# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Portugal

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​PORTUGAL, a republic of western Europe, forming part of the Iberian Peninsula, and bounded on the N. and E. by Spain, and on the S. and W. by the Atlantic Ocean. Pop. (1900), 5,016,267; area, 34,254 sq. m. These totals do not include the inhabitants and area of the Azores and Madeira Islands, which are officially regarded as parts of continental Portugal. In shape the country resembles a roughly drawn parallelogram, with its greatest length (362 m.) from N. to S., and its greatest breadth (140 m.) from E. to W. For map, see Spain. Frontiers and Coasts.The land frontiers are to some extent defined by the course of the four principal rivers, the Minho and Douro in the north, the Tagus and Guadiana in the south; elsewhere, and especially in the north, they are marked by mountain ranges; but in most parts their delimitation was originally based on political considerations. In no sense can the boundary-line be called either natural or scientific, apart from the fact that the adjacent districts on either side are poor sparsely peopled, and therefore little liable to become a subject of dispute. The Portuguese seaboard is nearly 500 m. long, and of the six ancient provinces all are maritime except Traz-os-Montes. From the extreme north to Cape Mondego and thence onward to Cape Carvoeiro the outline of the coast is a long and gradual curve; farther south is the prominent mass of rock and mountain terminating Westward in Capes Roca and Espichel; south of this, again, there is another wide curve, broken by the headland of Sines, and extending to Cape St Vincent, the south-eastern extremity of the country. The only other conspicuous promontory is Cape Santa Maria, on the south coast. The only deep indentations of the Portuguese littoral are the lagoon of Aveiro (q.v.) and the estuaries of the Minho, Douro, Mondego, Tagus, Sado and Guadiana, in which are the principal harbours, The only islands off the coast are the dangerous Farilhões and Berlings (Portuguese Berlengas) off Cape Carvoeiro.
Physical Features.—Few small countries contain so great a variety of scenery as Portugal. The bleak and desolate heights of the Serra da Estrella and the ranges of the northern frontier are almost alpine in character, although they nowhere reach the limit of perpetual snow. At a lower level there are wide tracts of moorland, covered in many cases with sweet-scented cistus and other wild flowers. The lagoon of Aveiro, the estuary of the Sado and the broad inland lake formed by the Tagus above Lisbon (q.v.), recall the waterways of Holland. The sand-dunes of the western coast and the Pinhal de Leiria (q.v.) resemble the French Landes. The Algarve and parts of Alemtejo might belong to North-West Africa rather than to Europe. The Paiz do Vinho, on the Douro, and the Tagus near Abrantes, with their terraced bush-vines grown up the steep banks of the rivers, are often compared with the Rhine and the Elbe. The harbours of Lisbon and Oporto are hardly inferior in beauty to those of Naples and Constantinople. Apart from this variety, and from the historic interest of such places as Braga, Bussaco, Cintra, Coimbra, or Torres Vedras, the attractiveness of the country is due to its colouring, and not to grandeur of form. Its landscapes are on a small scale; it has no vast plains, no inland seas, no mountain as high as 7000 ft. But its flora is the richest in Europe, and combines with the brilliant sunshine, the vivid but harmonious costumes of the peasantry, and the white or pale tinted houses to compensate for any such deficiency. This wealth of colour gives to the scenery of Portugal a quite distinctive character and is the one feature common to all its varieties.
