taxes. They corresponded to such generosity by reducing that great territory to cultivation, and Allocable became the mother of numerous daughter monasteries, while its chartulary served in early times as that of the kingdom. The Abbot of Allocable had the post of chief almoner and sat in the Royal Council and the Cortes with the honours of a bishop. Furthermore, Alfonso Henriques, in 1132, established for the Augustinian Canons the monastery of Santa Cruz at Coimbra, which rivalled Allocable in its wealth and social mission, and for the same order he built S. Vicente in Lisbon, which is now the residence of the Patriarch. [TOP]
Sancho persisted in invading the rights of the Church and in particular refused to recognise the ecclesiastical forum and clerical immunity from military service. Though he made some concessions before his death, the conflict he had opened lasted through the next two reigns, and for nearly a century the clergy and the Crown were involved in a struggle over the limits of their respective powers. All the early kings were wont to reward services by extensive grants of lands, and in these lands they gave up royal jurisdiction. In time, so large a part of the country was held in mortmain, or had passed into the hands of the nobles, that the rest did not produce enough revenue to meet the increasing expenses of government. The monarchs then tried to overcome the difficulty by a revocation of grants, which naturally met with resistance from the nobility and clergy. Denis, though so generally favourable to the Church, employed a more equitable remedy by prohibiting, in 1286, the purchase of real estate by clerics, but this and a stricter law of 1291 were found too severe and had to be modified. The situation was deteriorating and, had there been no other cause of discord, would have sufficed to set the Crown and landowning classes at issue. [TOP]
The reign of this excommunicated king witnessed a religious revival which was rendered necessary by the general laxity of both clergy and laity. The Franciscans were introduced by the king's sister and, although they soon won the affection of the people, they were received with little cordiality on the part of the secular clergy and the other orders, who saw their pecuniary interest damaged. In a Bull of Gregory IX (1233) the pope complains of the hostility shown to the friars by bishops and clergy. At Oporto the bishop ordered them out of the city, sacked their convent and burned it, but the citizens sided with them, and in the end they were able to return. The order soon spread over the country, convents were built for them, members of the royal family chose their churches as burial places, and the popes bestowed bishoprics on friars and charged them with delicate missions. It was the custom for testators to leave a part of their property to the Church, and Bishop Sueiro of Lisbon promulgated a statute that one-third should be so bequeathed under pain of refusal of the sacraments and canonical burial. The citizens appealed to the pope against this violence, and Honorius condemned it, and charged the superiors of the Dominicans and Franciscans to see that the practice was discontinued. The Dominicans had entered Portugal between 1217 and 1222, and, by virtue of their austere morals, poverty, and humility, they obtained a welcome second only to that given the Franciscans. Sancho II (1223-1248) was still only a boy when he succeeded his father. His ministers bound him to make reparations for the material losses inflicted on the Church by Alfonso II, and to punish the guilty parties. They also promised that ecclesiastical privileges should be respected, but those responsible for the outrages of the last reign remained in power, and the king had small control over them. The bishops showed as little desire for peace as did the nobles, and vied with them in vexing the monasteries by their monetary exactions. With each succeeding year a state of anarchy increased over the kingdom. The bellicose Bishop of Oporto, Martinho Rodrigues, presented to the pope a long list of accusations against the monarch, in reply to which Cardinal John de Abavila was dispatched to Portugal on a reforming mission, but though he did much good he was unable to end the discords. Bishop Sueiro then put himself at the head of the malcontents and painted in dark colours the condition of the Church. The clergy were blackmailed and deprived of their property, and the king and the nobles despised ecclesiastical censures, and so on. Pope Gregory thereupon sent a commission to require the king to correct abuses under threat of penalties, but at first