The
Saint at the End of the World
One
might be a tad surprised that an ancient Jew is the patron
saint of (at least until recently) a fiercely Catholic country,
one with a notable history of anti-semitism. But then again,
papal Rome had staked its claim to world mastery on the fabricated
legend of another Jew, 'Peter,
Prince of the Apostles.' And the emerging French kingdom
would enter the fray with a claim to Mary Magdalene,
her brother Lazarus (St Lazare) and sister Martha
('cast up on the shores of Provence'). Christian Spain
grew from a barbarous kingdom clinging to the mountains of
the northwest, a long way from the Palestinian pageant – but
even this was not too big a challenge for the creative fraudsters
of the Church.
Who
could seriously doubt that a dead 1st century Jew from Galilee
was inextricably linked to a remote hamlet in medieval Spain?
Way
to Go, James! (100% Credulity Required)
Several hundred
years after his supposed life came to its supposed end, James
the Greater, Apostle of the Lord, son of Zebedee and
brother of John, embarked on an altogether far more illustrious
career than catching fish and traipsing after a wandering carpenter
in Judaea.
Although for
800 years no one had noticed, it seems that in the interlude between
the godman's crucifixion and his own
beheading by Herod Agrippa, apostle James had evangelised
on the western fringe of the Roman world in northwest
Spain!
The Christian bishops of Roman Baetica (southern
Spain) knew nothing of it. Visigothic Christians, Arian and Catholic
alike, had no inkling. Isidore of Seville, the erudite 7th century Doctor
of the Church whose encyclopedic 'Etymologies' was
an attempt to catalogue all known knowledge (and included a history
of Spain, martyrs and the Church!) is silent on 'James.'
Remarkably,
only in the 8th century, did the 'news' emerge that the 'son
of thunder' had spread the word in Hispania. Indeed
at one point James had found himself on the banks of the Ebro
when an apparition of the Virgin Mary had appeared, directing
him to build a church – possibly the only instance of the
Virgin making a phantom appearance whilst still alive (and
apparently living with brother John in Ephesus!)
Apostle James –
simple fisherman fluent in Aramaic and Spanish mountain
dialects! |
James, of course,
had an appointment with martyrdom to keep (Acts 12.2) and scuttled
back to the Holy Land. Thanks to startling revelations
first revealed in the 13th century, his career was only
just beginning. His body and severed head, left for the dogs
to eat, were rescued by adoring fans and carried aboard a rudderless stone
boat found in the port of Jaffa.
At sea for seven
days, a divine wind blew the mariners clean across the Mediterranean,
through the Straits of Gibraltar and all the way up the west
coast of Spain to make landfall close by the Roman settlement
of Iria Flavia in the north (in a region called by the
Romans 'Finis Terrae', 'end of the world').
Carrying the
body ashore, the enthusiasts overcame the resistance of a local
pagan queen with miracles. She of course converted on the spot
and made available her 'palace' for final burial of the body.
And that's how things remained until centuries into the future
(around the year 813) – the tomb long forgotten – a
pious hermit Pelagius was guided by a light
in the sky and the accompaniment of a celestial chorus
to the very place. Digging and finding bones he called for the
local bishop Teodomiro who, with remarkable
forensic prescience, was immediately able to identify
the bones as the relics of St James!
The devout
king of Asturia, Alfonso 'the Chaste', endorsed the discovery
by declaring James the patron saint of his fledgling kingdom.
His son Ramiro I (842-850) reaped the benefit with a sword-wielding
James fighting by his side! – bringing him victory
over a vast army of infidel Moors at the battle of Clovijo (actually
fought in 859!).
'Santiago Matamoros' ('St
James the Moor-slayer') had arrived – and the
rest is history!
The
Roads to Santiago de Compostela
In the
11th century Christendom was gearing up for war with
Islam. Pilgrimage had a vital part to play, heightening
religious tension and encouraging enthusiasm for the approaching conflict.
