Читать книгу The Story of the Nations: Portugal - H. Morse Stephens - Страница 10

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AFFONSO HENRIQUES, the only son of Count Henry and Donna Theresa, who at the age of seventeen, after the battle of S. Mamede, began his long and prosperous reign, was one of the heroes of the Middle Ages. He succeeded to the government of Portugal when it was still regarded generally, in spite of Theresa’s claims, as a county of Gallicia, and after nearly sixty years of incessant fighting he bequeathed to his son a powerful little kingdom, whose independence was unquestioned, and whose fame was spread abroad throughout Christendom by the victories of its first monarch over the Moors. The story of his early years abounds in miraculous legends and tales, like those told of the youth of Arthur and Charlemagne, which, if not credible in themselves, are interesting as showing the feelings of the Portuguese chroniclers and poets towards him. His boyish exploits in the mountains around Guimaraens, in which he is said to have fought wolves as he afterwards fought the Moors, and the tale of the fire which played about his cradle without hurting or even terrifying the youthful hero, savour of the marvellous and were evidently invented in after years. But in telling the tale of his education and bringing up his biographers were on firmer ground. His father had died when he was but an infant, and his mother was too much occupied with her lover and with the cares of government to pay much attention to him. He was handed over entirely to the charge of a gallant Portuguese nobleman, Egas Moniz, the governor of Guimaraens. The young count showed himself an adept in all knightly exercises; he became a skilful horseman and a fearless hunter; and added to these accomplishments, a knowledge of reading and writing rarely acquired in those times by any but ecclesiastics. His disposition was that of knight of the Middle Ages; with the greatest personal bravery, he possessed a love for poetry and romance, and delighted in the tales of chivalry which were sung before him; and he was moreover a typical Christian of the period, uniting a belief in superstitions, which made him a fanatic, with a looseness of life, when love for women or romantic adventure was in question, which directly belied his religious professions.

His initiation into public life began at the age of fourteen, when he was taken by his tutor and guardian to Zamora to receive the honour of knighthood, in the cathedral from his cousin, Alfonso VII. It was at the feast of Pentecost, in 1125, that he thus devoted his life to chivalry, and he made his vows and watched his arms throughout the night in the cathedral with all the ardour of his age and temperament. He was to fight in many a war with the cousin who then made him a knight; but neither of them, though failing to lead moral lives, ever failed to acquit himself as a chivalrous knight. Affonso returned to Guimaraens with Egas Moniz, and many of the Portuguese nobility at once proposed that he should assume the government of his county in person and deprive his mother of the regency. He was trained to this idea by Archbishop Paio Mendes and his party, and when Donna Theresa and Egas Moniz promised for him that he would submit to Alfonso VII. he refused to ratify their promises, and declared himself of age in 1128. He speedily defeated his mother at the battle of S. Mamede, and then became the real ruler of his county. In his conduct after this behaviour of his ward and pupil, old Egas Moniz showed how fit he was to have been the tutor of a hero. When the old nobleman understood that Affonso would not make the submission to the King of Castile, Leon, and Gallicia, which he had promised in the young count’s name, he went to Toledo with his wife and children, and, surrendered himself to Alfonso VII. The young king honoured the old man’s loyalty to his word, and, instead of punishing him, pointed him out to his courtiers as a model to be imitated, and said aloud, “What great things will not the pupil of such a noble knight be able to perform!”

The reign of Affonso Henriques may be divided into four clearly marked periods—the regency of Donna Theresa; the wars of dismemberment, by which the independence of Portugal was established; the wars of acquisition against the Moors, by which the southern frontier of the country was extended; and the period of partial decline after the defeat and imprisonment of the king in 1166. Of these four periods the first has been described, but each of the others deserves a close examination, for each of them possesses a distinct importance in Portuguese history.

