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 1109 - 1185 (76 years)
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| Name |
Afonso Henriques I of Portugal |
| Born |
25 Jul 1109 |
Coimbra, Portugal  |
| Gender |
Male |
| Died |
06 Dec 1185 |
Coimbra, Portugal |
| Buried |
Monastery of Santa Cruz, Coimbra, Portugal |
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| Notes |
- Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afonso_I_of_Portugal
Nicknamed "the Conqueror,""the Founder," or "the Great" by the Portuguese, he was the first King of Portugal. He achieved the independence of the southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia, the County of Portugal, from Galicia's overlord, the King of León, in 1139, establishing a new kingdom and doubling its area with the Reconquest, an objective that he pursued until his death, in 1185, after forty-six years of wars against the Moors.
Afonso I was the son of Henry of Burgundy and Theresa, the natural daughter of King Alfonso VI of León and Castile. The pair reigned jointly as Count and Countess of Portugal until Henry's death, after which Theresa reigned alone. Afonso was about three years old when his father Count Henry, died on 12 May 1112 during the siege of Astorga. In an effort to pursue a larger share in the Leonese inheritance, his mother Theresa married Fernando Pérez, Count of Trava, the most powerful count in Galicia.
The Portuguese nobility disliked the alliance between Galicia and Portugal and rallied around the infant Alfonso.
In 1122, Afonso turned 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 mother's lands.
In 1128, near Guimarães, at the Battle of São Mamede Afonso and his supporters overcame troops under his stepfather Count Fernando Peres de Trava of Galicia. Afonso exiled his mother to Galicia, and took over rule of the County of Portugal. Thus the possibility of re-incorporating Portugal (up to then known as Southern Galicia) into a Kingdom of Portugal and Galicia as before was eliminated and Afonso became sole ruler following demands for independence from the county's church and nobles. He also vanquished his mother's nephew, Alfonso VII of León, who came to her rescue, and thus freed the country 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 Portuguese Cortes convened at Lamego.
Independence from Alfonso VII of León, 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 Mafalda of Savoy, daughter of Amadeus III, Count of Savoy, and sent ambassadors to Rome to negotiate with the Pope. He succeeded in renouncing the control of his cousin, Alfonso VII of León, becoming instead a vassal of the papacy, as the kings of Sicily and Aragon had done before him.
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 liege man of the papacy. Afonso continued to distinguish himself by his exploits against the Moors, from whom he wrested 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. 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 Ferdinand II also his son-in-law. Portugal was obliged to surrender as his ransom almost all the conquests Afonso had made in Galicia in the previous years.
In 1179 the privileges and favours given to the Roman Catholic Church were compensated. 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 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 founder of their nation.
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 the 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.
Afonso married in 1146 Mafalda of Savoy (1125-1158), daughter of Amadeo III, Count of Savoy, and Mahaut of Albon and they had the following children:
1. Urraca who married Ferdinand II of León.
2. Sancho I, succeeded him as the 2nd King of Portugal
3. Teresa, married successively Philip I of Flanders and Odo III, Duke of Burgundy.
and at least 5 illegitimate children who lived to become adults.
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| Person ID |
I36102 |
Master File |
| Last Modified |
15 Sep 2016 |
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