While Jerusalem
and Rome were considered the two most important pilgrimage
destinations, Santiago de Compostela in the Iberian peninsula was closer
and much safer to visit and received far more visitors.
Even so, pilgrims usually travelled in convoys for safety.
Four major
land routes to Santiago developed. Originating in northern
France and meandering south through other pilgrimage
sites ('Mary Magdalene' finished up at Vezeley, for
example), the routes joined, crossed the Pyrenees and
then went on to northwest Spain.
From
desperate mountain redoubts the small, barbarous
kingdoms of northern Spain eyed with envy the wealth
of the caliphate. None possessed a town with more
than a thousand people, compared to the 50,000
of Moorish Saragossa and several times that number
in Cordoba.
To
realize their dreams of conquest they required
manpower and weaponry – and this the Franks
could provide. The Franks had developed chain
mail for their feudal knights and the heavy horse
to carry the weight.
Santiago
de Compostela proved the perfect magnet, drawing
in thousands of pilgrims annually who then required
protection from knightly orders of armed monks.
Pope
Alexander III declared Santiago a 'Holy City'
and war against the Moor a crusade which would
reward the fallen with a 'martyr's crown.'
The
knights established monasteries, hostels and
castles (hence 'Castile', the frontier zone)
and were rewarded with their own towns (Estelle,
Villafranca del Bierzo, Villafranca de Montes
de Oca, etc.) and estates in conquered territory.
Moors
from the south, Franks from the north
Iberia
in the 8th Century
The harsh Catholic
regime imposed by the late Gothic warrior aristocracy survived
little more than a century. So disaffected were most of the people
that when the Arab/Berber armies appeared in
the south at the beginning of the 8th century they were able
to conquer almost the whole of Spain within five years.
The so-called 'reconquest' would
take seven hundred years.
Many towns
capitulated in return for the promise of religious tolerance.
Those who had suffered most from the harsh Visigothic Catholic
kings – Arians, gnostics, heretics, and Jews – welcomed
and assisted the new rulers. Even some Visigothic princes (for
example, Theodemir of Murcia) submitted to the Arab overlords
and kept their thrones. Other Gothic warriors fled to the north,
hiding in the mountains of the Asturias from where they could
plead for assistance from the more triumphant Franks.
We know of
one Gothic aristocrat, Pelayo (aka Pelagius – the
name assigned to the monk of the Santiago legend!), a warrior
who had fought with Roderic at the disastrous battle of Guadalete
(711). He fled defeat in the far south to find safety in the
far north. In 718 he declared himself 'king of the Asturias' – at
the time a fairly meaningless claim. After several years of banditry
in the mountains, and with the 'Moors' (so-named from the
old Roman province of Mauritania) preoccupied with a major
campaign against the Franks in southwest France, Pelayo was able
to defeat local Berber forces in a minor skirmish, the so-called 'Battle
of Covadonga' (722). He was thereafter able to consolidate
a small mountain 'kingdom of Asturia' before
his death in 737.
The small enclave
owed its survival to discrimination and division within
the Islamic forces. Berber foot soldiers earned only
one third as much as Arab horsemen. When they were settled in
the peninsula they tended to be allocated the mountain regions,
while the lowland, much of it irrigated, was given to Arabs and
worked by converts to Islam ('Muwallads') or Christian
tenants. When a mid-century famine caused the impoverished Berber
settlers to return to North Africa, Christian mountain tribes
began to settle Galicia, where they were able to maintain a precarious,
though barbarous, existence.
Al Andalus – ruled
initially by a governor based in Kairouan ('caravan')
in North Africa. |
Iberian
Peninsular – 8th century
712:
Following the Arab conquest, the mountains of the
northwest are thinly settled by Berber tribesmen.
740:
Dissatisfied and influenced by North African Khârijism (the first puritanical and fundamentalist movement
within Islam), Berbers in Galicia rebel. They
are suppressed the following year by fresh Arab
troops arriving from Syria.