The four wars of Affonso Henriques with Alfonso VII. ended in the recognition of the Portuguese hero as king, and in the abandonment by him of all interference in Gallicia. The first Gallician war consisted of an incursion by Affonso Henriques into Gallicia, in 1130, the year of his mother’s death, which was caused by the desire of the Count to punish Fernando Peres, who was preparing on his side an invasion of Portugal. From this incursion Affonso was recalled by the news that Fernando’s brother, Bermudo Peres, who had married Affonso’s sister, and was governor of Viseu, was in open insurrection. Affonso instantly returned, took Bermudo’s castle of Seia, confiscated his estates, and forced him to become a monk; and the Gallician party in Portugal received a blow from which it never recovered. In 1135 Affonso made a second incursion into Gallicia, took the town of Limia, and built the great castle of Celmes. Alfonso VII., who had in this year been elected Emperor, and whose supremacy was acknowledged not only all over Spain, but in Provence as well, was not likely to brook this insolence on the part of the Count of Portugal, and speedily sent an army, which captured Celmes and then withdrew. Affonso did not feel grateful for the leniency with which he had been treated, but in 1137 made a third incursion into Gallicia, at the invitation of Gomes Nunes of Tuy, and Rodrigo Peres of Limia, and utterly defeated the counts true to Alfonso VII., headed by his old enemy Fernando Peres, and by Rodrigo Vela, in the hard-fought battle of Cerneja. This defeat at last roused the Emperor Alfonso, who came in person with a powerful army to punish the count, or as he now termed himself, the Infante of Portugal. Fortunately for Affonso the two armies did not come to blows; the ecclesiastics on both sides argued that it was monstrous for two Christian princes to fight with each other instead of with the Moors, and by the mediation of the Archbishop of Braga and the Bishop of Oporto, on behalf of Affonso, and of the Bishops of Tuy, Segovia, and Orense for the Emperor, the Peace of Tuy was signed on July 4, 1137. By this peace Affonso Henriques promised to abandon all interference with Gallician affairs, and to submit himself as a vassal to the Emperor, and both princes swore to turn their arms against the Mohammedans. But the Portuguese prince did not abide by the terms of the Peace of Tuy, in so far as it made him a vassal; and after winning his famous victory over the Moors at Ourique, in 1139, he again invaded Gallicia, and in 1140 the last battle between the sons of the two brothers-in-arms, the French counts, Raymond and Henry, was fought. Affonso Henriques was wounded, and it was agreed, in consonance with the ideas of the times, to refer the great question of Portuguese independence to a chivalrous contest. In a great tournament, known as the “Tourney of Valdevez,” the Portuguese knights were entirely successful over those of Castile, and in consequence of their victory Affonso Henriques assumed the title of King of Portugal.

This is the turning-point of Portuguese history, and it is a curious fact that the independence of Portugal from Gallicia was achieved by victory in a tournament and not in war. Up to 1136 Affonso Henriques had styled himself Infante, in imitation of the title borne by his mother; from 1136 to 1140 he styled himself Principe, and in 1140 he first took the title of King. There is no document extant in which the Emperor acknowledged his cousin as a sovereign as early as this date, and, indeed, the agreement is only known as the “Truce of Valdevez,” but he obviously acquiesced in it, on condition that Affonso Henriques gave up all idea of interfering in Gallician politics or of extending his frontiers towards the north. But a more important consent than that of the Emperor had to be obtained before the Portuguese prince could obtain admission into the sacred circle of Christian kings, and this was the consent of the Pope. The head of the Church at this period was Innocent II., who was earnestly desirous of promoting the crusading spirit, and was especially grieved at the very existence of the Moors in Spain. He despatched Cardinal Guy de Vico to establish union amongst the Christian princes there, and the cardinal in 1143 drew up a regular peace and treaty between the Emperor and Affonso Henriques at Zamora. By this treaty the latter was recognized as sovereign monarch of Portugal, and the Emperor also granted to him the lordship of Astorga as a fief, in order that he might thus exercise some control over the Portuguese king. In reward for the mediation of the cardinal, Affonso Henriques further declared himself by letter to be a vassal of the Pope, and promised to pay four ounces of gold a year, by which measure he placed himself under the protection of the Spiritual Head of Christendom, and secured a guarantee for the perpetuation of his dynasty.

Portugal was now an independent kingdom. The wars of dismemberment were over; the wars of extension and establishment were now to take their place. The next twenty-five years of the reign of Affonso Henriques were spent in one long crusade against the Moors, and were full of incident and adventure.

But before entering upon a summary description of these wars, which spread the fame of the Portuguese and of their monarch throughout Europe, something must be said of the Moorish wars, which were carried on simultaneously with the wars of dismemberment. These Gallician wars have been described first and by themselves, because of the common mistake made that it was by his successes against the Moors that Affonso Henriques won his crown. This mistake is of old standing; the early Portuguese chroniclers always ascribed the independence of their country as due to the successes of their first king over the infidels, and it was not until the modern school of historians arose in Portugal, which examined documents and did not take the statements of their predecessors on trust, that it was clearly pointed out that Affonso Henriques won his crown by his long struggle with his Christian cousin, and not by his exploits against the Moors. This fact is such an important one that it ranks amongst the most startling discoveries made by the modern scientific school of historians, and to bring it into clearer prominence the early years of war with the Moors have been purposely passed over until now; although there can be no doubt that the exploits of the great Portuguese crusader made the Emperor more ready to recognize him as an independent sovereign, and the Pope more anxious to comply with his desire to be admitted among the sovereigns of Europe. As a proof of his admission it may be noted here that Affonso Henriques married in 1146 the daughter of a European prince, Matilda of Savoy, daughter of Amadeus II., Count of Savoy, Maurrienne, and Piedmont.