there were some difficulties in the way of reform. The bishops too often abused their immunities, they admitted men to orders who were only anxious to evade military service, and sometimes to avoid answering to the secular courts for their crimes. The pope remedied this situation, but the government failed to repress those which were charged against it. Yet the Holy See was averse to extreme measures, because it appreciated Sancho's crusading energy — for, though a bad man and an indolent administrator, he was a bold soldier. An ancient dispute between bishop and citizens as to the jurisdiction over the City of Oporto was revived again, and bishop and king were soon at issue. Furthermore, the latter roused strong opposition by refusing to allow ecclesiastical bodies or individuals to accept gifts of land, or to purchase it, and, not content with robbing and profaning churches, he slew some priests. He brought matters to a climax when he intervened in a disputed succession to the bishopric of Lisbon and used the most brutal methods to enforce his will. Pope Gregory IX, who had previously threatened, now confirmed a sentence of interdict. Sancho gave way for the moment, and peace was made, the king turning his arms against the Moors, but in an interval between his successful campaigns he became enamoured of a widow, Dona Mercia Lopes de Haro, whom he met during a visit to the Court of Castile, and under her influence his character deteriorated. The bishops renewed their complaints of the disorders in Portugal, and in 1245, by the Bull "grandi non immerito", Innocent IV committed the government to Sancho's brother Alfonso who was living in France. The latter undertook to remedy the ills of the kingdom and grievances of the Church, and on his arrival the greater part of the country accepted him for regent in accordance with the papal directions. Sancho, finding resistance hopeless, went to Spain, where he died a year later. [TOP]
The long struggle between Church and Crown terminated but if the Church first gained most of the points contended for, its commanding position ceased. With the increasing weakness of the papacy, the clergy became more dependent on the monarch. Moreover, the complete nationalisation of the military orders effected by Denis also tended to increase the central power, and it was of him "that he did all he wished". On the initiative and at the expense of the Priors of Santa Cruz at Coimbra, S. Vicente at Lisbon, Santa Maria at Guimaraens and the Abbot of Alcobaca, a university was established at Lisbon and confirmed, in 1290, by papal Bull, with faculties of arts, canon and civil law, and medicine, but not theology, which was studied in the monasteries. The king showed great liberality to the new foundation, which was subsequently, by papal permission, moved to Coimbra. When the Templars were suppressed, John XXII allowed their property to go to the new Order of Christ established in 1319. [TOP]
Portugal now turned her face to the ocean and prepared to become a great maritime power. The overseas conquest began with the capture of Ceuta, in 1415, and under the auspices of Prince Henry the Navigator, the voyages were organised that ultimately led to the discovery of the route to India around the Cape of Good Hope. The pope encouraged these efforts, which had for their object the spread of Christianity as well as of commerce, and, by a Bull of April 1418, confirmed to the king all the lands he should take. John made two concordats with the Church, the first at the Cortes of Elvas, the second, in 1427, at the Cortes of Santarem, but he did not abandon the beneplacitum regium. He had been compelled to make large grants to the nobles as the price of their support in the War of Independence. One of the first acts of his son Edward (in Portuguese, Duartse: 1433-1438) was to promulgate the "Lei Mental" which enacted that these properties should only descend in the direct male line of the grantee, on the failure of which they reverted to the Crown. The ill result of the expedition against Tangier, which ended in the captivity of the Infanta Ferdinand, hastened the end of the king, and Alfonso V (1438-1481) succeeded to the throne in childhood. The people would not accept his mother, Queen Leonora, as regent, and that office was conferred on Edward's brother. The queen and her party never forgave this act and they stirred up Alfonso against his uncle, who was defeated and slain at the battle of Alfarroeira. The authors of this tragedy were excommunicated by the pope, and relations between Portugal and Rome ceased until 1451, and from 1452 onwards became very close.