748-753:
A disastrous drought and famine induces the poverty-stricken
Berbers of Galicia to return to their North African
homeland. Christian 'mountain men' move into the
abandoned region. The Douro Valley remains largely
depopulated. 791-842:
The 'Kingdom of the Asturias' under Alfonso II
overruns a number of Muslim strongholds and settles
the lands south of the river Douro. His new capital
is the abandoned Roman legionary fortress of Leon. |
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The
French Connection
It was a more
serious division within the Muslim ranks which allowed the Carolingian
Franks entry into the peninsular. In 749/750 The ruling
Umayyad dynasty of Damascus was murdered en masse by rival Abbasids,
throwing the entire Islamic empire into turmoil. One Umayyad
prince – Abed Al-Rahman I – fled
to the distant province of al Andalus (Spain) where
a fierce power struggle ensued.
By 756 Rahman
was able to re-established Umayyad rule but his defeated Abbasid
rivals appealed to the Franks. Pepin the Short seized
the opportunity to take Arab possessions north of the Pyrenees
and his warrior son Charlemagne (768-814) established
a dependency of the 'County of Barcelona' south
of the Pyrenees early in the 9th century. This was the largest
of a number of Carolingian dependencies – Aragon, Sobarabe,
Ribagorza – created in the so-called 'Spanish March.'
Further west
the mountainous Basque region – half
in Spain and half in France – retained a tenacious independence,
having defeated Charlemagne himself in 778. But Catholic agents
moved through this half-Christian, half-pagan land and the Franks
maintained an interest.
'St
James' Takes a Spanish Holiday
The 'Kingdom
of the Asturias' took advantage of temporary Muslim weakness
in the 9th century to expand into a 'Kingdom of Galicia', moving
its capital to Leon, the legionary fortress
abandoned by the Romans centuries earlier. Its king was none
other than Alfonso II (791-842) – who found it very convenient,
when attempting to subdue the west of Galicia, to
have a shrine about which to rally support.
Teodemir, bishop
of the old Roman settlement of Iria Flavia, drew the
warlord's attention to a graveyard ('compostela' in
Latin) to the north of his diocese which evidently already had
a shrine of sorts. There is a suggestion it may have been
a shrine of Priscillian, the murdered heretic,
and the graves those of his followers!
Whatever the
case, a 'miraculous discovery' had been made. Bishop Teodomir
and Alfonso announced to the faithful the shrine of 'Santiago
de Compostela' (now supposedly derived from 'campus
stellae' – 'field of stars'!– a name which supported
their fanciful story). Over what was declared to be the 'tomb
of St James’ a church was constructed. The year
was 829.
Guidance in
the shrine creation business came from Frankish monks for whom
the shrine of 'Martin of Tours' was doing brisk business
in northern France. Essential was an 'ambulatory' around an effigy
of the saint. With sufficient holy relics lepers could be cured
and the dead raised. Cluniacs and Augustinians began to move
into the Asturias, binding ever-tighter the Spanish church to
Roman Catholicism.
By the reign
of Alfonso III (899), the church of Santiago had grown into a
large basilica and, thanks to a timely outbreak of Jamesian miracles,
the shrine was drawing fans from across Iberia. Frankish kings
were pleased to sponsor the new kingdom in the peninsular. The
French bishop Godescalc of Le Puy visited Santiago in 950 and
with his energetic promotion 'Santiago de Compostela' began
to attract pilgrims from across Europe.
But by then
Moorish Spain had entered its golden age.
Golden
Al Andalus – 10th/ 11th Centuries
Once established
Umayyad Spain took Moorish
power to new heights. The small Christian kingdoms in the
north, though never conquered, were forced into paying tribute
to their Islamic neighbour. The lavish court life of Cordoba,
Seville and Granada nurtured a 'golden age' of Islam in Spain
lasting nearly 300 years. Cordoba was paved, lit and supplied
with fresh water at a time when all other towns of Europe were
dirty, dank and rank with disease.
