Portugal under the Burgundian rulers
Portugal under the Burgundian rulers describes the period of the Burgundian rule in Portugal , which lasted from 1095 to 1383.
The prehistory of Portugal is described in the article Prehistory of Portugal . The history of the country from the Roman occupation to the Moors invasion in 711 describes the history of Portugal .
The first Burgundy in Portugal
From 718 the Reconquista began from Asturias , the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors. From 1086, the King of Asturias- León brought crusaders into the country to help fight the Moors. Among the knights were members of the family of the Dukes of Burgundy . These, themselves a branch of the Capetian rulers in France , were younger sons of the dukes who were not called to succeed them in their country and who went to Portugal out of a thirst for adventure, at that time still a border country with the Moorish states. The first Burgundy to reach what is now Portugal was Count Raymond von Armous, the Urraca of Castile, the heir to Alfonso VI. , married and became Count of Galicia in 1093 .
1095–1112: Henry of Burgundy
However, Henry of Burgundy (1069–1112) was important for Portuguese history . He went to the court of Alfonso VI, to whom family ties already existed through his marriage to an aunt of Heinrich.
Around 1093 he married Theresia von León , the illegitimate favorite daughter of King Alfonso. As a dowry , he received in 1095 the areas just conquered by the Moors in northern Portugal, Entre Minho e Douro, Trás-Os-Montes, Beira, Porto, Braga, Viseu and Coimbra as well as parts of southern Galicia as hereditary fiefdoms . He was also given the right to keep any land he could conquer from the Moors as a hereditary fief. In 1104 Heinrich founded the Archdiocese of Braga and the dioceses of Porto , Lamego , Viseu and Coimbra . The city of Guimarães , which today proudly calls itself “the cradle of Portugal”, became his residence. Heinrich established the rule of the House of Burgundy in Portugal, which lasted until 1383.
Under Henry's reign, the territories of the "County of Portugal" began to be understood as a political unit. When King Alfonso VI. In 1109, Heinrich took the opportunity to separate his domain from the Asturian suzerainty. In documents from this time he still avoided the title of king, but already used a title similar to a king; he described himself as "nutu dei portugalensium patrie princeps".
1112–1128: Theresia of León
Henry of Burgundy died in 1112. In Portugal, his widow Theresia initially took over the reign of the underage son Alfonso I. Theresa is described as a domineering woman who in 1117 assumed the title of "Queen" ( Portugalensis Regina ), which was not recognized by the Castilian side. At that time, her half-sister Urraca ruled Castile . Theresia led campaigns against them, but without achieving any decisive success. In Portugal she tried to exclude her son from the line of succession in favor of her lover, Count Ferdinand. This and the failure against Castile - in 1127 she was defeated by Alfonso VII , a son of Urraca - forced her to recognize the Castilian suzerainty, which for the son was ultimately the signal for a rebellion against his mother.
1128–1185: Alfonso I.
Alfonso I defeated his mother in 1128 at the Battle of São Mamede and then took over the government. In 1130 the Knights Templar founded its first settlement in Portugal.
In 1135 Alfonso I refused the feudal oath to King Alfonso VII of Castile-León. In 1137 he had to recognize the sovereignty of Alfonso I over the county of Portugal. In the Treaty of Zamora in 1143 it was stated that Portugal was no longer under his suzerainty. Alfonso I then accepted the title of King of Portugal, the suzerainty of the kings of Asturias-León was formally ended. 1179 recognized Pope Alexander III. with the bull Manifestis probatum the independence of the country.
The end of the Reconquista and the struggle with the Church
While the Christian part of the country was thus constituted as a kingdom independent of Castile, the Reconquista against the Moors, who still ruled the south of the country, continued. Alfonso I won a decisive battle against the Moors southwest of Beja near Ourique in 1139. In 1147 Santarém and Lisbon fell to the Christians, the latter with the help of crusaders of the Second Crusade. Alfonso I founded the Alcobaça Monastery and founded the Order of Avis in 1162 .
1185–1211: Sancho I.
After the death of Alfonso I, his son, Sancho I, the colonizer or friend of the people (1185–1211), took over the throne. As co-regent alongside his father, he had already determined Portuguese politics for some time. He brought the Cistercian monks into the country, who were supposed to colonize the areas conquered by the Moors, and in 1189 he conquered Silves , the capital of the Moors. However, most of these conquests were lost again the next year.
