Last episode of Season 1. The map of Portugal is about to be completed — but not in one go, and not only with swords. This story has two kings with the same name, two wives for the same king and a little grandson. So, as in the last episode, let’s meet the cast first.
Who’s who
- Afonso III — king of Portugal. He’s “the count” from the last episode: Sancho II’s brother, who came from France and took over the kingdom. We’ll call him our king.
- Mathilde — Countess of Boulogne, in France. Afonso III’s first wife, whom he married in 1238. She stayed in France.
- Alfonso X — king of Castile, known in Spain as “el Sabio”, the Wise. He’s the same prince who, in the last episode, came to help Sancho II; now he’s king. He wanted the Algarve too. So we don’t mix them up, we’ll always call him the king of Castile.
- Beatriz — daughter of the king of Castile, still a child. She will become our king’s second wife.
- Paio Peres Correia — master of the Order of Santiago, an order of knight-monks that did much of the conquering in the south.
- Dinis — son of our king and Beatriz. Grandson of the king of Castile. He’ll be king himself — next season.
And the story as a timeline, to check whenever you need it:
- 1189 — King Sancho I takes Silves with the help of crusaders.
- 1191 — the Muslims retake Silves.
- by 1239 — in Sancho II’s reign, Tavira and Cacela are already Christian.
- 1240s — Silves is taken for good by the Order of Santiago (the exact year is disputed).
- March 1249 — Faro becomes Christian. Soon after, Albufeira and Porches.
- 1250 and 1252 — wars with Castile over the Algarve.
- May 1253 — in Chaves, our king marries Beatriz. He was still married to Mathilde.
- 1255 — the Pope summons the king to the papal court; he doesn’t go, and an interdict falls on him.
- 1258 or 1259 — Mathilde dies.
- 1263–1264 — peace with Castile; the king of Castile gives up almost all his rights over the Algarve.
- 16 February 1267 — treaty of Badajoz: the Guadiana becomes the border.
- March 1268 — our king starts signing as “king of Portugal and of the Algarve”.
- 16 February 1279 — Afonso III dies. End of Season 1.
First, the map
In 1248, when the count became king, Portugal ran from the Minho down to the Algarve — but the Algarve wasn’t all there yet. In his brother Sancho II’s reign, the Order of Santiago had already taken Tavira and Cacela, on the eastern side. The rest — Faro, Loulé, Albufeira, the coast out to the cape — was still Muslim land.
The name says it all. Algarve comes from the Arabic al-gharb, “the west”: it was the western end of al-Andalus, the Muslim part of the Iberian Peninsula.
Before: Silves, 1189
To understand the Algarve, we have to go back sixty years, to our king’s grandfather, Sancho I. And here, as in Lisbon in episode 1.3, there’s a crusader who was there and wrote it all down.
In 1189, a fleet of crusaders from northern Europe was on its way to the Holy Land. The author calls himself “Teutonic”; in his account there are men from Bremen, Flemings and a few Englishmen. They stopped in Lisbon, and King Sancho I invited them to a conquest: Silves, the biggest town in the Algarve. The deal was the usual one: the town for the king, everything that could be carried off for the crusaders.
The crusader was impressed. Silves, he writes, was the size of Goslar, a town from his part of the world, but with many more houses — and “much stronger than Lisbon, and ten times richer”.
The siege lasted, by his count, six weeks and three days. The town drew its water from a well protected by a wall with four towers, which they called the Couraça. When the crusaders took it, they blocked the well with stones and earth. From then on, it was down to thirst.
And the crusader doesn’t hide it:
- for four days, the Christian captives inside the town had been given “no more water than would fit in an eggshell” — and some not even that;
- the women and children “ate damp earth”;
- of the 450 Christian captives in the town when the siege began, they found only 200 alive;
- when the town surrendered, 15,800 inhabitants were left.
The terms said the inhabitants would leave with only the clothes on their backs. But on the way out some of the crusaders robbed them, and that night some of the inhabitants, “against the agreement”, were tortured to show where they kept their money. In the end the king kept everything — the crusader complains: “the King, taking it all for himself, left us nothing”. The crusaders left in a temper. The king even asked them to help him take another town nearby, which they called Santa Maria de Faraon. They refused. Historians identify it as Faro.
Two years later, in 1191, a great Almohad army from Morocco took Silves back. The Algarve was Muslim again.
1249: Faro
Which brings us to our king. In the spring of 1249, writes Herculano, Afonso III “advanced swiftly into the Algarve”. He brought his uncle, the infante Pedro, the knights of the Order of Santiago, the master of Avis and some nobles.