In 929, in
a challenge to the weakening Abbasids of Baghdad and rival Fatamids
in north Africa, emir Abd al-Rahman III (912-961)
proclaimed himself Caliph. During the reign of this urbane and
skeptical monarch (who enjoyed the title al-Nasir – 'Defender
of the Faith'!) al Andalus reached its zenith.
Rahman stabilized
the frontier with the Christian states (he sacked Pamplona,
the capital of Navarre in 924 and quashed a rebellion at Toledo
in 932) but otherwise traded quite happily with them outside
the campaign season. He
went on to build a fleet at Almeria with which he conquered
key ports in North Africa (Melilla 927, Ceuta 931, Tángier
951). A Muslim base established at Fraxinetum (near St Tropez)
in Provence enabled Arab raiders to strike far into Gaul (the
settlement was ejected in 975).
More memorably,
Rahman's achievements included founding a university, a medical
school, and an opulent new city of Madinat al-Zahra from
which to administer his 'empire.'
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Madinat
al-Zahra, a 10th century palatial city on a hillside
outside Córdoba. Not rediscovered until
1910, less than 10 of more than 100 hectares of
the city have been excavated. |
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Prosperity
continued under the reign of Rahman's son Hakem II al
Mustansir (961-976), an enlightened prince who was drawn particularly
to the arts and literature. Reputedly, he assembled a library
of more than 400,000 volumes and founded 27 state schools. He
relied rather too heavily on his chamberlain, vizier and generals
to run the kingdom. When Hakem died leaving an infant son Hisham
II (976-1009) – of a Basque mother – effective
power was seized by former vizier Ibn Abi Amir (aka 'Almanzor').
A warrior,
not a scholar, al-Mansur (981-1002) strengthened
his own position by an outward show of return to Islamic
piety. Slav bodyguards were replaced with devout Berbers.
The young caliph himself was confined to sensual pleasure, locked
away in his Cordoban palace.
Mansur waged
no fewer than 53 campaigns against the Christian kingdoms of
the north. Santiago was sacked in 997 and the kingdom of Leon forced
into submission, compelled to provide Leonese soldiers for the
Moorish armies.
More than ever,
the Arab elite relied on Berber troops – a weakness that (like
imperial Rome's dependence on German auxillaries) would
be its eventual undoing. With central authority resting on a
growing bureaucracy of slaves, freemen and mercenary soldiers – the
resentment of provincial Arab aristocrats grew. With Mansur's
death, local governors proclaimed independent kingdoms (the
so-called 'taifas' or petty monarchies), with Seville, Toledo,
Valencia and Saragossa the most powerful.
Civil
war (1008-1028) destroyed the unity and strength of
Islamic Spain as these local chieftains turned to outside help – Christian
and North African – to survive. The taifa states,
each lacking the caliphate's military muscle, at first paid the
northern raiders to go away – just as imperial Rome had
tried to buy off Goths and Huns six hundred years earlier.
With the money, the Christians bought weapons and horses and
renewed their attacks. Then the emirs turned to hiring Christian
mercenaries – Catalans, Basques, Asturians – to
fight for them (again, paralleling the policy of the feeble
caesars). Most notable of the adventurers to fight both
for and against the Moors was the Castilian knight Rodrigo
Diaz de Bivar – better known by his Arab name 'el Cid'
(from Spanish Arabic as-sid, 'lord'). The Cid, like many a
hired general, eventually became a ruler himself, at one point
taking control of Valencia.
Christianity's
Holy Warriors Tussle for Supremacy
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Fragmentation
of 11th century al Andalus
The caliphate
finally disappeared in 1031, a casualty of Berber/Arab
civil wars. Navarre, most insulated from the conflicts
of the peninsular, was best placed of the Christian
kingdoms to take advantage of the debacle. |
In the early
years of the 11th century Sancho III of Navarre subdued
the counties of the 'Spanish March' – Aragon, Sobrarbe
and Ribagorza – and then carved 'Castile' out of Leon in
1026. But the unity of 'greater Navarre' ended with Sancho's
death in 1033 and division of his kingdom among his sons: Navarre to Garcia, Aragon,
Sobrarbe and Ribagorza to Ramiro, and Castile to Fernando.