A VIEW OF THE ANCIENT MOORISH BATH AT CINTRA. (From Murphy’s “Travels in Portugal,” 1795.)

The condition of the Moorish power in Spain had been particularly favourable to his early enterprises in Gallicia, for it had left him comparatively free from the fear of invasion from the south, and given him opportunities for winning signal victories. The wave of Mohammedan fanaticism, which had established the Almoravid dynasty in Spain and Morocco, and defeated the Christian chivalry at the battle of Zalaca, had lost its power, and the Almoravides had degenerated.[2] Independent Mohammedan dynasties had again established themselves in the different provinces of Spain, while in Africa, the successor of the Mahdi, Abd-el-Mumin, was destroying the power of the Almoravides with a fresh fanatical movement. The three independent emīrs with whom the Portuguese had to deal were those of the Alfaghar or Algarves, of Al-kasr Ibn Abi Danes, which comprised Badajoz, Elvas, and Evora, and of the Belatha, which included the Mohammedan possessions to the north of the Tagus with the important cities of Lisbon, Santarem, and Cintra. Under these emīrs were numerous “wālis” of districts, “vezīrs” of cities, and “kāids” of castles, who were semi-independent; and as not only the emīrs, but their subordinates were constantly at war with each other, and could expect but little help from the Almoravide caliph, the incursions of the Portuguese were generally crowned with success.

After his accession to the government, Affonso Henriques had chiefly left the duty of harassing the Moors to the Knights Templars and Knights Hospitallers, who engaged in frequent expeditions from their headquarters at Soure and Thomar, where they had been established by Donna Theresa. Busied as he was with his schemes for independence, Affonso did little to assist these knightly monks, except to build a great castle at Leiria, which was intended at once to cover his capital Coimbra, and to serve as a base for expeditions against Santarem and Cintra. The erection of this castle alarmed the Mohammedans of the Belatha, and caused them for a moment to drop their quarrels with each other. They raised a large army, and in 1135, the very year in which the castle of Leiria had been built, they stormed it, killed the 240 knights who had been left as its garrison, and defeated a Christian army at Thomar. At the time of these disasters Affonso was in Gallicia, but when affairs there were temporarily settled by the Peace of Tuy, he prepared to undertake a great expedition against the Moors and gathered all the chivalry of Portugal to follow him.

When he had collected his army in May, 1139, he determined to do more than make one of the usual expeditions into the ruined and devastated districts of the Belatha, and to force his way to the south of the Tagus, and thus drive the war into the heart of the enemy’s country. He knew that the opposition would not be so serious as it would have been in previous years, because Teshfīn, the last Almoravide caliph, who had succeeded his father in 1137, had in 1138 taken the flower of the Mohammedan chivalry of Spain across the straits to Africa to make a last effort to subdue the growing power of the Almohades or followers of the Mahdi. He knew also that his cousin Alfonso was making his second incursion into the heart of Andalusia, and he therefore boldly crossed the Tagus and entered the province of Al-kasr Ibn Abi Danes, as the western portion of the old Moslem emirate of the Gharb was called. The emīr, Ismar or Omar, tried to collect an army, but Affonso advanced with rapidity and utterly defeated him, with four of his “wālis,” at Orik or Ourique eight leagues south of Beja, on July 25, 1139.

This is the famous victory of Ourique, which, until modern investigators examined the facts, has been considered to have laid the foundations of the independence of Portugal. Chroniclers, two centuries after the battle solemnly asserted that five kings were defeated on this occasion, that two hundred thousand Mohammedans were slain, and that after the victory the Portuguese soldiers raised Affonso on their shields and hailed him as king. This story is absolutely without authority from contemporary chronicles, and is quite as much a fiction as the Cortes of Lamego, which has been invented as sitting in 1143 and passing the constitutional laws, on which Vertot and other writers have expended so much eloquence. One ought, perhaps, to speak with more reverence of the legend which tells how Christ crucified appeared to Affonso in his tent, on the evening before the battle, and promised him the victory, even though there is no contemporary tradition referring to it; because it would have been quite in keeping with the mysticism of the Middle Ages for Affonso to assert that he had seen such a vision in order to encourage his soldiers. This tradition was certainly current a century after the battle, and the kings of Portugal to this day bear the five wounds of Christ in a chief upon their coat of arms in memory of it.[3] These legends all deserve record, if only to show how great was the fame of the victory of Affonso, rather from his courage in penetrating so far into the enemy’s country than from his success in the battle itself. That success was a victory over five provincial wālis in a country which hated the Almoravides, at a time when the flower of the Moslem chivalry was fighting in Africa, and it was not by such victories, but by hard struggles with his Christian cousin that Affonso achieved the independence of his country. If any other further proof that the victory was not all that poets and later historians painted it was needed, it might be found in the fact that in the very next year Ismar or Omar, the emīr who was defeated at Ourique, was able to raise a fresh army with which he took the castle of Leiria by storm.

