Kingdom of Portugal

Who rules

Name

Sancho I, called the Populator (o Povoador)

Title

King of Portugal (rex Portugalensium); styled king of Portugal and Silves 1189-1191

Since

6 December 1185

Born

Coimbra, 11 November 1154 (aged 45 on 1 January 1200)

Family

Son of Afonso Henriques, the first king (died 6 December 1185), and Mafalda of Savoy. Widower of Dulce of Aragon (Dulce of Barcelona), daughter of Count Ramon Berenguer IV and Queen Petronilla of Aragon, married 1174 or 1175; she died at Coimbra on 1 September 1198 and lies in Santa Cruz of Coimbra. Through her he is uncle by marriage of Peter II of Aragon. Half-brother of the infante Pedro Afonso, an illegitimate son of Afonso Henriques.

Confidence

high

Reigned from 6 December 1185 to his death at Coimbra on 26 March 1211. As heir he raided to Seville (1178). As king he took Silves with a crusader fleet in 1189, lost it and everything south of the Tagus except Évora to the caliph al-Mansur in 1190-1191, made war on León from 1196 under the papal ban on Alfonso IX, and spent his reign settling the frontier with new towns and forais (Covilhã and Gouveia 1186, Viseu and Bragança 1187, Torres Novas 1190, Lamego 1191, Leiria renewed 1195, São Vicente da Beira 1195, Belmonte and Guarda 1199), with foreign settlers and with grants to the military orders.

Since Dulce's death he has taken a mistress, Maria Pais Ribeira, 'a Ribeirinha'; the love song attributed to him is dated 1199 but its authorship is disputed. His last years bring a sharp quarrel with the bishops of Porto and Coimbra (from about 1208) and a contested will (October 1209) that Afonso II refused to honour.

Overlord

The Holy See, in feudal form: Afonso Henriques commended the land to St Peter in 1143 for a census of four ounces of gold a year, and Alexander III's bull Manifestis probatum (23 May 1179) recognised the royal title for a census of two marks of gold a year, paid through the archbishop of Braga.

What the realm holds

• Royal demesne and castles from the Minho to the Tagus: Coimbra, Santarém, Lisbon, Leiria, Sintra, Torres Vedras, Óbidos, Alenquer, Abrantes, Torres Novas, Montemor-o-Velho, Guimarães and the Beira and Trás-os-Montes frontier castles, held by royal alcaides and tenentes
• The royal concelhos and their forais (rents, tolls, justice, the host)
• Évora, the one fortress kept south of the Tagus after 1191
• The Setúbal peninsula outposts being reoccupied since 1195: Almada, Palmela, Sesimbra
• Lordship over the honras and coutos of nobles and churches, which are free of royal officers but owe the host
• Claims: Silves and the Algarve (lost July 1191); Alcácer do Sal (lost 10 June 1191)

How it was acquired

Kingdom by Afonso Henriques's victories (1128-1147) and papal recognition (1179); the Tagus line won in 1147 (Santarém 15 March, Lisbon 24 October); the Alentejo conquests of 1158-1166 mostly lost by 1191; Sancho succeeded his father on 6 December 1185.

Allies and rivals

Allies: the military orders; Castile and Aragon in principle; the Sousa and Ribadouro at court; Galician exiles in his service (Paio Moniz, João Fernandes de Lima). Rivals: Alfonso IX of León; the Almohad caliph Muhammad al-Nasir and his Andalusi governors; Rome as creditor; the bishops of Porto and Coimbra in the longer run (their quarrels with the king break out from about 1208).

The realm that morning

Sancho holds the kingdom without challenge at home. The northern frontier is in a lull after the failed Leonese siege of Bragança; the southern frontier is a raiding belt with Évora alone beyond it. The heir is a boy of 14 in poor health.

Wealth

Wine, salt, olive oil, fish and hides from the coast and the Tagus valley; grain from the Tagus and Mondego lezírias; tolls on Lisbon's and Porto's sea trade (Porto belongs to its bishop); the rents and dues of the concelhos; mining and pasture in the Beira. Parias from the south ended with the losses of 1191. No money figures in the sources checked.

Military

See host. Key castles: Bragança, Chaves, Melgaço and the Minho line against León; Guarda, Trancoso, Pinhel, Celorico, Covilhã and Penamacor against Riba-Côa; Santarém, Abrantes, Tomar (Templar), Almourol (Templar), Belver (Hospital) and Lisbon on the Tagus; Évora alone in the Alentejo. Lisbon's ships serve at sea.