With Fernando's
own death in 1063 the union he had forged with the remnant of
Leon dissolved (Castile going to Sancho II and Leon to Alfonso
V) only to be re-made again under Alfonso VI.
Meanwhile, the states of Aragon and Navarre were united in 1076 (only
to separate again in 1134!). Alfonso, impatient of merely
exacting tribute from the Islamic princes, struck south, taking Toledo from
the Muslims in 1085. With a population of twenty eight thousand,
it immediately became the largest city of his realm and a cornucopia
of Arabic learning. A Cluniac monk, Bernard of Sedirac, was appointed
archbishop for the city and the Mozarabic liturgy was replaced
by the Roman.
Elsewhere,
raiding parties of heavily mailed Christian cavalry, unable to
take cities, instead wrecked caravans and noria waterwheels,
destroyed livestock and mature grapevines.
Alarmed by
the Christian attacks the Muslim kings of Granada, Seville and
Badajoz appealled to the Almoravides of North
Africa. It
was a reluctant choice – the Almoravides were the
Taliban of their day, veiled warriors ruled by a strict Sharia
law. In 1086, the Almoravid leader, Yusuf ibn Tashufin,
landed his army in al-Andalus and defeated the Christians near
Badajoz. Rapidly Tashufin imposed his control over the Muslim-ruled
cities - Granada, Almeria, Seville, Valencia, Saragossa and Lisbon.
For half a century al-Andalus regained a unity, albeit for the
first time experiencing Muslim intolerance. Jews and Christians
fled north. The regime 'softened,' as it took to plunder and
corruption, but as it did so another wave of religious fanaticism
arose in North Africa, the Almohades.
The movement
arose in the early years of the 12th century when a self-proclaimed 'Mahdi' ('guided
one') appeared in Morocco, galvanized discontent into a
revivalist movement and swept through the Maghreb. With Tashufin's
death in 1143 the taifa states re-emerged in al Andalus
and fundamentalists in the Algarve appealed to the Almohades.
They crossed the straits and set about re-imposing Islamic order,
more 'spiritual' and less literal than that of the Almoravides.
The new jihad extended to an assault on errant Muslims – a
tactic which hastened rather than delayed the final collapse
of Islam in Spain.
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Gathering
Wolves – Iberian Peninsular – 12th
century
The
5 Christian kingdoms of the north vied with each
other to carve up the wealthy but weakened al
Andalus.
Navarre,
an early contender, lost out to its own colony,
Castile. Aragon – already in possession
of Provence – took Saragossa in
1118 (more than doubling the population
of the kingdom) and pushed along the east coast
towards Valencia. Castile (merged with Leon)
aimed at Cordoba, Portugal at the Algarve.
The
front line moved back and forth. When
the Almohads arrived in 1145 they re-adopted
the title of caliph and under Yusuf I and
his son Ya'qub temporarily drove
the Christians back into the mountains. They
went down to defeat by the Castilians at Alarcos
in 1195.
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'Reconquista' – Barbarians
from the North Claim a Dubious Heritage
In 1130, a
French cleric Aimery of Poitiers, a monk with close ties to Santiago,
produced a 'Pilgrim's Guide.' It became
one part of a compilation of documents called 'Codex Calixtinus' (after
Pope Calixtus II, 1119-1124) – a mission statement
for the conquest of Spain. Charlemagne himself
was written into the story of St James.
Energetically
promoted by the metropolitan Archbishop Diego Gelmírez
(1100-1140) – storytellers were hired to travel about the
European countryside spreading 'news' of the miracles of St.
James and his relics – Santiago was soon ranked with Rome
and Jerusalem as one of the great destinations of medieval pilgrimage.