ARCH OF THE WESTERN ENTRANCE TO AN OLD CHAPEL AT LEIRIA.

For many years after the recognition of Affonso’s independence the history of his reign is filled by accounts of the wars against the Moors. But the warfare no longer comprised single expeditions, such as that crowned by the victory of Ourique, but steady persevering conquest of the Belatha. The efforts of the Portuguese were at first directed against cities and castles, and the country districts were ravaged and left to lie waste. The whole of the district between Coimbra and the Tagus was one great battle-ground, and Affonso had all he could do to take and hold the cities, and was obliged to leave the villages in a state of desolation. The population of his original kingdom was not large enough to colonize the new conquests, and Affonso therefore confined his efforts to laying waste the fields and garrisoning the cities he took from the Moors with any soldiers he could manage to take into his pay. It must be noted that the war was not one of extermination; the Mohammedan and Christian soldiers fought fiercely enough, but the Celtic inhabitants of the cities, and the large intermixture of Jews, who dwelt amongst them, passed from the dominion of the one race to that of the other quietly enough. The war was a war of soldiers, and Affonso’s difficulty was to get enough of them to make a successful attempt to maintain his conquests. The nobility of Portugal followed him gladly with their vassals, and the religious orders of knights repaid him by their services for the liberality with which Donna Theresa had received them, but neither of these sources of military strength were so valuable to him as the crusaders of northern Europe. He gained their assistance in two ways. Pope Innocent II. had declared it as praiseworthy to fight the infidels in Spain as in the Holy Land, and many crusaders fulfilled their crusading vows by coming to Portugal and taking service there. But most of the warriors of the cross preferred rather to make their way to Palestine, and as those from England, Flanders, and the north of France went round by sea, and invariably touched at Oporto, Affonso was able to persuade many of them to do a little fighting under his command against the Moors before proceeding to attack the Saracens in the Holy Land. This was what he did in 1143, when, with some French crusaders, he ravaged the district around Lisbon.

The history of the Portuguese conquest of the Belatha is of the greatest importance in itself, and it is noticeable that Affonso’s first incursion into the country, held by the Moors after the signature of the Treaty of Zamora, took place at the invitation of a Moorish emīr. Ahmad Ibn Kasi, Emīr of Mertola, wrote to him in 1144 under the name and title of Ibn Errik, Lord of Coimbra, and begged him to come to his assistance against the Emīr of Badajoz. But the Moorish soldiers of Ahmad Ibn Kasi refused to fight in the same ranks with the Christians, and Affonso was requested to retire and loaded with presents. After this he felt increasingly that it was more advantageous for him to conquer the neighbouring cities one by one than to make these distant expeditions. It was obvious that his first attack should be directed against the great and beautiful city of Santarem, which commanded the upper reaches of the Tagus, and lay at but one day’s march from his capital at Coimbra. Abu Zekeria, the “vezīr” of Santarem, was the most famous Mohammedan warrior in the Belatha, and had inflicted a signal defeat upon the Knights Templars at Soure, and in him Affonso had a worthy opponent. The only way to take his city was to surprise it, and for this end the Portuguese king made elaborate preparations. He told no one of his real intention, except one old soldier, Mem Ramires, and the first Portuguese canonized saint, St. Theotonio, then prior of the convent of Santa Cruz at Coimbra. On March 2, 1147, he led his army forth, and, surprising the city before its “vezīr” had time to provision it, he laid siege for a few days, and on March 15th carried it by storm with but slight resistance from the dispirited garrison.

VIEW OF LISBON. (After a Photograph.)

