Alfonso I (Henriquez) OF PORTUGAL
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Alfonso I (Henriquez) OF PORTUGAL (1110-1185)

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      Alfonso I, King of the Portuguese     Tomb of Alfonso Henriques in the Santa Cruz Monastery in Coimbra.    
 
Name: Alfonso I (Henriquez) OF PORTUGAL 1
Sex: Male
Nickname: "the Conqueror" (Portuguese: o Conquistador), "the Founder" (o Fundador) or "the Great" (o Grande)
Father: Henry I OF PORTUGAL (1069-1112)
Mother: Theresa OF LEÓN & CASTILE (1080?-1130)

Individual Events and Attributes

Birth 15 Jul 1110 Guimarães (traditionally) and Viseu (documented), County of Portugal
Title frm 1112 to 1139 (age 1-29) Count of Portugal
Occupation frm 1128 to 1185 (age 17-75) King of Portugal
Group/Caste Membership House of Burgundy (Anscarids/Ivrea)
crowned 26 Jul 1139 (age 29)
Death 6 Dec 1185 (age 75) Coimbra, Kingdom of Portugal
Burial Santa Cruz Monastery in Coimbra

Marriage

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      Maud of Savoy, Queen of Portugal    
 
Spouse Maud (Mathilda) OF SAVOY (1125?-1157)
Children Urraca OF PORTUGAL (1150?-1188)
Marriage 1146 (age 35-36)

Individual Note

Afonso I or Dom Afonso Henriques [1] (c. 1109, Guimarães or Viseu – 6 December 1185, Coimbra), more commonly known as Afonso Henriques nicknamed "the Conqueror" (Portuguese: o Conquistador), "the Founder" (o Fundador) or "the Great" (o Grande) by the Portuguese, and El-Bortukali ("the Portuguese") and Ibn-Arrik ("son of Henry", "Henriques") by the Moors whom he fought, was the first King of Portugal. He achieved the independence of the southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia—County of Portugal—from the Kingdom of León, in 1139, doubling its area with the Reconquista, an objective that he pursued until his death, in 1185, after forty-six years of wars against the Moors.

 

Life

Afonso I was the son of Count Henry of Burgundy, regent of Portugal, and Queen Teresa, Countess of Portugal, the natural daughter of King Alfonso VI of León, heir by his grandmother of the first County of Portugal, which she received as a personal dowry. Afonso took the title of King of the Portuguese on 25 July 1139, immediately after the Battle of Ourique, acclaimed by his army, and died on 6 December 1185 in Coimbra.

 

At the end of the 11th century, the Iberian Peninsula political agenda was mostly concerned with the Reconquista, the driving out of the Moorish and Berber successor-states to the Caliphate of Córdoba after its collapse. With European military aristocracies focused on the Crusades, Alfonso VI called for the help of the French nobility to deal with the Moors. In exchange, he was to give the hands of two of his daughters in wedlock to the leaders of the expedition and bestow royal privileges to the others. Thus, the royal heiress Urraca of León wedded Raymond of Burgundy, younger son of William I, Count of Burgundy, and her half-sister, princess Teresa, wedded another French crusader, Henry of Burgundy, younger brother of Hugh I, Duke of Burgundy. Henry was made regent of Portugal during the minority of his childish wife, a burdensome county south of Galicia, where Moorish incursions and attacks were to be expected. Afterward succeeded by his wife Teresa in the same independent politic as rulers of Portugal, Henry had withstood the ordeal and initiated in Rome a politic of freeing their personal fief from suzerainty to the Leonese monarchy. In fact, the Visigoth Law established at the time that fiefs were personal property, and that crowns and kingdoms were to be shared in equal parts by all the children, which explains Teresa's claims to the Galician County of Portugal her father inherited from her grandmother among several other kingdoms and crowns, after he defeated his two kingdom-sharing dead brothers, the King of Galicia and Portugal, and the King of Castile.