Pope Calistus II himself declared that pilgrims who went to Santiago
in a Holy Year would be 'free of all their sins'.
The Codex
Calixtinus closely associated the noble task of pilgrimage
with the no less noble task of vanquishing the Moors. In the 'miracles
of St James' the
Christian god was providing an assurance of legitimacy for
the cause. A war of plunder and conquest could now assume the
character of a holy crusade. Military orders
proliferated, most notably the knights of Santiago, Alcantara
and Calatrava. Even the Visigothic and Roman past – scarcely
having any lineage to adventurers from the Frankish lands – assumed
a sacred if fanciful reverence, used to validate their own
political ambitions. Conquest became 'Reconquest'.
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Final
Conquest of the South – 13th century
James of Aragon began the major assault
on the heartland of al Andalus by conquest
of the independent sheikdom of Valencia.
1212
saw the decisive defeat of Islamic forces
at the Battle of Las Navas de
Tolosa.
Cordoba
fell in 1236, Valencia in 1238, Murcia
in 1243 and Seville in 1248.
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The
Caliphate Fragments, Aragon Inflates – 13th century
Whilst the
Islamic forces continued to be riven by internecine conflict
the Christian princes eventually learned the value of unity.
In 1212, the Battle
of Las Navas de Tolosa, proved to be one of the most
decisive in the history of the peninsula. Urged on by Pope
Innocent III, a rare grand alliance of rival would-be conquerors – Alfonso
VIII of Castile, Sancho VIII of Navarre, Pedro II of Aragon,
with additional troops from Portugal and Leon – smashed
the Muslim forces. Only one-third of Spain was left under Muslim
control and even that was once again fragmented into tribute-paying
principalities. Granada remained the sole independent Muslim
kingdom.
With gathering
momentum, the 'reconquest' rolled on. In 1229 James I of Aragon
began the conquest of the Balearics while Alfonso IX of Leon
(1188 - 1230) advanced along the River Guadiana, taking Merida
and Badajoz. His successor Fernando III, king of united Castile
and Leon, conquered the key cities of Cordova, Murcia, Jaen and
Seville.
The main contenders
were thus reduced to two: Castile and Aragon. A slowly shrinking
Granada held out for another two hundred years.
In 1469 the
marriage of Isabel I of Castile and Fernando II of Aragon created Spain.
Twenty three years later, after an eight-month siege, the 'Reconquest'
was completed with the fall of Granada.
In a splendid
celebration of the triumph of Christ, three months later all Jews were expelled from
the peninsular. The Muslims, initially afforded a degree of autonomy
and tolerance, were increasingly penalized. Public calls to prayer
were forbidden. The Muslims were subjected to higher taxes and
were steadily pushed from the cities into peasant servitude.
In 1556, Arab dress itself was banned and then, in 1566, the
Arabic language forbidden. Finally, in 1609, Philip III expelled the Muslims from
all his domains.
Christ had
triumphed in Spain and – after a brief flowering financed
by plunder from the Americas – the nation sank into unremitting
decline.
Land
of the Port – Portugal Gets Its Dose of Christian
Fervour |
Sweep
from the North
Five
centuries of Muslim civilization in Portugal
ended in 1272 when Christian knights conquered
the Algarve (from Arabic "Al-Gharb" meaning "the
country of the west"). As in Spain, violent, religious warriors from
the north eclipsed a more advanced, though moribund,
civilization. |
Lusitania was a thriving Roman province. In the 5th century
the region passed into the rule of Visigothic kings
along with the rest of Iberia – but Suevi tribesmen
continued to press from the north. They were finally
suppressed only shortly before the 8th century Muslim
conquest of the whole peninsula.
For centuries
Muslim/Arab culture thrived in western Iberia,
particularly in the al'Garve and the Alentejo (region 'beyond the Tagus'). Settlers
in the region were primarily Berber tribesmen in
the service of the Arabs. Despite all
that followed they left their mark in food, agriculture,
architecture, language – and race.
