Portugal (census to Rome)

Who holds it

Name

Sancho I

Title

King of Portugal, holding his crown under the protection of St Peter for a yearly census

Since

1185

Confidence

high

Sancho I's kingship rests on Manifestis probatum (23 May 1179), in which Alexander III confirmed 'the Kingdom of Portugal' to Afonso Henriques and his successors in return for a yearly census in gold, to be handed to the archbishop of Braga for the pope (en.wikipedia). The census was paid down to the reign of Afonso III, and Innocent III himself confirmed the bull in 1212 (same). Whether Sancho's payments were up to date on 1 January 1200 is not pinned.

What it holds

• Papal protection of the kingdom and its crown (Manifestis probatum, 1179)
• A yearly census in gold owed by the king, paid through the archbishop of Braga
• The kingdom itself, as drawn: the Minho to the Tagus, without the Riba-Coa, which is Leonese until 1297
• Evora, held since 1165, an outpost south of the Tagus

How it was acquired

Afonso Henriques' commendation of December 1143; the papal reply of May 1144 accepted it but still called him duke and Portugal a land (en.wikipedia); recognition as a kingdom in Manifestis probatum, 23 May 1179.

How things stand that morning

Held by Sancho I; papal protection acknowledged; census relationship in force [payment record for these years not pinned].

Wealth

Not a papal revenue of any size: the census is a token of lordship. The kingdom's own wealth is the Lisbon and Porto sea trade, salt, wine and the Tagus frontier's pasture.

Threats

• Almohad raids across the Tagus
• Leonese pressure on the eastern frontier
• Quarrels between the king and his bishops, which bring Rome in

Advocates and rivals

Leon, which disputes the eastern frontier and holds the Riba-Coa; the Almohads beyond the Tagus; the military orders (the Templars on the Tagus line, the knights of Evora, Santiago); the archbishop of Braga, the census collector, and the bishops with whom Sancho will quarrel later in his reign.

Where the sources disagree

• Other realms checked for a comparable bond, not drawn: Aragon was commended to St Peter by Sancho Ramirez in the 1060s and promised a yearly census, but no evidence was found here that the census was a live tie in 1200; Peter II's formal surrender of Aragon as a papal fief and his coronation in Rome come only in November 1204, which is later history, not this year. England pays Peter's Pence (not a fief until 1213). The county of Melgueil near Montpellier, held of the pope since the 11th century and in 1200 in the hands of Raymond VI of Toulouse, is a true papal fief but not a realm, and was not checked here; it could merit its own small overlay. None of these is supported strongly enough by the sources consulted to draw.

Evidence: The papal bond is certain and well documented; the frontier of 1200 south of the Tagus (Palmela, Almada, Alcacer) is drawn conservatively and is not pinned.

On the map: An overlay of the kingdom as it stood on 1 January 1200, not of later conquests: the Tagus is taken as the frontier, with Evora alone beyond it. Palmela, Almada and the lands between the Tagus and the Sado changed hands in the 1190s and are left out; the left bank opposite Santarem may also have been Portuguese.

Primary sources for Portugal

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Annals of Toledo and other short Iberian annals (12th and 13th centuries; Anales Toledanos I to 1219). Florez's volume 23 gathers the short annals of the peninsula. Read online
• Chronicle of the World (Lucas of Tuy), Lucas de Tuy (1236, for Queen Berenguela). The Leonese counterpart to Rodrigo, written at San Isidoro for Berenguela. Read online
• Historical Monuments of Portugal: Writers (Annals of King Afonso, Chronicon Conimbricense, Chronica Gothorum and others) (12th to 15th centuries). The Portuguese annals in one volume. Read online
• Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile, Anonymous, probably Juan of Osma, chancellor of Castile (about 1223 to 1239). The chancellor's chronicle of Alfonso VIII's reign, detailed from the 1190s. Read online
• The Garden of Pages: a History of the Kings of the Maghreb and of the City of Fez, Ibn Abi Zar al-Fasi (completed in 1326 at Fez, for the Marinid sultan Abu Said Uthman). The Almohad chapters give a brisk dated narrative of al-Mansur's death and burial, al-Nasir's accession and the Banu Ghaniya troubles, with the kind of detail (coinage, public works at Fez and Rabat, prices, plagues) that a Fez compiler cared about, and the annals of Fez supply the city's governors and markets. Read online
• The Wondrous Account of the History of al-Andalus and the Maghreb, Ibn Idhari al-Marrakushi (about 1312, at Marrakesh). The Almohad section is the fullest year-by-year narrative of the caliphate around 1200: the last campaigns and the death of Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur in January 1199, the accession of his son Muhammad al-Nasir, the renewed war of the Banu Ghaniya in Ifriqiya under Yahya ibn Ishaq and his ally Qaraqush, the Almohad losses of Mahdia and Tunis a few years later, and al-Nasir's reconquest of Ifriqiya in 1205 to 1206 followed by the appointment of Abd al-Wahid ibn Abi Hafs as governor. Read online
• History of the Affairs of Spain, Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada (completed 1243). The archbishop's history of the peninsula, written forty years on by a Navarrese who served Castile. Read online
• The Gift of the Imamate, Ibn Sahib al-Sala (Abd al-Malik ibn Muhammad al-Baji) (late twelfth century; the surviving part covers 1159 to 1173). The only Almohad court chronicle written from inside the administration, by a chancery secretary who travelled with the caliphs Abd al-Mu'min and Abu Yaqub Yusuf.

5 more in the sources library for France and Iberia.