About disputes about the validity of the marriage of his daughter Theresa to King Alfonso IX. of León, as well as feudal rights, began a dispute with the Catholic Church , which imposed the interdict on Portugal in 1195 . The dispute between the monarchy and the church was to last almost two hundred years and, to a certain extent, represents the Portuguese version of the investiture dispute .
There were two main points that were disputed between the Church and the King. On the one hand it was about the filling of church offices, in particular the right of the church to free election of bishops. The kings, on the other hand, insisted on their right to occupy episcopal offices at their own discretion. Most of all, it was about land ownership. As in other European countries, the Church in Portugal had received large estates and had become the largest landowner before the Crown. In order to strengthen the crown, the kings tried to revoke fiefs in favor of the church and to confiscate church land. This naturally led to great resistance on the part of the church.
1211–1223: Alfonso II.
King Sancho I died in 1211. His son Alfonso II succeeded him. He has gone down in history with the nickname "the fat one", but also in Portugal as the Rei Legislador as the "lawgiver king". He convened the first Cortes (Cortes of Coimbra) in 1211 and created the first coherent Portuguese law. Progressive in his laws, he tried to strengthen the royal power at the expense of the nobility and the church, which made him very popular with the people, but also earned him the opposition of the church. So he was repeatedly banned and in turn expelled the Archbishop of Braga from the country. With the help of crusaders brought into the country, he resumed the Reconquista and conquered Setúbal and Alcácer do Sal .
1223-1247 / 48: Sancho II.
When Sancho II. (1223–1248), the eldest son of Alfonso II, ascended the Portuguese throne in 1223, the country was in the midst of the turmoil caused by his father's fight against the Church. Alfonso II had died excommunicated and the interdict was imposed on the country.
Sancho II first made an arrangement with the church, he let the Archbishop of Braga back into the country and paid him a high compensation. After the defeat at Elves in 1226 and the victory at Aimonte in 1239, he succeeded in conquering the eastern Algarve and the Alentejo from the Moors.
Towards the end of his reign, however, Sancho II became increasingly entangled in power struggles with the church, especially with the bishops of Lisbon and Porto, who had the support of Pope Gregory IX. found. In 1238 Sancho II was also excommunicated. The aristocratic opposition in the country now allied itself with the church and tried to replace the king with his younger brother. In 1245, the king's marriage, which had been concluded without papal dispensation , was divorced by the Church. The aim was to prevent the king from having legitimate offspring. In March 1245 Pope Innocent IV accused the king of the worst offenses in the Bull Inter alia desiderabilia , on July 24th he declared him "rex inutilis" and his brother, Alfons III in Grandi non immerito . , as the “administrator and defender” of the kingdom that was plunged into a serious civil war. Sancho II held out with his followers until 1247, when he moved to Toledo , where he finally died.
1247 / 48-1279: Alfons III.
Alfons III, the younger brother of the now deposed king, had lived at the French court for many years. There his maternal aunt, Blanka of Castile , played an important role as the widow of King Louis VIII, regent and royal mother. By marriage, Alfons III acquired the county of Boulogne . In the rift between his older brother and the Church, Blanka of Castile saw the possibility of expanding French influence on the Iberian Peninsula, where Portugal, Aragon and León were more turned towards England , France's great rival, and therefore supported the Count of Boulogne against Alfons' older brother Sancho. It was mainly thanks to their influence that the Pope at the Council of Lyon (1245) Alfonso III. appointed administrator of Portugal - "cura et administratio generalis et libera ". Alfons III went to Portugal. He succeeded in defeating his brother in a lengthy civil war. Formally, however, Sancho II was not deposed, Alfons III. therefore referred to himself only as regent and did not ascend the throne until 1248, when his brother died without children, and the throne therefore fell to him through normal succession.
Alfons III succeeded in conquering the Algarve in 1250/51. This concluded the Reconquista in Portugal, and the Moors had been driven from the country. Alfons moved the capital from Coimbra to Lisbon in 1256. He separated from his wife because she could not bear children after two sons who died prematurely. He was banned from the church because he married his second wife before the first marriage was annulled, but was able to break free again. The renewed attempt to curtail the rights of the church, or at least to curb its massive expansionist efforts, led to a great dispute with the popes, who again banned him and occupied the country with the interdict. He promoted the settlement of the conquered areas and agriculture, enjoyed great fondness among the people and in 1259 founded the Santa Clara Monastery in Santarém .