The first
Christian intrusion was probably in 868 when Vímara
Peres, an adventurer in the service of Afonso
III of Leon, conquered an area of moorland
and forest between the Minho and Douro rivers.
Port
of Entry
More
seriously, towards the end of the 11th century
a motley crew of would be Christian crusaders, en
route to plunder Saracen lands in the east (Pope
Urban II had proclaimed the holy war in 1095) were
blown into the estuary of the Douro. With the opportunity
to kill infidel and seize booty close to hand they
went no further but instead built a port on the
ruins of a Roman city at the mouth of the Douro– Portus
Cale. Now the site of Oporto, their
colony popularised the region's medieval name Terra
portucalensis or 'Portugale'.
The would-be
ruler of the region, Alfonso VI (1072-1109) of
Castile, increasingly dependent on French knights
for the conquest of al Andalus, was offering
the usual medieval inducements of land
and dynastic marriage. Thus it was that Henry
of Burgundy took Teresa of Leon as
his bride and command of an obscure border fiefdom – the
'County of Portucalense'.
A
Case of Burgundy
In 1112
Henry's son Alfonso Henriques became
the second Count of Portugal with his mother acting
as regent. The young Alfonso became a pawn of the
Church and of the Portuguese barons who sought
independence from Leon-Castile.
In 1120
Hugo, Bishop of Braga, made the 11-year-old the
figurehead of opposition to the house of Castile.
Teresa exiled them both to Zamora in Leon but at
the age of 14 the impressionable Alfonso was placed
at the head of an army. A 4 year civil war followed,
leading to the defeat of his mother's Leonese forces
at the 'Battle of Sâo Mamede.' Teresa
herself was confined for the remainder of her life
to a monastery in Leon. The following year (1139),
after the 'Battle of Ourique'in the far
south, the bishop of Braga crowned Alfonso 'King
of Portugal' at Lamego.
Crusaders
coming ashore on the banks of the Douro a few years
later were persuaded to join Henriques's cause
and in a particularly bloody campaign in 1146/1147
Lisbon and its region were saved for Christ.
The
Pope Says Yes
Recognition
from the papacy was crucial for what, to the kings
of Castile, was rebellion. While war with Castile
dragged on for years, the local Catholic Church
was rewarded with lands, monasteries, privileges
and exemptions. Dynastic marriage followed (to
Mafalda, daughter of Count Amadeo III of Savoy)
and ambassadors were sent to Rome to negotiate.
'Expulsion of the Moors' from the Iberian peninsula
became a sacred promise.
In 1179
the privileges and favours heaped on the Catholic
Church paid their dividend. In a papal bull, Pope
Alexander III recognized Afonso as king of an independent
Portugal – and one with 'the right to
conquer lands of the Moors'. True
to their promise, in 1272, with the conquest of
Faro, the last Muslim community on Portuguese soil
was eliminated and another Christian country was
established upon bloodshed and destruction.
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Sources:
Bernard Reilly, The Medieval Spains (Cambridge UP, 1994)
Sarah Hopper, To Be A Pilgrim (Sutton, 2002)
Brian & Marcus Tate, The Pilgrim Route to Santiago (Phaidon, 1987)
Donald Matthew, Chronicles of the Middle Ages (Angus, 1991)
Colin McEvedy, The Penguin Atlas of Medieval History (Penguin, 1987)
David Birmingham, A Concise History of Portugal (Cambridge UP, 1993)
Stanley Lane-Poole, The Moors in Spain (Darf Publishers, 1984)
James Harpur, Sacred Tracks-2000 Years of Christian Pilgrimage (Frances
Lincoln, 2002)
John Matthews, Bob Stewart, Warriors of Medieval Times (Firebird, 1993)
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Some fifty articles are now available as a book.
For your copy order:
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Copyright © 2004
by Kenneth Humphreys.
Copying is freely permitted, provided credit is given to the author and
no material herein is sold for profit.
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