King Emanuel (1495-1521) reaped the harvest sown by his predecessors, and every year of his reign witnessed some new discovery, some great deed. The navigator Alburquerque gave him the maritime keys of Asia, and the monopoly of the Eastern trade made him the richest king in Christendom. In 1514 the monarch sent his splendid embassy to Rome to offer the tribute of India at the feet of Leo X, to urge the pope to proceed with the reform of the Church, and to secure a league of Christian princes against the Turks. Though these objects failed, the king obtained many personal favours, including the amplification of the Padroado, or right of patronage over churches in non-Christian countries. The pope recognised the king as the chief protector and propagator of the Faith and twice sent him the Golden Rose. Emanuel was especially anxious to add Castile to his world-wide dominions, and he made three marriages to that end, but all in vain. It was a condition of his first marriage (to the eldest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella) that he should expel the Jews and unconverted Moors. The Jews had enjoyed the protection of previous kings and had supplied them with trusted servants, but, as both the clergy and the people hated them for their usury, and envied their talents and wealth, Emanuel sacrificed them, against the protests of some of his best councillors. They were given the choice of conversion or exile, and naturally, from worldly motives, the greater part accepted the former alternative and became known as "new Christians", intermarrying with old Christians. Many of these converts went back to Judaism and became the victims of bitter and continual persecution, when the Inquisition was established. King Emanuel and his son, John III, were great builders; the former erected the Hieronymite church and monastery at Belem, to commemorate Vasco da Gama's discovery, and the later made great additions to the superb convent of Christ at Tomar. Though the Golden Age apparently continued, Portugal began to decline in the reign of John III (1521-1557). Emigration drained the country; the cultivation of the soil was left to slaves; commerce was blighted by the Inquisition, which drove capital abroad. The government could not make both ends meet. The king, a serious, conscientious man, but of small education, satisfied the complaints of the people against the Jews by petitioning the Holy See in 1531 to establish the Inquisition. After a twenty years' struggle at Rome, marked by disgraceful bribery on both sides, John forced the pope's consent in 1547, and the bigoted Infanta Henry, afterwards king, became chief inquisitor. The tribunal was popular and practically destroyed Judaism, but its methods divided the nation into spies and victims, encouraged blackmail and false denunciations, and contributed to undermine the national character. It put a new weapon into the hands of the monarch, who now had no check on his rule, for the Cortes had lost their power by the end of the preceding century. In 1540 the first Jesuits came, and the king became a warm patron of their early missionary labours in the East. In addition to the ministry of the confessional and the pulpit, the Society devoted itself to teaching and opened colleges which were crowded by youths of the better classes. The university, which since its foundation had moved to and fro between Lisbon and Coimbra, was fixed at the latter place in 1537, and distinguished professors, Portuguese and foreign, raised its intellectual level. Experience proved however that their learning was superior to their orthodoxy and morals, and they were replaced by the Jesuits, who by degrees obtained that control of higher education which they held for two centuries. John's policy was to have peace abroad and the colonisation of Brazil, in which he had the assistance of the Jesuits, who brought Christianity to the natives and protected them from the European settlers. A number of the new colonial dioceses were founded in this reign. On John's death, his widow became regent for her grandson Sebastian (1557-1578), who was a minor. The latter grew up an exalted mystic and knight errant of the Cross, without interest in the work of government. Though pressed by St. Pius V, he refused to marry and obstinately insisted on attempting to conquer North Africa without sufficient men or money. His rout and death at the battle of Alcacer decided the fate of Portugal, for Cardinal Henry (1578-1580) lived less than two years, and in 1580 Philip II of Spain claimed the throne as next heir. Partly by force and partly by bribery, he secured election as Philip I of Portugal (1580-1598) at the Cortes of Thomar in 1581, and for sixty years the Crowns of Portugal and Spain were united. If Philip I and II (1598-1621) ruled well, the period was none the less a disastrous one from a religious, as from a political point of view, and Portugal suffered heavily in the duel between the Protestant Powers and Spain. Her Eastern possessions fell into the hands of the English and Dutch, and the latter seized a large part of the coastline of Brazil. The monetary exactions of Philip III (1621-1640) and the determination of his minister Olivares, to destroy the liberties of Portugal, aroused in all classes a fierce hostility to foreign rule. The lower clergy and religious orders embraced the popular cause. The tolerance shown to the Jews, who were permitted to return, and the expulsion of the papal nuncio, Castracani, outraged their feelings, and the increasing burden of taxation pressed them