The situation of Portugal at the end of the reign of Alfonso III.
The medieval social structure of the kingdom was shaped by the Reconquista. Christian military orders, especially the Knights Templar and the Order of St. John , who had helped with the reconquest, were given large areas of land. Cities south of the Tagus and in the Algarve were systematically laid out to settle the land conquered by the Moors and to create fortified cities.
The Burgundian kings, who now called their dynasty the Alfonsin Dynasty, were advised by the Cortes, an assembly of high clergy and country noblemen. In 1276, Pedro Giuliano, the only Portuguese so far, was appointed to the Holy See (Pope John XXI. ).
1279-1325: Dionysius
Alfonso III died in 1279. and his eldest son, Dionysius the Peasant King , succeeded him. Right at the beginning of his rule, Dionysius had to deal with the claims to power of his younger brother Alfons (1263-1312). Castile has also been in a civil war since 1282. That year, a meeting of the nobility declared that the king there, Alfonso X , was no longer capable of governing, so de facto deposed him. The king's second eldest son, Sancho IV, the brave , was appointed imperial administrator by the nobility assembly . Alfonso X responded by disinheriting his son. The Portuguese Alfonso allied with Alfonso X of Castile, which forced Dionysius to form an alliance with his opponent, Sancho IV.
The peace between Sancho IV and Dionysius did not last. Sancho invaded Portugal, after his death Dionysius invaded Castile for it. In 1297 the Treaty of Alcañices was signed between Dionysius and the new Castilian king Ferdinand IV . This treaty finally established the border between Castile and Portugal; it essentially corresponds to the still valid border between Spain and Portugal. The new peace was further cemented through marriages. So married Alfonso III. , the son of King Dionysius, a sister of the Castilian king, the Castilian king himself married a sister of King Dionysius.
The end of the conflict with the Church
Dionysius also succeeded in finding a solution to the second big question that determined Portuguese politics at the time, the relationship to the Church and the papacy. Dionysius inherited the conflict from his father's reign; when he came to power, Portugal had been under the church punishment of the interdict since 1277. The interdict was one of the sharpest weapons of canon law because, unlike the ban or excommunication of the ruler, it affected not only the ruler himself, but also all his subjects. These were prevented by the interdict from hearing mass, consequently their salvation was in great danger, which usually led to great unrest and dissatisfaction in the population.
Dionysius managed to defuse this conflict too. In 1289 the papacy, the Portuguese clergy and the royal family found a compromise formula that allowed Pope Nicholas IV to repeal the interdict. According to the agreed Concordat , the ecclesiastical land, which at the time was Alfonso III. should be returned to the Church. The king promised to respect the ecclesiastical privileges and immunities, the right of the church to free election of bishops was guaranteed. Even if, according to the provisions of the Concordat, the kingship of the Church had to make major concessions, one cannot speak of a victory for the Church. Because the next few years saw a weakening of the papacy, so that the Portuguese clergy became more and more dependent on the king.
In 1290 the Pope granted the Portuguese Knights of Santiago the special privilege of electing their own provincial master - at the expense of the Castilian order master - which was used continuously until 1297 and then since 1315. Pope John XXII. In 1319 Dionysius even allowed to found his own national order, the Order of Christ , from the Portuguese part of the Knights Templar, which was dissolved in 1312 .
Dionysius is counted among the great Portuguese kings. With the Treaty of Alcañices he had secured the borders of his empire, with the Concordat of 1289 he defused the conflict with the Church. He used the times of relative calm that were now breaking to rebuild his country. He built 50 forts to guard the borders and founded the first Portuguese university in Coimbra. A trade treaty was signed with England in 1294, the first in a long series of pacts and assistance treaties between the two countries. The king promoted trade and the development of the national language Portuguese over Latin and had the first Portuguese fleet built. Portugal had almost a million inhabitants at the time of his government. In order to be able to feed the increased number of inhabitants, he devoted himself particularly to promoting agriculture, which explains his nickname “the arable farmer” or “the peasant king” (o lavrador) .