 

From this marriage several children were born, but only one son, Afonso Henriques (meaning "Afonso son of Henry") survived. Infante Afonso, born in 1109, took the title of Prince after taking the throne of his mother, supported by the generality of the Portuguese nobility who disliked the alliance between Galicia and Portugal Queen Teresa had come to, marrying a second time the most powerful Galician count. In 1120, the young prince took the side of the archbishop of Braga, a political foe of Teresa, and both were exiled by her orders. In 1122 Afonso became fourteen, the adult age in the 12th century. He made himself a knight on his own account in the Cathedral of Zamora, raised an army, and proceeded to take control of his lands. Near Guimarães, at the Battle of São Mamede (1128) he overcame the troops under his mother's second husband and ally Count Fernando Peres de Trava of Galicia, exiling her forever to a monastery in Galicia. Thus the possibility of re-incorporating Portugal (up to then Southern Galicia) into a Kingdom of Portugal and Galicia as before was eliminated and Afonso became sole ruler (Duke of Portugal) after demands for independence from the county's church and nobles. He also vanquished Alfonso VII of León, came to the rescue of his mother, whose nephew he was, and thus freed the kingdom from political dependence on the crown of his cousin of León. On 6 April 1129, Afonso Henriques dictated the writ in which he proclaimed himself Prince of Portugal.

 

Afonso then turned his arms against the persistent problem of the Moors in the south. His campaigns were successful and, on 25 July 1139, he obtained an overwhelming victory in the Battle of Ourique, and straight after was unanimously proclaimed King of the Portuguese by his soldiers, establishing his equality in rank to the other realms of the Peninsula. The first assembly of the estates-general convened at Lamego (wherein he would have been given the crown from the Archbishop of Braga, to confirm his independence) is a 17th century embellishment of Portuguese history.

 

Independence from Alfonso VII of León's suzerainty, however, was not a thing he just could achieve militarily. The County of Portugal still had to be acknowledged diplomatically by the neighboring lands as a Kingdom and, most importantly, by the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope. Afonso wed Maud of Savoy, daughter of Amadeus III, Count of Savoy, and sent ambassadors to Rome to negotiate with the Pope. He succeeded to relinquish suzerainty to his cousin Alfonso VII of León, becoming instead a subject of the papacy, as the kingdoms of Sicily and Aragón had done before him. In 1179 the bull Manifestis Probatum accepted the new King as vassal to the Pope exclusively.

 

In Portugal he built several monasteries and convents and bestowed important privileges to religious orders. He is notably the builder of Alcobaça Monastery, to which he called the Cistercian Order of his uncle Bernard of Clairvaux of Burgundy. In 1143, he wrote to Pope Innocent II to declare himself and the kingdom servants of the Church, swearing to pursue driving the Moors out of the Iberian Peninsula. Bypassing any king of León, Afonso declared himself the direct liegeman of the Papacy. Thus, Afonso continued to distinguish himself by his exploits against the Moors, from whom he wrested Santarém (see Conquest of Santarém) and Lisbon in 1147 (see Siege of Lisbon). He also conquered an important part of the land south of the Tagus River, although this was lost again to the Moors in the following years.

 

Meanwhile, King Alfonso VII of León (Afonso's cousin) regarded the independent ruler of Portugal as nothing but a rebel. Conflict between the two was constant and bitter in the following years. Afonso became involved in a war, taking the side of the Aragonese king, an enemy of Castile. To ensure the alliance, his son Sancho was engaged to Dulce, sister of the Count of Barcelona, and princess of Aragon. Finally, in 1143, the Treaty of Zamora established peace between the cousins and the recognition by the Kingdom of León that Portugal was a sovereign kingdom.

 

In 1169 the now old Dom Afonso was disabled in an engagement near Badajoz by a fall from his horse, and made prisoner by the soldiers of the king of León, his son-in-law. Portugal was obliged to surrender as his ransom almost all the conquests Afonso had made in Galicia (north of the Minho) in the previous years.

