Siege of Lisbon (1384)

Siege of Lisbon

Part of: Portuguese Revolution of 1383
Hundred Years War

The Siege of Lisbon from the Chronicles of Jean Froissart .

date	April 8, 1384 to September 3, 1384
place	near Lisbon
output	Victory of the Portuguese

Parties to the conflict
Castile and Leon Kingdom of France	Kingdom of Portugal Kingdom of England
Commander
Johann I. Fernando Sánchez de Tovar †	Johann by Avis Nuno Álvares Pereira
Troop strength
Unknown	Unknown
losses
Very high	High

The second siege of Lisbon ( April 8, 1384 to September 3, 1384 ) was a pivotal event in the Portuguese Revolution of 1383 , which ended with the victory of the Portuguese and paved the way for the final victory of the Portuguese over the Castilians in Aljubarrota .

prehistory

During the Ferdinandic Wars , the deceased King Ferdinand I was forced to marry his daughter Beatrix to the then heir to the throne of Castile, John I. When Ferdinand I died in 1383, John I laid claim to the Portuguese throne on the basis of this marriage. Since Ferdinand I did not have a legitimate son, the claim therefore had a solid, legal basis. Portugal, however, did not want to be under the rule of Castile and thereupon rebelled openly with a successful popular uprising against John I and his troops.

For this reason, John I marched with his troops and his fleet to Lisbon to take the city and thus assert his claim. Once there, the Castilians began on April 8, 1384 on the basis of this plan to encircle and besiege Lisbon.

siege

From that day on, the 38 gates of the Lisbon city wall were hermetically sealed off by the Portuguese and the 77 watchtowers were all occupied with war-ready troops. The wall has been strengthened since the Second Ferdinandan War , driven by the fact that the Castilians had already besieged Lisbon in the war of that time . Since the Portuguese fleet had become insignificant since the battle of Isla Saltés, it could do nothing against the siege from the sea.

From that day until the beginning of August the Castilians tried to overcome the city wall almost every day, but this proved to be very defensive due to these improvements. In addition, the Portuguese were determined to fight. The greatest enemy of the Lisboners was no longer Castile during the siege, but rather the hunger that slowly spread within the city walls. The situation became more and more dramatic. Although a Portuguese armada coming from Porto was able to break through the encirclement of Lisbon for a short time on August 18th because the Castilian fleet was careless for a while, and thus supply the city with a little food, the Castilians were able to cope with the new situation react, resume the siege of Lisbon, destroy the fleet and even capture three of the Portuguese warships. In addition, the city threatened to fall into the hands of Castile, as all the suburbs of the city gradually fell.

From August 22nd, however, the Castilians' conquest attacks were much less in one fell swoop. The reason was the plague , which spread violently among the Castilian soldiers and also hit the navy. Many Castilian soldiers died as a result of the epidemic and the fleet was also decimated. Half of the Castilians are said to have died because of the disease. However, this disease did not affect the citizens of Lisbon. The army and the navy were therefore in a situation comparable to a trap. Under these circumstances, they could not withdraw because the whole project would fail, as all the abandoned suburbs would then join the rebels. Therefore, in this unfavorable situation, they were forced to carry on despite their high losses.

So it happened that an intervention by the general Nuno Álvares Pereira , who came with fresh troops from the Alentejo , was able to finally lift the siege of the capital on September 3, 1384. Since in the meantime the wife of Johann I began to suffer from the plague, Johann I decided to finally lift the siege under these circumstances. The Castilian siege troops, or what was left of them, then fled north. Many high nobles of Castile died in the siege, including Fernando Sánchez de Tovar, commander in chief of the Castilian fleet .

Consequences

The lifting of the siege gave the Portuguese the opportunity to better prepare for a second invasion next year. Johann von Avis was proclaimed king meanwhile, which strengthened the position of the Portuguese in battle. In addition, due to the decimation of the Castile fleet, the English could from now on easily send troops to Portugal to support the Portuguese in their struggle.

The strategic genius of Nuno Álvares Pereira and the troops sent by England enabled him to defeat the Castilians in Aljubarrota the following year, which was increased with French troops . In this way Portugal was able to maintain its independence from Castile, England to stop France and thus also to end the first phase of the Hundred Years War.

See also

• Ferdinandic Wars
• Sea battle off the island of Saltés
• Portuguese Revolution of 1383
• Hundred Years War
• Battle of Aljubarrota

bibliography

• López de Ayala, Pero; Zurita, Jerónimo; Eugenio de, Llaguno y Amírola; (1780). Crónicas de los reyes de Castilla Don Pedro, Don Enrique II, Don Juan I y Don Enrique III. Tomo II. Madrid: Imprenta de Don Antonio de Sancha. OCLC 457585252. (Spanish) .
• MCMURDO, EDWARD (1888) "The history of Portugal" Volume 2. (English) .
• Schäfer, Heinrich (1839). History of Portugal. Volume 2.
• Suárez Fernández, Luis (1994). Juan I de Trastámara (1379-1390). Volume VIII de la Colección Corona de España: Series Reyes de Castilla y León (1ª edición). Palencia: Diputación Provincial de Palencia y Editorial La Olmeda SL ISBN 978-84-8173-012-8 . (Spanish) .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Second Siege of Lisbon Planet Portugal . Retrieved August 22, 2018.
2. ↑ Schäfer p. 192
3. ↑ Año 1384 Cronología histórica . Retrieved August 22, 2018 (Spanish) .