Succession disputes
However, the end of King Dionysius' rule was again overshadowed by battles for succession. His heir, Alfonso IV , feared being ousted from the throne by his father in favor of his illegitimate sons and therefore took up the fight against his father. Dionysius died in Santarém in 1325, highly revered by his people.
1325-1357: Alfons IV.
Alfons IV, who ascended the Portuguese throne after the death of his father in 1325, had to deal with his half-brothers, illegitimate children of his father, at the beginning of his reign. After his accession to the throne, he banished them from Portugal, which led to an armed conflict, which was settled through the mediation of Elisabeth of Portugal .
Towards the beginning of his reign, Alfons completely neglected his duties as ruler and instead devoted himself to hunting. Only after serious accusations from the Cortes, who even threatened his deposition and the election of a new king, did the king improve.
New quarrels arose with Castile. Alfonso IV had his daughter Maria with the Castilian king Alfonso XI. married and accused his son-in-law of treating his daughter unworthily. At the same time, his own son, Hereditary Prince Peter , neglected his wife, a Castilian princess, in favor of his lover Inês de Castro , which led to resentment on the Castilian side. An impending war between Castile and Portugal was only prevented by the intervention of the queen widow Elisabeth. In addition, Castile had to give way as it was threatened by the Moors. After the reconciliation, Alfonso IV took an active part on the side of Castile in the Reconquista against the Moors, so he fought in the Battle of the Salado in 1340 . With this battle, Moorish attempts to regain a foothold in Portugal were finally thwarted.
During the reign of Alfonso IV, Portugal was devastated by a terrible plague epidemic .
The final years of his reign were overshadowed by a conflict with his son Peter. At the age of five, Peter was married to Blanca of Castile, a daughter of the Infante Peter of Castile. When Peter grew up, however, he refused to consume the marriage, so that Blanca had to be sent back to Castile, which initially broke a Portuguese-Castilian alliance.
Alfonso IV did not give up his plans for an alliance with Castile and relentlessly forged further marriage plans for his son. In 1340 the time had finally come. Peter married, more compulsorily than voluntarily, Constanza Manuela of Castile, the granddaughter of King Ferdinand III. His real love, however, was Inês de Castro, a Castilian noblewoman who had come to the Portuguese throne as a lady-in-waiting in the wake of his wife. At the latest after the death of his wife, he began a relationship with Inês de Castro, who bore him several children. Allegedly, he is even said to have secretly married her.
The relationship with Inês de Castro displeased King Alfonso IV and was a highly political matter. Inês de Castro had given Peter four sons, and in the opinion of Alfonso IV, these threatened the succession of the legitimately born Infante, Ferdinand I , the eldest son of Peter and his late wife Constanza. In addition, the de Castros in Castile were a powerful aristocratic family who would have supported Inês in a possible attempt to bring their own children to the throne. Such a constellation, in which the Castilian nobility could have gained influence on Portuguese politics, displeased not only the king, but also the Cortes and the Portuguese nobility, who were very concerned about their independence from Castile. Alfons IV was therefore forced to act. Concerned about Portugal's independence, the cathedral Alfonso IV appointed a privy councilor in early 1355, who accused the Castilian of high treason and at the same time sentenced her to death. Taking advantage of his son's absence, he had Inês de Castro beheaded in 1355.
The execution sparked a civil war between father and son. Although the conflict was temporarily resolved in 1356, Alfonso IV was forced to appoint his son as co-regent, but would probably have broken out again if Alfonso IV had not died a short time later.
1357–1367: Peter I.
Peter I ascends the Portuguese throne in 1357. He went down in history with the two surnames o cruel , "the cruel", and o Justiciero , "the righteous". At the beginning of his reign he allied himself with Castile and thus achieved the extradition of the murderers of his beloved, who had fled there after the death of his father. Allegedly he had them tortured, having their hearts torn out while they were still alive, in order to then eat them, which earned him the nickname "the cruel one". It is also reported that he had his beloved Inês de Castro exhumed and crowned queen in a solemn ceremony. Driven by thoughts of revenge, he ordered the present court to kiss the newly crowned queen on the rotten hand.
After that he stayed out of the Castilian Handel, where a conflict broke out between Prince Regent Peter and his half-brother Heinrich II. Trastámara . This brought Portugal a time of peace.
Peter continued to centralize the country and took special care of the judiciary, probably also to make it impossible to use the judiciary to eliminate unpopular people, as his father had shown in the case of his mistress. These efforts earned him his second nickname “o Justiciero” among the people, where he was extremely popular.