hard, so that they encouraged their flocks to look for a deliverer in the Duke of Braganza. [TOP] The revolution of 1640 raised John IV (1540-1556) to the throne, and liberated Portugal and her remaining possessions from foreign rule, but it led to an exhausting war with Spain which lasted twenty-eight years. Moreover, owing to Spanish pressure, the popes refused to recognise the new monarch; see after see fell vacant and remained so, and ecclesiastical discipline became relaxed. This continued during the reign of Alfonso VI (1656-1683). His brother Pedro ascended to the throne and his reign (1683-1706) is marked by the discovery of gold in Brazil, by the signature of the Methuen Treaty with England, and by the participation of Portugal in the War of the Spanish Succession, when an Anglo-Portuguese army entered Madrid. Though the Portuguese had lost most of their possessions in the East, their missionaries continued to spread the Chritian Faith and actually defended remote possessions. [TOP] The gold and diamonds of Brazil enabled John V (1706-1750) to imitate Louis XIV in magnificence. To licentious habits he united a taste for ecclesiastical pomp. He displayed his piety by building an enormous pile, church and palace in one, at Mafra, by providing the large sums required in connection with the canonization of various saints, and by obtaining from the pope the elevation of the Archbishopric of Lisbon to the dignity of a patriarchate, together with the title, for himself and his successors, of "Most Faithful Magesty". Except in the case of the Lisbon aqueduct, the country reaped small benefit from the vast sums expended by the artistic, pleasure-loving monarch; and if religion was outwardly honoured, the bad example set by John helped to lower the already impaired national standard of morals. The nobility had by this time ceased to visit their estates and degenerated into a race of mere courtiers. The interests of the common people were neglected by the government, almost their only friends being the religious orders. At the pope's bidding, John sent a fleet against the Turks which helped to win the battle of Matapan in 1717. The reign of Joseph (1750-1777) is made famous by the administration of the Marquess of Pombal, the real ruler of Portugal for over twenty years. The energy he displayed at the time of the great earthquake of 1755 confirmed his hold over the king, and with royal support he was able to use the alleged "Tavora Conspiracy" to humble the nobility and to continue the campaign he was directing against the Jesuits, whom he was determined to master. His accusations against them of seditious conduct in the missions and of illicit trading were merely pretexts. He had already dismissed them from Court, delated them to Rome and secured the appointment of a friend, Cardinal Saldanha, as their reformer, and when an attempt was made on the king's life he attributed it to Jesuit machinations, confiscated the property of the company in the Portuguese dominions and expelled the Portuguese Jesuits, retaining the foreigners in prison. The pope refused to incriminate the whole company for the faults of individuals, and Pombal's reply was to dismiss the nuncio and break off relations with Rome. Henceforth the real head of the Church in Portugal was the Minister. He heaped ignominy on the Jesuits by securing the burning of a Jesuit priest by the Inquisition, and his work was completed when, under pressure from the catholic powers, Clement XIV suppressed the Society in 1773. Pombal abolished slavery and the distinction between old and new Christians. He made great and necessary reforms in internal administration and freed Portugal from its subservience to England, but his commercial policy was a failure, and the harm he did far outweighed the good. Above all he forged those fetters for the Church which still paralyse her action. [TOP] The death of Joseph brought about the fall of the minister, but the new sovereigns Pedro and Maria (1777-1816), while opening the prisons which Pombal had filled with his opponents, left much of his work untouched. The king died early, the queen lost her reason, and their son John, a sympathetic but weak man, was named regent. French ideas-those of the Encyclopedists and of the Revolution-were kept out of the country as long as possible, but the ambition of Napoleon gave little hope of security to a small kingdom which was regarded as the dependent of England. The Treaty of Fontainebleau divided the country between France and Spain; the famous proclamation was issued, stating that the House of Braganza had ceased to reign, and Junot with a French army occupied Lisbon in 1807. The royal family fled to Brazil, and Portugal was governed from there until 1820. Queen Maria died at the close of the Peninsular War, which led to the overthrow of Napoleonic power, and John VI (1816-1826) came to the throne. The Revolution of 1820 forced him to return home, and he had to accept a constitution of a most radical character, for which the country was entirely unfitted. One calamity succeeded another. The opening of the ports of Brazil to foreign ships ruined Portuguese commerce, the separation of the colony diminished the prestige of the mother country, which was reduced to a miserable plight by the long war, and internal feuds were added to external troubles. On the death of John, his son Pedro IV gave a new constitution, called "the Charter", and then resigned the throne in favour of his infant daughter Maria II, naming his brother Miguel regent. The Conservatives, or Absolutist