Threats

• León: the war is not yet closed by treaty; Bragança and the Minho line are exposed
• The Almohads: the caliph's garrison at Alcácer do Sal, the governors of Badajoz, Beja and Silves, and Seville's fleet; Évora is isolated
• Rome: the census demand of December 1198
• The heir's health: Afonso falls gravely ill in 1200
• The great kindreds of the north, whose honras escape royal officers

Consort

None. Queen Dulce of Aragon died at Coimbra on 1 September 1198 (FMG; en.wikipedia gives the year only and suggests plague) and is buried in Santa Cruz of Coimbra. Her dower in Sancho's first will (1188-1189) was the income of Alenquer, lands on the Vouga, Santa Maria da Feira and Porto.

Heirs and children

• Afonso, the heir, born Coimbra 23 April 1185 (the Chronicon Conimbricense gives St George's day 1186): aged 14. Sickly; he falls gravely ill in 1200 (see the likely course). Later Afonso II (1211-1223); marries Urraca of Castile in 1206.
• Teresa, born 1175 or 1176: about 24. Married Alfonso IX of León at Guimarães on 15 February 1191 (a match sealed by the alliance of that year); three children, Sancha (born 1191), Fernando (born 1192 or 1193) and Dulce (born 1193 or 1194). Rome forced the couple apart for consanguinity: Calderón Medina gives the annulment as 1194, FMG a separation in 1195 and annulment in 1198, en.wikipedia about 1196. She is back in Portugal; when she took over the abbey of Lorvão is not pinned (FMG says she became a nun there in 1200; other accounts put it in 1205-1206). Her son Fernando is Alfonso IX's eldest son.
• Sancha, born 1178 or 1180: about 20, unmarried. Later lady of Alenquer by her father's will and foundress of Celas; nothing pinned as hers on 1 January 1200.
• Constança, born May 1182: 17, unmarried; she dies on 3 August 1202.
• Pedro, born Coimbra 23 February 1187: 12. Later count of Urgell by marriage (1229) and lord of Majorca.
• Fernando, born 24 March 1188: 11. Later count of Flanders by marriage to Joan (1212).
• Henrique, born after March 1189, and Raimundo: both died in childhood (the sources disagree on their dates).
• Mafalda, born 1195 or 1196: about 4. Later briefly queen of Castile (1215) and nun of Arouca.
• Branca and Berengária (Berenguela), born about 1196-1198 (pt.wikipedia): small children. Berengária later marries Valdemar II of Denmark (1214).
• Illegitimate, by Maria Aires de Fornelos (born before 1175): Martim Sanches, an adult, later count of Trastámara in León, and Urraca Sanches, later wife of Lourenço Soares de Ribadouro. Their mother is now the wife of Gil Vasques de Soverosa.
• Illegitimate, by Maria Pais Ribeira, 'a Ribeirinha': Rodrigo, Gil, Nuno, Maior, Teresa and Constança Sanches, born from about 1199-1200 onward (Teresa about 1205, Constança 1204 or 1210 in different accounts). On 1 January 1200 at most the first of them is born; not pinned.

Court and officers

Office

Mordomo-mor (maiordomus curie), head of the household and first confirmant after the king

Name

Gonçalo Mendes de Sousa (Gonçalo Mendes II)

Since

1192 (to June 1211)

Confidence

high

Office

Alferes-mor (signifer), the king's standard-bearer and leader of the host in his name

Name

Paio Moniz

Since

1199 (attested 1199-1202)

Confidence

medium

Note

Calderón Medina places him in the Cabreira-Ribeira kin; the Cantigas database identifies him as Paio Moniz Varela, a Galician who had been alférez and mayordomo of Alfonso IX. His predecessor was Rodrigo Mendes de Sousa (1196-1198); his successor Martim Fernandes de Riba de Vizela (1203-1211).

Office

Chancellor (cancellarius curie)

Name

Julião Pais (Iulianus)

Since

1183 (to 1215)

Confidence

high

Note

A trained jurist; chancellor through the whole reign and into Afonso II's.

Office

Dapifer (steward)

Name

João Fernandes de Riba de Vizela (attested 1186 and 1204)

Confidence

low

Court location

Coimbra is the king's usual seat, burial church (Santa Cruz) and chancery. Where the court spent the winter of 1199-1200 is not pinned; the foral of Guarda was issued on 27 November 1199.