This feat of arms was surpassed in the same year by a still greater event, the capture of Lisbon, the important city at the mouth of the Tagus, the future capital of Portugal, and the port from which the Portuguese ships were to sail forth on their voyages of discovery both to the east and the west. Affonso Henriques had long wished to capture this great city, for if he possessed it as well as Santarem, he would be able to defend the Tagus as his southern boundary, and have a much better base of operations. This ancient city was, from its position on the Tagus, the natural capital of the western coast of the Iberian peninsula, and had been an ancient Greek colony. The legend that it was founded by Ulysses, who gave its name, Ulyssipo, afterwards corrupted into Olisipo and Lisbon, is an ancient one; and it certainly held that name up to the time of Augustus, when a Roman colony was fixed there, and its name was changed to Felicitas Julia. Its capture by the Moors in 714 had marked one of their greatest stages of advance, and it remained the capital of their province of the Belatha for more than four hundred years. It had three times been captured by the Christians—in 792 by Alfonso the Chaste, of Castile; in 851 by Ordonho I., of Leon; and in 1093 by Alfonso VI., the father-in-law of Count Henry, but had only remained in their possession twenty years after the first recapture, and only a few months upon the second and third occasions. On this occasion Affonso hoped to be permanently successful, and to make it the capital of his kingdom.

It is very doubtful if the Portuguese king would have entered upon this hazardous feat of arms so soon after his capture of Santarem, had not the news reached him from Oporto that a great fleet of crusaders had put in there, and that the Bishop of Oporto had persuaded the soldiers of the cross to commence their holy war against the infidels by assisting to take Lisbon before they proceeded on their way to Palestine. The bulk of these crusaders were Englishmen, and as a letter describing the expedition and siege by one of their number has lately been discovered and published,[4] it is possible to trace the whole history of this most important event in the history of Portugal. The fleet which had sailed from Dartmouth consisted of 164 ships, under several captains, of whom the most important were Arnold of Aerschot and Christian Ghistell, commanding the Germans, Flemings, and men of the county of Boulogne; Hervey Glanvill, constable of the men of Norfolk and Suffolk; Simon of Dover, “constable of all the ships of Kent;” Andrew of London, and Saher de Arcellis. The English crusader tells in his letter that the proposition of the Bishop of Oporto was not universally well received, and that two “pirates,” named William Vitulus and Ralph his brother, succeeded in leading away for a time the men of Hampshire, Bristol, and Hastings, whose cooperation was, however, soon secured by the eloquence of Hervey Glanvill. The northern crusaders thus re-united set sail for the Tagus, and having disembarked at the mouth of the river, marched up to join Affonso and his Portuguese knights. Even with this large reinforcement, the King of Portugal had not sufficient soldiers to blockade the great city, and he concentrated all his efforts on one particular spot, where at last he forced an entrance on October 24th. The resistance does not seem to have been very obstinate; the Moors of the Belatha had been dispirited by the capture of Santarem; those of the provinces to the south were either distracted by internecine war or paralyzed into inaction by fear of the Almohades; and Affonso was allowed to achieve and consolidate his conquest.

In addition to its intrinsic importance, the capture of Lisbon is worth noticing because of the assistance rendered to the Portuguese by the English; it is the first instance of the close connection between the two nations, which has lasted down to the present century, a connection which makes the history of Portugal of especial interest to Englishmen. After the conquest, most of the crusaders sailed on their way to the Holy Land, but the Portuguese king, by liberal offers, managed to persuade a few to settle down in his dominions, some of whom founded great families. It was no wonder that Affonso was almost astounded at his own success. Cintra, Palmella, Mafra, and Almada surrendered to him without a blow in 1147; Alemquer, Obidos, Torres Novas, and Porto de Moz in 1148; and he found himself master of the whole of the southern Beira and of Estremadura. His great difficulty was how at the same time to occupy and settle his new possessions, and to prepare for a further advance, and it was only sheer lack of men that checked his conquering career. Gilbert of Hastings, an Englishman, whom he had made Bishop of Lisbon, went to England to preach the crusade in Portugal with the full consent of King Henry II., but he did not bring many men back with him, and Affonso had to wait ten years before he made his next decisive step in advance. He spent these years in strengthening the fortifications of his new cities, and attracting inhabitants to them from his older cities; nor did he forget to show his gratitude to the Church, which had allowed its sworn soldiers to help him; for he founded, in 1153, the magnificent monastery of Alçobaça, the future resting-place of the kings of Portugal, and the finest specimen of mediæval architecture in the whole country. All this time he was impatiently longing to take a step further in advance and to capture the wealthy city of Alcacer do Sal. In 1152 he was beaten back in his first attack on that city; in 1157 he was again repulsed, although he had the assistance of Thierry of Alsace and a body of crusaders; but at last, on June 28, 1158, he was successful, and reached the height of his greatness and prosperity.