Party, however, who hated the Charter as the work of Liberals and Freemasons, desired him as king, and he summoned a Cortes of the old type which placed him on the throne in 1828. The Radicals and Chartists at once organised resistance to what they called the usurpation and, after a long civil war, were successful. By the Convention of Evora Monte, Miguel had to abandon his claims and leave the country. [TOP] The last half-century of the Portuguese Monarchy, embracing the reigns of Pedro V (1853-1861), Louis I (1861-1889), and Charles I (1889-1908), was one of internal peace and increasing material prosperity. The 1910 Revolution drove the Braganza dynasty from the throne and delivered Portugal into the hands of the Radicals who set up a provisional government. On February 1, 1908, King Charles and the Crown Prince were assassinated in the streets of Lisbon. The murder was perpetrated by a man named Buica and several associates, and was applauded by the Republican press. The succession devolved on the second son, who ascended the throne as Emanuel II. His reign was brief, however. On October 3, 1910, a revolution, which had been arranged for October 10, broke out prematurely, and Emanuel fled the capital to Gilbratar, where he shortly afterwards embarked for England. A provisional government, republican in form, was proclaimed with Theophilus Braga, a native of the Azores, as President. He immediately set to work to carry out the measures of the republican programme, including the seizure of Church property by the State, the abolition of the Senate and all hereditary privileges and titles. The separation of the Church and State was also arbitrarily decreed by the provisional government. On April 20, 1911, a second decree, in 196 articles, was promulgated, regulating in detail the previously sweeping enactments. A Constituent Assembly, elected on June 19, 1911, formally decreed the abolition of the Portuguese monarchy. [TOP]
The European Voyages of Exploration / The Applied History Research Group / The University of Calgary Copyright © 1997, The Applied History Research Group |
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The lifework of
Alfonso Henriques, first King of Portugal (1128-1185), consisted
in his assertion, by fighting and diplomacy, of the
political independence of the country, and in his
enlargement of its boundaries by conquests from the Moors
who occupied more than half the present kingdom when he
began to rule. Though he had assumed the government in
1128, it was only after a period of fifteen years, during
which he suffered a series of reverses, that he was able to
obtain recognition of his kingship from Alfonso VII of
Leon, to which kingdom the territory of Portugal had
formerly belonged. Alfonso Henriques resolved early to
protect himself against the claims of his powerful
neighbour and overlord, and in 1142 he offered his kingdom
to the Church, declared himself the pope's vassal, and
promised, for himself and his successors, to pay an
annual feudal tribute of four ounces of gold. Pope Lucius II
ratified the agreement, taking Portugal under his protection
and recognising its independence. In 1179 Pope Alexander III also confirmed Alfonso Henriques in his
royal dignity. Henriques now gave up all idea of
extending his dominions beyond the Minho and the
Douro, rivers that formed the country's boundaries to the north and
the east, and instead endeavoured to increase them to the south.
He carried on a persistent warfare against the Moors
by sudden incursions into Moorish territory and by midnight
assaults on Moorish towns, and on the whole he
was successful. In 1147 he took the almost impregnable
city of Santarem. In the same year, after a four-month
siege, the great city of Lisbon, containing "154,000
men, besides women and children", fell to his arms. He was
assisted by a Northern fleet of 164 ships which was on its
way to the Second Crusade. The king thereupon moved
his capital to the Tagus.
Sancho I
(1185-1211) continued the work of reconquest and a large
part of the Algarve fell into his hands, but a fresh
invading wave of Moors from Africa ultimately pushed the
Christian frontier back to the Tagus. In the intervals of
peace allowed him, the king was active in building towns and
settling his territory, thus deserving his name of "The
Peopler", and, being a thrifty man, he amassed a large
treasure. On his accession, he asked and obtained the papal
confirmation of his title, which protected him against his
Christian neighbours, and after some delay paid the tribute
to the Holy See. This was continued by his immediate
successors, but afterwards fell into abeyance. Sancho
imitated his father's liberality to the Church and gave
further endowments to bishoprics and abbeys; he likewise
favoured the military Orders of the Temple of Hospitallers
of Aviz, and of S. Thiago, which, besides their pious works,
supplied the best disciplined soldiers for the war against
the Moors. He also garrisoned the frontier towns and castles. But
he was a man of irascible temperament, and superstitious. His disputes with the clergy
and the violent measures he dealt out to them are explained
partly by his character and partly by the influence of his
chancellor Julian, who had studied Roman Law at Bologna and
aimed at increasing royal authority. Sancho intervened
in a question between the Bishop of Oporto and the citizens
and ignored the interdict with which Innocent III punished
his high-handed proceedings. He also came into conflict with
the Bishop of Coimbra, whom he imprisoned and treated with
great cruelty.