He forbade the church to distribute papal letters without the special consent of the king.
1367–1383: Ferdinand I.
After the death of Peter I, his son Ferdinand I, the Polite or the Handsome, the last ruler of the House of Burgundy, ruled Portugal from 1367 to 1383. Unlike his father, he used the first opportunity to intervene in the chaos of the Castilian throne - with dire consequences for his own country. As early as 1369 there was a first war with Castile. Ferdinand I, who was great-grandson of the Castilian king Sancho IV on the maternal line , raised claims to the Castilian throne. Heinrich II. Trastamara, an illegitimate son of Sanchos IV, had usurped him, after he had previously murdered the legitimate heir to the throne, Prince Regent Peter.
Portugal's war against Castile was not very successful. In the Peace of Alcoutim , Ferdinand had to renounce his claims. The king also undertook to marry a daughter, Henry II. However, the king fell in love with Leonore Teles de Menezes , a Portuguese noblewoman, and eventually married her. Heinrich, angry about the breach of treaty, attacked Portugal and sacked Lisbon in 1373. Portugal then allied with England, which made its own claims to the Castilian throne, as the Duke of Lancaster and the Earl of Cambridge were both married to daughters of Peter the Cruel. This also made Portugal a sideline to the Hundred Years War between England and France.
However, since the English did not send troops as promised, Ferdinand I had to make peace with Castile in the Treaty of Santarém (1373). After Henry II of Castile died in 1379, Ferdinand I entered into secret negotiations with both sides, promising an alliance to both the English and Castile. His ten-year-old daughter Beatrix was then to marry either Edward , the son of the Earl of Cambridge , or the son of John I , the successor to Henry on the throne of Castile. After the Earl of Cambridge landed in Lisbon with 3,000 men in 1381, his son's engagement to Beatrix was celebrated. However, the campaign against Castile soon collapsed and so Edmund of Cambridge returned to England in 1382 without his son's marriage.
Ferdinand I continued to try desperately to ensure the survival of Portugal as an independent state. Apart from Beatrix he had no children and therefore no male heirs. With his death, the last legitimate descendant of Henry of Burgundy and with it the Afonso dynasty in Portugal would die out. After the English connection had turned out to be disappointing, he therefore contacted Castile again. His daughter was now supposed to marry Johann I himself, no longer his son, as he had recently become a widower. After the death of Ferdinand I, Portugal was to be ruled by a Privy Council until a male child of Beatrix and Johann was old enough to rule. Should the marriage remain childless, Portugal would fall to Castile, but this would guarantee Portugal's autonomy. In 1383 Beatrix left Portugal for Castile and in the same year Ferdinand I died.
1383: Succession issues and the end of Burgundian rule in Portugal
Portuguese policy had already been overshadowed by the question of succession to the throne in the last years of the government of Ferdinand I. Ferdinand wanted his own daughter and her children to take the throne, but since he had no male descendants, his half-brothers, the other children of Peter I, also tried to secure the throne. First of all, the two Infants Dinis and Johann should be mentioned, children of Peter I from his relationship with Inês de Castro. However, their claim was on weak feet. Because Peter I's marriage to Inês de Castro had only taken place in secret, and even if Peter I confessed to his wife and children after the death of his father, many of them denied their legitimate birth and thus the right to the throne. In addition, large parts of the nobility were opposed to the two Infants because of their maternal relationship with the Castilian de Castros.
Another pretender to the throne was Johann von Avis , Grand Master of the Knightly Order of Avis since 1363 . He was undoubtedly illegitimate because he did not have Inês de Castro as his mother, but was born from another relationship with Peter I. In the eyes of the Portuguese nobility, however, this gave him the advantage of not being a Castilian.
In the last years of Ferdinand I's life, his wife, Leonore Teles de Meneses, exercised ever greater influence. In order to secure her daughter's throne and herself as much influence as possible, she made sure that the two Infants Dinis and Johann left the country. After the death of Ferdinand I (October 22, 1383), John I of Castile had the Infante imprisoned because he himself, as Beatrix's consort, had ambitions for the Portuguese throne. In 1385, however, John of Avis was elected the new king of Portugal and was able to maintain his position through his victory in the battle of Aljubarrota .