Description from original post (created 2013-02-13 06:52):
Afonso I(25 June 1109, GuimarĂÂŁes or Viseu o 6 December 1185, Coimbra), more commonly known as Afonso Henriques , nicknamed "the Conqueror" (Portuguese: o Conquistador), "the Founder" (o Fundador) or "the Great" (o Grande) by the Portuguese, and El-Bortukali ("the Portuguese") and Ibn-Arrik ("son of Henry", "Henriques") by the Moors whom he fought, was the first King of Portugal. He achieved the independence of the southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia, the County of Portugal, from Galicia's overlord, the King of LeĂÂłn, in 1139, establishing a new kingdom and doubling its area with the Reconquista, an objective that he pursued until his death, in 1185, after forty-six years of wars against the Moors.
History:
Afonso I was the son of Henry of Burgundy and Theresa of LeĂÂłn, the natural daughter of King Alfonso VI of LeĂÂłn. The pair reigned jointly as Count and Countess of Portugal until Henry's death, after which Theresa reigned alone.Afonso, born in 1109, took the title of Prince after taking the throne of his mother, supported by the generality of the Portuguese nobility who disliked the alliance between Galicia and Portugal Countess Theresa had come to, marrying a second time the most powerful Galician count. In 1120, the young prince took the side of Paio Mendes da Maia, theArchbishop of Braga, a political foe of Theresa, and both were exiled by her orders. In 1122 Afonso became fourteen, the adult age in the 12th century. He made himself a knight on his own account in the Cathedral of Zamora, raised an army, and proceeded to take control of his mother's lands. Near GuimarĂÂŁes, at the Battle of SĂÂŁo Mamede (1128) he overcame the troops under his mother's second husband and ally Count Fernando Peres de Trava of Galicia, exiling her forever to a monastery in Galicia. Thus the possibility of re-incorporating Portugal (up to then Southern Galicia) into a Kingdom of Portugal and Galicia as before was eliminated and Afonso became sole ruler (Duke of Portugal) after demands for independence from the county's church and nobles. He also vanquished Alfonso VII of LeĂÂłn, came to the rescue of his mother, whose nephew he was, and thus freed the kingdom from political dependence on the crown of his cousin of LeĂÂłn. On 6 April 1129, Afonso Henriques dictated the writ in which he proclaimed himself Prince of Portugal.
Afonso then turned his arms against the persistent problem of the Moors in the south. His campaigns were successful and, on 25 July 1139, he obtained an overwhelming victory in the Battle of Ourique, and straight after was unanimously proclaimed King of the Portuguese by his soldiers, establishing his equality in rank to the other realms of the Peninsula. The first assembly of the estates-general convened at Lamego (wherein he would have been given the crown from the Archbishop of Braga, to confirm his independence) is a 17th century embellishment of Portuguese history.
Independence from Alfonso VII of LeĂÂłn's suzerainty, however, was not a thing he just could achieve militarily. The County of Portugal still had to be acknowledged diplomatically by the neighboring lands as a kingdom and, most importantly, by the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope. Afonso wed Maud of Savoy, daughter ofAmadeus III, Count of Savoy, and sent ambassadors to Rome to negotiate with the Pope. He succeeded to relinquish suzerainty of his cousin Alfonso VII of LeĂÂłn, becoming instead a subject of the papacy, as the kingdoms of Sicily and Aragon had done before him. In 1179 the bull Manifestis Probatum accepted the new king as vassal to the Pope exclusively.