Alfonso II
(1211-1223) took care to obtain the confirmation of his title
from the Holy See, and at the Cortes of Coimbra he
sanctioned the concessions made by his father to the Church,
whose help he hoped to have when he came to annul the large
bequests of land which Sancho had made to his children. In
this he was disappointed, for the pope intervened as
arbiter, and Alfonso's sisters got their legacies, but they
all took the veil, and his brothers never obtained
the estates which had been left to them. This was a
victory for the king, who now, on the advice of his
chancellor, sent a commission of enquiry through the kingdom
to ascertain the titles to land and either confirm or revoke
them, as seemed to him just. So far he had kept on good
terms with the clergy, but Alfonso's determination to
increase the power of the Crown and fill his treasury
affected their immunities, and his action in a dispute
between the Bishop of Lisbon and his dean showed that the
king's attitude towards the Church had changed. By 1221 the
old differences had appeared again, and in an acute form:
Alfonso had seized church property, compelled ecclesiastics
to plead before secular justices and to serve in the wars.
The Archbishop of Braga convoked an
assembly of prelates in which he accused the king of his
breaches of faith and scandalous life. The latter met this
by confiscating the goods of the prelate, who fled to Rome.
Honorius dispatched three Spanish bishops to remonstrate
with Alfonso, and, as this had no effect, they
excommunicated him a year later. The pope then threatened to
absolve the king's subjects from their allegiance and hand
over the realm to any prince who cared to take it. A further
papal Brief, in 1222, insisting on reparation, together with
an attack of leprosy, induced Alfonso to enter into
negotiations of peace, and these were in progress when he
died.
In the reign of
Alfonso III (1248-1279) Portugal attained its farthest
European limits by the conquest of The Algarve from the
Moors, but Alfonso X of Castile claimed the kingdom, and the
Portuguese king was forced to recognise Castilian suzerainty
and, though already married, to further purchase his
possessions by agreeing to wed Beatrice, his brother
monarch's illegitimate daughter. Fortunately, the first wife
of Alfonso III died shortly afterwards, and the king's
bigamous union with Beatrice and their issue were
legitimated by Urban IV at the request of the
bishops. So far there had been peace between the king
and the clergy, but the former did not intend to keep the
promises on the strength of which he had ascended the
throne, and the latter would not abate their claims. In 1258
Alfonso sent a commission of inquiry through the kingdom to
determine the royal rights and fiscal obligations of his
subjects, and as result he revoked, in 1265, many of the
Crown grants of land. Seven of the bishops took up the
challenge, and in 1267 appealed to Pope Clement IV. They alleged
that the king, besides seizing their possessions, deprived
them of their liberty of action, refused to pay tithes,
exacted forced loans, compelled ladies to marry men of no
birth, and men of family to wed low women, or those of
Moorish or Jewish race. The abuses of civil administration
were dealt with in five articles, ecclesiastical grievances
occupied forty-three. The charges were true in the main, but
the king met them by presenting to the pope a petition
signed by all the concelhos in favour of his rule, and, to
defeat the bishops by a policy of delay, he took the Cross
for a crusade led by St. Louis, but never went.