Treaties and wars

• LEÓN: at war since 1196. After Alarcos Alfonso IX allied with the Almohads; on 31 October 1196 Celestine III ordered his excommunication published (and, in the standard accounts, released his subjects from their oaths and offered the crusade indulgence to those who fought him). Sancho invaded Galicia in 1196 (Calderón Medina dates the Portuguese occupation of Tui to 1196) and took Tui and Pontevedra (es.wikipedia: 1197). The Castile-León peace and the Berenguela marriage (autumn 1197) left Portugal fighting alone. In 1199 León probably recovered Tui and Pontevedra, and Alfonso IX invaded Trás-os-Montes and besieged Bragança without success. On 1 January 1200 no treaty is yet signed; peace comes in 1200 (month not pinned).
• ALMOHADS: after the campaign of 1191 al-Mansur granted a five-year truce (a four-year one in the Sesimbra study). It has lapsed; no truce in force on 1 January 1200 is pinned. Alcácer do Sal is held by a caliphal garrison.
• CASTILE: allies against León in 1196; since the Castile-León settlement of 1197 Castile is neutral and was close to siding with León (es.wikipedia). No treaty in force pinned.
• ARAGON: kin through Queen Dulce; no treaty pinned.

Relations rome

Portugal holds of St Peter. In December 1198 Innocent III wrote to Sancho demanding the unpaid census, treating the four-ounce census of 1143 and the two-mark census of 1179 as two separate debts, and noting that neither Afonso Henriques nor Sancho had paid regularly since 1179 (Wiedemann). Whether Sancho has answered by 1 January 1200 is not pinned. The archbishop of Braga, Martinho Pires, is the channel for the census and the kingdom's champion against Toledo's primacy and Santiago's claims (campaign notes).

The annulment of Teresa's marriage was Rome's work, and Rome now presses Alfonso IX over Berenguela.

Coinage

Sancho I's reign sees the first Portuguese gold morabitino (Museu Casa da Moeda); the date of first striking and the mint are not pinned. Silver-poor billon dinheiros serve daily trade; Almohad gold and Castilian maravedís circulate; the papal census is reckoned in marks of gold.

The host

The king's household and the mesnadas of the ricos-homens, each leading the men of his honras and tenências; the town militias of the concelhos (mounted cavaleiros-vilãos and foot peões, owing the fossado under their forais); the military orders (Temple, Hospital, the knights of Évora affiliated to Calatrava, Santiago); crusader fleets on passage, as at Silves in 1189. The standard is carried by the alferes-mor. No figures in the sources checked.

Orders on the frontier

Mention only; the Church map covers them: the Templars at Tomar, Soure, Pombal, Almourol, Idanha and Monsanto (and the Açafa, added 1199); the Hospital at Leça and at Belver on the Tagus (building since 1194); the knights of Évora (affiliated to Calatrava since 1187) at Évora, Coruche and Alcanede; the Order of Santiago, given Alcácer, Palmela, Almada and Arruda in October 1186, of which Alcácer is now Almohad and Palmela and Almada were razed in 1191.

Loss of the south

In 1189 Sancho, with a fleet of northern crusaders, sacked Alvor and took Silves (surrendered in September 1189). In 1190 the caliph al-Mansur razed Torres Novas, failed before Tomar and Santarém, and failed to retake Silves. In 1191 he came back: Alcácer do Sal capitulated on terms (10 June 1191) and was garrisoned; Palmela, Coina, Almada and Sesimbra were abandoned and razed; Leiria was destroyed and raiders came near Coimbra; Silves fell to a night assault and its citadel surrendered on 25 July 1191 (other dates given).

