Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/562

Rh 540 PORTUGAL [HISTORY. Henry of was the second son of Henry, third son of Robert, first duke of Burgundy, and was in every way a typical knight ^^ 5 of his century, a brave restless warrior, and a crusader; but when once firmly established in his county he thought much more about his chances of succeeding his father-in- law as king than of trying to carve a kingdom for him self out of the dominions of the Mohammedan caliphs. When, therefore, Alphonso VI. died in 1109 and left his thrones to his daughter Urraca, and nothing to Henry, the Burgundian at once invaded Leon. For five years the Christian princes, Henry of Burgundy, Alphonso Raimundes (the son of Count Raymond), Alphonso of Aragon, and Queen Urraca, fought together, while Sir was consolidating the Almoravide power, until Count Henry died suddenly at Astorga in 1112, leaving his wife Theresa to rule the county of Portugal during the minority of his infant son, Affonso Henriques. Theresa, who ruled at Guimaraens during her son s minority, was a beautiful and accomplished woman, who devoted all her energies to building up Affonso s dominions into an independent state, and under her rule, while the Christian states of Spain were torn by civil wars, the Portuguese nobles were prevented from interfering, and began to recognize Portugal as their country, and to cease from calling themselves Galicians. Her regency was a stormy one in spite of all her efforts to maintain peace : in 1116 she was persuaded by Gelmires, bishop of Santiago, to try and extend her frontier towards the north, and seized Tuy and Orense ; in 1117 she was besieged by the Moham medans in Coimbra; and in 1121 her sister Urraca took her prisoner, but, through the interposition of Bishop Gelmires and Mauricio Burdino, archbishop of Braga, peace was quickly made between them. For the next few years a curious parallelism appears between the careers of the two sisters : Urraca showered favours on her lover, Pedro de Lara, until her young son Alphonso Raimundes, or Alphonso VII. of Leon and Castile, with the help of Bishop Gelmires, revolted against her ; and with equal blindness Theresa favoured her lover, Fernando Peres de Trava, whom she made governor of the cities of Oporto and Coimbra, until she was detested by the boy Affonso Henriques, and Paio, archbishop of Braga. They did not, however, break out into open revolt until after a successful invasion by Alphonso VII. of Leon and Castile, who forced Theresa to recognize his supremacy in 1127. Her son refused to ratify her submission, and rose in rebellion with Archbishop Paio, Sueiro Mendes, Sancho Nunes, and others; and at the battle of San Mamede on 14th June 1 128 Theresa was taken prisoner, and then wandered about in Galicia with her lover until her death in 1 1 30. Affonso Affonso Henriques, who at the age of seventeen assumed the government, was one of the heroes of the Middle Ages ; he succeeded to the rule of the county of Portugal when it was still regarded as a fief of Galicia, and after nearly sixty years incessant fighting he bequeathed to his son a powerful little kingdom, whose independence was unques tioned, and whose fame was spread abroad throughout Christendom by the reports of the victories of its first king over the Mohammedans. The four wars of independence which Affonso Henriques waged against Alphonso VII. lasted more than twelve years, and were fought out on the Galician frontier with varying success, until the question of Portuguese independence was peaceably established and confirmed by the valour of the Portuguese knights, who overcame those of Castile in the famous tournament of Valdevez, and Affonso Henriques assumed the title of the king of Portugal. The independence of Portugal from Galicia being thus finally achieved, Affonso Henriques abandoned the idea of extending his dominions towards the north, and devoted the next twenty-five years of his nques. life to one long crusade against the Mohammedans, and to extending his frontier towards the south. The state of the Mohammedan power in Spain was particularly favour able to his enterprise. The wave of Moslem fanaticism which had created the Almoravide dynasty had exhausted itself, and independent chiefs had established themselves again in the different provinces, while in Africa Abd al- Mumen, the successor of the Almohade mahdi, was de stroying the power of the Almoravides by means of yet another wave of fanaticism. As early as 1135 Alfonso had built the castle of Leiria to protect his capital, Coimbra, but for some years he left the task of attacking the Mohammedans to the Knights Templars and Knights Hospitallers, who made incessant incursions from their headquarters at Soure and Thomar. But the castle of Leiria had soon fallen; and in 1139, after the flower of Mohammedan Spain had crossed over to Africa under Teshufin, the last Almoravide caliph, to fight the Almo- hades, and when Alphonso VII. was making his second incursion into the heart of Andalusia, Alfonso Henriques collected his whole army and invaded the province of the Kasr ibn Abi Danes. Advancing to the south of Beja, he met the united forces of all the neighbouring cities under a wali named Ismar, and completely routed him at Orik or Ourique on 25th July. This battle has been sur rounded with a mass of legends : it was solemnly asserted two hundred years afterwards that five kings and 200,000 Mohammedans were utterly defeated, and that after the battle Affonso was proclaimed king by his soldiers. Such legends hardly need contradiction ; the victory was a great one, but it was obtained over provincial emirs ; and it was not by victories over Mohammedans but by struggles with his Christian cousin Alphonso VII. that independ ence was to be won. Of still later invention was the fiction of the cortes of Lamego, and the passing of the fundamental laws of the monarchy, on which Vertot and other writers have expended so much eloquence. Of great significance with regard to the legendary splendour of the victory is the fact that in the very next year Ismar or Omar, the emir who was defeated at Ourique, was able to take the field again, when he once more seized the castle of Leiria, and destroyed it. In 1143 a regular peace was concluded between Alphonso VII. and Affonso Henriques Poring at Zamora through the mediation of the cardinal Guy Vico, when Affonso Henriques was finally recognized as king, and promised to be a vassal of the pope, and to pay him four ounces of gold annually. For many subsequent years the history of Portugal is merely a narration of wars against the Mohammedans. Abu Zakaria, wazfr of San- tarem and Mohammedan leader in the Belatha (a district including the banks of the Tagus and the cities of Lisbon, Santarem, and Cintra), defeated the Templars at Soure in 1144, but in 1147 Santarem itself was surprised and taken on 15th March. Of still more importance was the capture of Lisbon in the same year. A number of German crusaders from the Rhine and Flanders under Count Arnold of Aerschot and Christian Ghistell, and of English crusaders under their constables, Hervey Glanvill, Simon of Dover, Andrew of London, and Saher d Arcellis, put in at Oporto on their way to Palestine, and were persuaded by the bishop to commence their holy work by assisting in the siege of Lisbon. With their help the ancient city, which claimed to have been founded by Ulysses, and which had three times in 792, in 851, and in 1093 been taken by the Christians and held for a short time, was finally captured on 24th October by Affonso Henriques, who also persuaded many of the crusaders to settle and form colonies in Portugal. The series of conquests con tinued : Cintra, Palmella, and Almada quickly surrendered, and at last, after a failure in 1152, the great city of AlcAcer dom.