Moreover, the pope and some of the protesting bishops died,
while certain abuses were remedied. Relying on his good
fortune he became more oppressive than ever, usurping the
revenues of four sees, and in 1273 Pope Gregory X ordered the
heads of the Franciscan and Dominican Orders in Lisbon to
remonstrate with the king. It was long before Alfonso would
see them and then he assembled the Cortes at Santarem and
had a committee appointed to correct everything done
"without reason". This committee was composed of his friends
so that the concession was illusory. On hearing of the
king's duplicity, the pope sent him a strongly-worded Bull,
dated September 4, 1275, reminding him of what he owed the
Church and requiring him to keep the agreement made in Paris
under pain of censure and, in the last resort, of losing the
realm. 
Again, however,
time favoured the king, for Pope Gregory and his two successors
all died in 1276, and, though the Portuguese John XXI took
the matter up, the king would do nothing until the terms of
Gregory's Bull, which he called ordinatio diabolica, were
softened. An interdict was therefore pronounced on the
realm, and Alfonso's subjects were absolved from their
allegiance, but without effect, for the king had a stronger
position than Sancho II. However, he relented when death
approached; he promised restitution to the Church and made
his heir swear to perform what he himself had promised. His
understanding with the municipalities enabled Alfonso III to
consolidate the power of the Crown by limiting that of the
nobility, both lay and clerical, and even to brave the
censures of the Church, which by constant repetition had
lost some of their effect. Denis (1279-1325), a cultured
man, abstained from foreign wars and devoted himself to
developing the resources of the country, his care to
agriculture winning him the title of "the Cultivator". He
favoured commerce, founded the royal navy, and above all
gave peace to the Church. After long negotiations a
concordat of forty articles was signed in 1289, and this was
followed by two others. The beneplacitum regium was
abandoned, the property seized by Alfonso III was restored,
and the king bound himself to respect ecclesiastical
privileges and immunities, and to observe the old laws and
customs of the realm. The free election of bishops was
secured, and the extortions practised by lay patrons of
churches and monasteries were prohibited. 
If King Denis proved a
wise and just ruler, some of the credit is due to his wife,
St. Isabel. She intervened successfully more than once to
end the rebellions of his son. Alfonso IV, (1325-1357)
continued his father's policy. He lived on good terms with
the other peninsular sovereigns, but when his daughter was
ill-treated by her husband, Alfonso XI, he invaded Castile.
Once more St. Isabel intervened. Leaving her convent of Poor
Clares at Coimbra, she came between the opposing armies at
Estremoz, and settled the dispute so effectually that when,
in 1340, the king of Morocco crossed into Spain to aid the
king of Granada against the Christians, Alfonso IV obeyed
the papal summons and led a contingent which helped Alfonso
XI to win the great battle of Salado. His later years were
clouded by the Black Death and the rebellion of his son Pedro,
who, though married, had become enamoured of the beautiful
Dona Ines de Castro. To end this infatuation, Alfonso was
unfortunately persuaded to consent to her assassination,
whereupon the prince rose in arms against his father and
devastated the country. Pope Benedict XII exacted the payment of
the tribute promised by Alfonso Henriques and took measures
against the incontinency of the clergy (a recurring situation in
Portuguese history), while Pope Clement VI answered the
complaints of the kings of Portugal and Castile as the
appointment of foreigners to ecclesiastical benefices. The
chief characteristic of Pedro I (1357-1367) was the pleasure
he took in seeking out and punishing lawbreakers, whether
laymen or clerics; hence his title, "the Doer of Justice".
Allying himself with Pedro the Cruel of Castile, he took
summary vengeance on the murderers of his mistress. He
repressed the violence of the nobles and the usury of the
Jews, and this with his generosity earned him the respect of
the people, savage despot though he was. One of his sons became King John
I (João I). 
The chief ecclesiastical interest of this uneventful
reign centred on the Cortes of Elvas, in which the clergy
submitted a list of thirty-three grievances, some of which
received attention. As regards the admission of papal
letters, the king promised to see them and order their
publication in so far as was right. It was a shuffling
reaffirmation of the beneplacitum regium. Ferdinand
(1367-1383) deserves the credit for wise laws encouraging
navigation and agriculture, and for the fortification of
Lisbon. His first attempt to win the Throne of Castile
against Henry of Tratamara failed, and in the 1371 Peace of
Alcoutim, Ferdinand agreed to marry Henry's daughter. But he could
never keep a treaty, and, having fallen in love with Dona
Leonor Telles, the wife of one of his nobles, he married
her, notwithstanding the angry protest of the citizens of
Lisbon. Moreover he entered into an agreement to assist John
of Gaunt, who claimed the Crown of Castile. Henry thereupon
invaded Portugal, in 1373, and would have captured Lisbon,
had not Cardinal Guy de Bologne, the papal legate, forced
him to retire and make peace with Ferdinand at Vallada.
