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Royal Ancestors
from
Portugal
INTRODUCTION
Until the Middle
Ages, the history of Portugal is inseparable from that of Spain,
and the Iberian peninsula was a single territorial unit.
Present Portugal became part of the Roman province of Lucitania
in the 2nd century BC. In the 5th century
AD control of the region passed to the Visigoths, and in the 8th
century it was included in the area of the Moorish Moslem
conquest. In 997 the territory between the Douro and Minho
rivers was retaken from the Moors by Bermudo, King of Galicia,
and in 1064, the re-conquest was completed as far south as
present Coimbra by Ferdinand I, King of Castile and Leon. The
re-conquest districts were then organized into a feudal county,
composed of Spanish fiefs. The northernmost fief, the Comitatus
Portaculensis, extending around the old Roman seaport of Portus
Cale later gave Portugal its name.
In 1093 Count Henry
of Burgundy came to the assistance of Castile when it was
invaded by the Moors. In gratitude Alfonso VI of Castile gave
Henry the hand of Teresa, the kings illegitimate daughter, and,
as part of her dowry, the County of Portugal. At the death of
Alfonso in 1109, Count Henry refused to continue feudal
allegiance to Castile. He invaded Leon and began a series of
peninsular wars that, continued by Henry’s son, Alfonso
Henriques, later Alfonso I, made Portugal independent. In
addition, Alfonso, a brilliant general, defeated the Moors in
the south in the battle of Ourique. The Portuguese knights
accepted him as king in 1143, and in 1179 Pope Alexander III
recognized the royal title and the independence of the kingdom
of Portugal. Intermittent wars against Castile and the Moors
occupied the successors of Alfonso for about two centuries
thereafter, but the internal development of the kingdom
progressed materially. Under Alfonso III Algrave, the extreme
south, was added to the kingdom and Portugal reached its present
limits. Diniz, son of Alfonso III, began a policy of
encouraging agricultural and commercial enterprise which laid
the foundation of Portuguese wealth. In 1294 Diniz signed a
commercial treaty with Edward I of England, beginning a sequence
of alliances between the two countries. In 1340, under Alfonso
IV, the Portuguese, temporarily allied with Castile, decisively
defeated the Moors in the battle of Salado. The last of the
legitimate descendants of Henry of Burgundy was Ferdinand I, the
grandson of Alfonso IV.
After the death of
Ferdinand, his illegitimate half brother John I secured the
Portuguese throne in 1385, after two years of civil war. his
branch of the Burgundian line became known as the House of Aviz,
John having been grand master of the knightly order of that
name. John’s reign was one of the most notable in Portuguese
history. He successfully defended the kingdom against Castilina
attack in 1385 defeating Castile decisively in the battle of
Aljubarrota. In 1386 England and Portugal allied themselves
permanently by the Treaty of Windsor, and John married Philippa,
daughter of John of Gaunt. However, the greatest measure of
John’s reign rests less upon the king’s strong and able
administration than upon the work done under the direction of
his son, Prince Henry the Navigator in exploring the African
coast in order to find an eastward route to the Indies. A
century of exploration and conquest began which made Portugal
one of the greatest colonial powers in the world. In 1418-1419
Portuguese navigators explored Madeira and in 1427 discovered
the Azores. A successful Portuguese military campaign in
Morocco resulted in the capture of Ceuta in 1415, followed by
the acquisition of about half of Morocco. The work of Prince
Henry’s sea captains and their successors led to the institution
of a planned system of exploration.
During the 16th
century Portugal began to decline in commercial and political
importance. A prime factor in the decay of Portuguese affairs
was the expulsion, in 1496, of the Jews, depriving the kingdom
of much of its middle class and exiling many of its most
educated and capable citizens. The Inquisition was established
in 1536 and its religious tyranny extended even to the
colonies. In addition, the decadence and luxury of the
Portuguese nobility gave rise to social suppression, weakening
the spirit of nationalism which had characterized the previous
century. The death of John III in 1557 made his grandson, Dom
Sebastian, a child of three, king under a regency headed by
John’s brother, Cardinal Henry. Influenced by the Jesuits to
organize a crusade against the Moors, Sebastian invaded North
Africa in 1578 and was defeated and killed at the battle of
Alcazar-Quivir on August 4, 1578. The throne of the weakened
kingdom was inherited by Cardinal Henry, who died in 1580
leaving no heirs and ending the House of Aviz.
Seven claimants
disputed the succession to the throne. The most powerful was
Philip II of Spain, whose grandfather had been Manuel I of
Portugal. A Spanish army invaded Portugal and on August 25,
1580, decisively defeated the forces of Philip’s rivals. The
Spanish king became Philip I of Portugal. The annexation of
Portugal to the Spanish monarchy subjected it to Philip’s
tyranny and the heavy expenses of Spanish wars in a period known
as the Sixty Years Captivity. After the defeat of the Spanish
armada by England in 1588 and the subsequent loss of Spanish
prestige, the Portuguese colonial empire fell apart under the
repeated assaults of England, France, and the Netherlands.
Portuguese discontent with Spain, which ruled the country as a
minor Spanish province, climaxed in 1640. Taking advantage of a
revolt in Catalonia which occupied Spain at the time, Portuguese
conspirators, with the support of France, regained the
independence of their kingdom. John, Duke of Braganza, was
elected John IV, first king of the House of Braganza which ruled
Portugal thenceforth as long as the monarch ruled.
Portugal
The area that is now
Portugal was conquered (AD c. 5) by the Romans, overrun (from
the 5th century) by Germanic tribes, and taken (711)
by the Moors. Portugal became an independent kingdom in 1139
under Alfonso I, and with the conquest of Algarve in 1249 by
Alfonso III the Moors were driven out and the kingdom
consolidated. The reign of John I (r. 1385-1433), founder of
the Aviz dynasty, introduced Portugal’s glorious period of
colonial and maritime expansion; by the 15th century
the Portuguese empire extended to Asia, Africa and America. But
decline was rapid. In 1580 Phillip II of Spain seized Portugal,
which remained under Spanish rule until a revolt in 1640
established the Braganzas, Portugal’s last royal line.
Ruler/Ancestor |
Born |
Reign |
Died |
Alfonso I |
|
1139-1185 |
|
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