By March 1249, Faro — Santa Maria de Faro — was already in Christian hands. Herculano knows this from a document: a grant by the king “given at Santa Maria de Faro” that month. Faro town council and the official heritage inventory give the day: 29 March. Soon after, Albufeira, Porches and other places met the same fate. The king left the rest to the military orders and went back to Coimbra.
Now, honesty: historians still argue over who did what at Faro. Some gave the king all the credit; others denied him any part and gave it all to the Order of Santiago. Two historians, Henrique David and Sotto Mayor Pizarro, rejected both extremes: the king did play a part, and Paio Peres Correia’s presence is “very likely”. What’s certain is the month: March 1249.
The problem: Castile wanted the Algarve too
Almost all the Algarve was now in Portuguese hands. But the king of Castile, right next door, thought the Algarve should be his. In 1250 and in 1252 there was war.
And peace was made the way many peace deals were made in those days: with a wedding. Our king would marry Beatriz, the king of Castile’s daughter — still a child. In return, the king of Castile would keep the usufruct of the Algarve — its income, its control — until the first son of that marriage turned seven. After that, the Algarve would go back to Portugal whole.
In mid-May 1253, in Chaves, our king took Beatriz as his wife.
There was just one problem. He was already married.
The countess left behind
Mathilde, Countess of Boulogne — the woman who had given him his title of count in France — was alive. And she didn’t stay quiet: she sent the Pope “energetic” complaints, writes Herculano.
In 1255, Pope Alexander IV ordered the king to appear at the papal court within four months. The king didn’t go, and didn’t give up Beatriz. So the Pope placed him under interdict.
An interdict was a harsh punishment in those days: wherever the king and queen went, divine services stopped — no masses. The Portuguese bishops, in a letter to the Pope in 1262, complained about exactly that: the scandal, and the danger it brought to souls.
Tradition says Mathilde came to Portugal herself to try to get her husband back. Herculano: “Of all this we lack records” — there are no documents.
Mathilde died in 1258 (or early 1259 — the sources don’t agree). In that same 1262 letter, the bishops asked the Pope to lift the interdict, accept the marriage and make the king’s children legitimate, so they could inherit the kingdom. The Pope’s reply isn’t known, writes Herculano — but other documents show the request was granted: the children were treated as legitimate, and Dinis inherited the kingdom.
The grandson closes the deal
With the marriage sorted and the son born — Dinis — the Algarve still had to be settled.
In 1263 peace was made with Castile, and in 1264 the king of Castile renounced almost all the rights he had kept.
One last thread still had to be cut: because of the Algarve, Portugal owed the king of Castile fifty knights whenever he asked for them. Before Badajoz, the king sent Dinis, still a child, to Castile at the head of a military contingent, to ask his grandfather to waive it. The details, says Herculano, come from the chronicles and smell of legend; but the documents show it worked.
On 16 February 1267, in Badajoz, the two kings signed the final agreement:
- the king of Castile gave up, without conditions, all his rights over the Algarve and ordered the castles handed over;
- our king let go of Aroche and Aracena, on the far side of the Guadiana;
- and the border became the river Guadiana, from where the river Caia flows into it down to the sea.
In March 1268, Afonso III began signing as “king of Portugal and of the Algarve”. Herculano adds: a title his grandfather, Sancho I, had used for a while after Silves, and which his successors “never lost again”.
The rest of the reign
Afonso III reigned for more than ten years after that. Two things worth knowing:
- In 1254, at the Cortes of Leiria — the great assemblies where the king met the realm — the “good men of the councils”, the representatives of the towns, appear for the first time alongside the bishops and nobles. Herculano saw this as an important date; it’s his reading, and many have followed it.
- Lisbon. It’s often said that Afonso III made Lisbon the capital. But look at the documents: they show a king travelling all over the kingdom in the early years, and after 1257 mostly between Coimbra, Santarém and Lisbon. Only from 1270, already ill — perhaps with gout — does he appear mostly in Lisbon.
At the end of his life he made peace with the Church, with which he had also been at war. On 17 January 1279, dying, he swore obedience to the Pope and was absolved. He died a month later, on 16 February, before cockcrow. The record of his death already calls him rex Portugalie et Algarbii — king of Portugal and of the Algarve.
The count who came from France to take his brother’s kingdom left it bigger than he found it. And he left his son, Dinis — which is where the next season begins.