South of the Tagus only Évora remained Portuguese. Since 1195 the crown has crept back: Almada and Palmela are being reoccupied (not before 1195), Sesimbra was resettled with Frankish colonists before 1199 (foral August 1201), Montalvo do Sor was given to Franks in 1199, the Hospital is building Belver (since 1194) and the Templars received the Açafa in 1199.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 1200 (month not pinned)Peace treaty between Sancho I and Alfonso IX of León ends the war begun in 1196.Depends on: Both kings willing: Alfonso IX freed from his Castilian war and under papal pressure over Berenguela; Sancho having lost Tui and Pontevedra and kept Bragança. Stopped by: A player renewing the war, a Portuguese claim on Tui, or a Leonese bid to exploit the heir's illness.
2. 1200 (month not pinned)The heir Afonso falls gravely ill; Sancho goes to the shrine of Santa Senhorinha de Basto and grants the surrounding land to that church, Gonçalo Mendes de Sousa setting the bounds.Depends on: Nothing in play. Stopped by: If the heir dies, the heir becomes Pedro, aged 13; a natural event the campaign may use as a short-fuse private event.
3. 25 March 1200Master Paio of the knights of Évora gives a foral to Benavente on the lower Tagus, opposite Santarém's lands.Depends on: The order holding the site and the settlers coming. Stopped by: An Almohad raid across the Sorraia.
4. 1200 (month not pinned)Sancho grants Azambuja on the Tagus to a northern crusader, Childe Rolim, to settle with his men (fair: date from standard Portuguese accounts, not re-checked).Depends on: Crusaders willing to stay in Portugal. Stopped by: No settlers on passage that year.
5. 1200 (not pinned; possibly 1205-1206)The infanta Teresa, Alfonso IX's former wife, settles at the abbey of Lorvão near Coimbra.Depends on: Her father's grant and the monks' removal. Stopped by: A new marriage or a change in León's succession.
6. 1200 (not pinned)Sancho answers or ignores Innocent III's census demand of December 1198.Depends on: Royal finances and relations with Rome. Stopped by: A player's choice.
7. August 1201 (after 1200)Foral to Sesimbra on the model of Évora, completing its resettlement.Depends on: The Setúbal peninsula staying quiet. Stopped by: An Almohad descent from Alcácer do Sal.

Places of note

• Coimbra, the court's usual seat: Royal palace (alcáçova), chancery and Santa Cruz, the royal pantheon
• Bragança: Besieged by Alfonso IX in 1199 without success
• Guarda: New town, foral 27 November 1199
• Évora: The only Portuguese stronghold south of the Tagus since 1191
• Alcácer do Sal: Lost 10 June 1191; caliphal garrison
• Silves: Taken September 1189, lost July 1191

Where the sources disagree

• campaign notes (Part 3) say the census is owed 'since 1179'. It began in 1143 (four ounces of gold, confirmed by Lucius II in 1144) and was raised to two marks in 1179; Innocent III in December 1198 claimed both as arrears (Wiedemann). A refinement, not a contradiction.
• campaign notes (Part 6 F) say the see of Egitânia is being moved to Guarda (1199). Consistent: Guarda's foral is dated 27 November 1199, and the transfer of the see follows only 'a few years' later (FCSH Guarda study); on 1 January 1200 the move is planned or under way, not complete.
• Church map (Templars (Portugal)) leaves the Templar master in Portugal 'not pinned'. The Idanha-a-Nova castle article names D. Lopo Fernandes, seventh master, who received Sancho's confirmation of Idanha-a-Velha in 1197 and added the Açafa estate in 1199.
• Common lists name Mendo Gonçalves de Sousa as head of the Sousa. He died in 1192; on 1 January 1200 the head is his son Gonçalo Mendes II, mordomo-mor.

Evidence: The royal family is thick (FMG with chronicle citations). Court officers rest on charter confirmation lists as compiled by Calderón Medina and the Sousa genealogies. The war with León in 1196-1200 is sketchy in the sources checked: the dates of Tui, Pontevedra and the 1200 peace are not pinned to the month.

On the map: No map parts for the realm record by design; the realm's ground is drawn from the lords, towns, belt and anchors.

Primary sources for this realm

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.
• The Pleasant Book: a Summary of the History of the Maghreb, Abd al-Wahid al-Marrakushi (completed in 1224, in the East, after the author left the Maghreb in 1217). Abd al-Wahid was a boy of fifteen at Fez and Marrakesh in 1200 and later moved in Almohad court circles, so his account of Yaqub al-Mansur (died January 1199) and of the first years of Muhammad al-Nasir is partly from memory and from men he knew: the character of the new caliph, the weakness that let the Banu Ghaniya overrun Ifriqiya, the Majorca expedition of 1203 and the Ifriqiya campaign of 1205 to 1206. Read online
• Official Letters of the Almohad Chancery (1140s to 1260s; the letters nearest 1200 are of the reigns of al-Mansur and al-Nasir). Circular letters from the caliphs to governors, tribes and towns announcing victories, appointments and policy, preserved in later manuscript collections.
• The Book of Census of the Roman Church, Cencius Camerarius (Cencio Savelli, later Pope Honorius III) (1192, with later additions). The papal rent roll: every church, monastery, town and kingdom that owed a census to Rome in 1192, diocese by diocese, with the sums, followed by lists of papal lands and castles, the ceremonial Ordo and copies of charters. Read online
• The Registers of Pope Innocent III for 1199 to 1201, Innocent III and the papal chancery (22 February 1199 to 21 February 1201). The pope's outgoing letters for the year, in his chancery's own copy, touching nearly every realm in the atlas. Read online

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