 

In 1179 the privileges and favours given to the Roman Catholic Church were compensated. In the papal bull Manifestis Probatum, Pope Alexander III acknowledged Afonso as King and Portugal as an independent crown with the right to conquer lands from the Moors. With this papal blessing, Portugal was at last secured as a kingdom.

 

In 1184, in spite of his great age, he still had sufficient energy to relieve his son Dom Sancho, who was besieged in Santarém by the Moors. Afonso died shortly after, on 6 December 1185.

 

The Portuguese revere him as a hero, both on account of his personal character and as the mythical founder of their nation. There are stories that it would take 10 men to carry his sword, and that Afonso would want to engage other monarchs in personal combat, but no one would dare accept his challenge.

 

Scientific research

In July 2006, the tomb of the king (which is located in the Santa Cruz Monastery in Coimbra) was to be opened for scientific purposes by researchers from the University of Coimbra (Portugal), and the University of Granada (Spain). The opening of the tomb provoked considerable concern among some sectors of Portuguese society and IPPAR – Instituto Português do Património Arquitectónico (Portuguese State Agency for Architectural Patrimony). The government halted the opening, requesting more protocols from the scientific team because of the importance of the king in the nation's formation.[2][3]

 

Descendants

Afonso married in 1146 Mafalda or Maud of Savoy (1125–1158), daughter of Amadeo III, Count of Savoy, and Mafalda of Albon.

 

By Maud of Savoy (1125–1158; married in 1146)

Henrique (Henry) 5 March 1147 1147

Mafalda 1148 c. 1160

Urraca c. 1151 1188 Queen of León by marriage to King Ferdinand II of León.

Sancha 1153 1159

Sancho 1154 26 March 1212 Succeeded him as Sancho I, 2nd King of Portugal

João (John) 1156 1156

Teresa (Theresa) 1157 1218 Countess consort of Flanders by marriage to Philip I of Flanders. Duchess consort of Burgundy by marriage to Eudes III of Burgundy.

 

By Elvira Gálter

Urraca Afonso c. 1130 ? Natural daughter. Married Pedro Afonso Viegas. Lady of Aveiro.

Other natural offspring

Fernando Afonso ?[5] c. 1172 High-General of the Kingdom (Constable of Portugal)

Pedro Afonso c 1130 1169 A.k.a. Pedro Henriques. 1st Grand-Master of the Order of Aviz.

Afonso c. 1135 1207 12th Grand Master of the Order of Saint John of Rhodes (also known as the Knights Hospitaller).

Teresa Afonso c. 1135 ? Married Fernando Martins Bravo or Martim Moniz.

 

NOTES:

1 Or also Affonso (Archaic Portuguese-Galician) or Alphonso (Portuguese-Galician) or Alphonsus (Latin version), sometimes rendered in English as Alphonzo or Alphonse, depending on the Spanish or French influence.

2 IPPAR: direcção nacional diz que não foi consultada sobre abertura do túmulo de D. Afonso Henriques, Público, 6 July 2006, accessed December 2006 (in Portuguese)

3 n:Portuguese Culture Ministry suspends opening of Afonso I's tomb

4 Genea - Portuguese genealogical site, according to: D. António Caetano de Sousa, História Genealógica da Casa Real Portuguesa, Coimbra, Atlântida, 1946, vol. I, p. 36; Afonso Eduardo Martins Zuquete (dir.), Nobreza de Portugal e Brasil, Lisboa, Editorial Enciclopédia, 1989, vol. I, p. 85.

5 c. (1166 is an erroneous date)

 

SOURCES:

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.2

Sources

1Weis, Frederick Lewis & Sheppard, Walter Lee, Jr, "Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700: Lineages from Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, and other Historical Individuals". p 112, 112-25; 263, 274B-26.
2"Wikipedia". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afonso_I_of_Portugal.