A few years later Lisbon was again besieged
unsuccessfully by a Castilian army, and in 1381 Ferdinand
undertook a war of revenge with the help of an English force
under the Duke of Cambridge. He invaded Castile, but made peace with
King John, one of the terms being that the latter should wed
Ferdinand's heiress Beatrice, which would have led to the
union of Portugal and Castile. 
At the beginning of
the Great Schism it was only the firmness of the bishops
that kept Portugal true to Pope Urban VI and prevented the king
from offering his obedience to the anti-pope, Clement VII.
The resistance of Lisbon to two Castilian sieges had saved
Portuguese independence, and by a Bull of Pope Boniface IX its
see was raised to metropolitan rank. The people would not
submit to a foreign king, and shortly after Ferdinand's
death the citizens of Lisbon rose against Leonor; Andeiro
and the archbishop were slain, and John, Grand Master of
Aviz, illegitimate son of Pedro I, became defender of the
realm. The king of Castile laid seige to Lisbon, but a
pestilence compelled him to retire, and in 1385, the Grand Master of Aviz was elected king (1385-1433) at the
Cortes of Coimbra. Later that same year, he totally defeated the
Castilians at Aljubarrota, and this, together with the
victories gained by Nuno Alvares Pereira, "the Holy
Constable", secured Portuguese independence. The king
erected on the field of battle the great monastery of
Batalha and there he and his sons were buried. In 1388, he made the Treaty of Windsor with England and, though
a cleric, sealed the alliance by wedding Philippa, daughter
of John of Gaunt. In 1391 Boniface IX legitimated the
marriage. 
Alfonso, a typical medieval knight, full of the
crusading spirit, was bent on fighting the Moors, and he
received every encouragement. Pope Nicholas V, by a Bull of January 8, 1454, conceded to him all conquests in Africa from
Cape Non to Guinea, with power to build churches the
patronage of which should be his, and prohibited any vessels
from sailing to those parts without leave from the king of
Portugal. By another Bull of the same date the pope extended
Portuguese dominion over all the seas from Africa to India.
A subsequent Bull granted to the Order of Christ spiritual authority
over the peoples conquered by the Portuguese, and provided that no one but the king of
Portugal should be entitled to send expeditions of discovery
to those parts. Finally, in 1481, Pope Sixtus IV confirmed to the
kings of Portugal all islands and territories discovered now
or in the future from Cape Non to India. The voyages
continued during Alfonso's reign, and the equator was passed
in 1471. But the king thought more of land conquests in
North Africa, where he made three successful expeditions,
and continued to covet the throne of the neighbouring
country until he was defeated, in 1476, at the battle of
Toro. His reign was rendered notable by the publication, in
1446 of the Alfonsine Code. 
John II (1481-1495)
showed great energy in the work of exploration, which had been
somewhat neglected since the death of Prince Henry, and
under his auspices Bartolomeu Dias passed the Cape of Good
Hope in 1486, and in 1498 Vasco da Gama reached India. A
firm believer in absolute government and a man of inflexible
will, John broke the power of the nobility, which had become
enormous through the unwise liberality of his father,
following on the donations of John I. He deprived them of
their right to administer justice on their estates and later confiscated estates, which enriched the Crown, now the sole power of the realm. John maintained good relations with
Castile and, in 1494, made the Treaty of Tordesillas,
confirmed by the Bull of Pope Alexander VI, by which the limits
of the possessions of Spain and Portugal in the regions
discovered by their seamen were fixed by an imaginary line
drawn at 360 leagues west of Cape Verde. The Spaniards
acquired the right to all lands lying to the west and the
Portuguese got those to the east. Under this
division, most of the coastline of Brazil fell to Portugal, and the rest of America and West
Indies to Spain. 