The orography of Portugal cannot be scientifically studied except in relation to that of Spain, for there is no dividing line between the principal Portuguese ranges and the highlands of Galicia, Leon and Spanish Estremadura. Three so-called Portuguese systems are sometimes distinguished: (1) the Transmontane, stretching between the Douro and the Minho; (2) the Beirene, between the Douro and the Tagus; (3) the Transtagine, south of the Tagus. The following ranges belong to the Transmontane system, which is the southern extension of the mountains of Galicia: Peneda (4728 ft.), forming the watershed between the river Lima and the lower Minho; the Serra do Gerez (4817 ft.), which rises like a gigantic wall between the Lima and the Homem, and sends off a spur known as the Amarella, Oural and Nora, south-westward between the Homem and the Cavado; La Raya Seca, a continuation of Gerez, which culminates in Larouco (4390 ft.) and contains the sources of the Cavado; Cabreira (4196 ft.), which contains the sources of the river Ave and separates the basin of the Tamega from that of the Cavado; Marão (4642 ft.), Villarelho (3547 ft.) and Padrella (3763 ft.), forming together a large massif between the rivers Tamega, Tua and Douro; and Nogueira (4331 ft.) and Bornes (3944 ft.), which divide the valley of the Tua from that of the Sabor. The Beirene system comprises two quite distinct mountain regions. North of the Mondego it includes Montemuro (4534 ft.), separating the Douro from the upper waters of its left-hand tributary the Paiva; Gralheira (3681 ft.) between the Paiva and the Vouga; the Serra do Caramullo ​ (3511 ft.), between the Vouga and the Dão; and the Serra da Lapa (3215 ft.), which gives rise to the Paiva, Tavora, Vouga and Dão. South of these ranges, but nominally included in the same system, is the Serra da Estrella, the loftiest ridge in Portugal (6532 ft.). The Estrella Mountains, which enclose the headwaters of the Mondego in a deep ravine, stretch from north-east-to south-west and are continued in the same direction by the Serra de Lousã (3944 ft.). They form the last link in the chain of mountain ranges, known to Spanish geographers as the Carpetano-Vetonica, which extends across the centre of the Peninsula from east to west. The greater part of the Serra da Estrella constitutes the watershed between the Mondego and Zezere. Lesser ranges, which are included in the Beirene system and vary in height from 2000 to 4000 ft., are the Mesas, between the rivers Côa and Zezere; the Guardunha and Moradal, separating the Zezere from the Ponsul and Ocreza, tributaries of the Tagus; the Serra do Aire, and various ridges which stretch south-westward as far as the mountains of Cintra (q.v.). The Transtagine Mountains cannot rightly be described as a single system, as they consist for the most part of isolated ranges or massifs. The Serra da Arrabida (1637 ft.) rises between Cape Espichel and Setubal. Sao Mamede (3363 ft.), with the parallel and lower Serra de Portalegre, extends along part of the frontier of northern Alemtejo. Ossa (2129 ft.), Caixeiro (1483 ft.), Monfurado (1378 ft.) and Mendro (1332 ft.) form the high ground between the rivers Sado, Sorraia and Guadiana. East of the Guadiana the outliers of the Spanish Sierra Morena enter Portuguese territory. The Serra Grandola and Monte Cercal, two low ranges stretching from north to south, skirt the coast of southern Estremadura. In the extreme south the ranges are more closely massed together. They include Monchique, with the peak of Foya or Foia (2963 ft.), and various lower ranges. There are numerous large expanses of level country, the most notable of these being the plains (campos) of the Tagus valley, and of Aviz or Benavilla, Beja and Ourique, in Alemtejo; the high plateaux (cimas) of Mogadouro in Traz-os-Montes and Ourem between the Tagus and the upper Sorraia; the highly cultivated lowlands (veigas) of Chaves and Valença do Minho in the extreme north; and the marshy flats (baixas) along the coast of Alemtejo and the southern shore of the lower Tagus.
The three principal rivers which flow through Portugal to the sea-the Douro, Tagus and Guadiana-are described in separate articles. The chief Portuguese tributaries of the Douro are the Tamega, Tua and Sabor on the north, the Agueda, Côa and Paiva on the south; of the Tagus, the Ocreza, Ponsul and Zezere on the north, the Niza and Sorraia on the south, while into the Guadiana, on its right or Portuguese bank, flow the Caia, Degebe, Cobres, Oeiras and Vascão. The whole country drains into the Atlantic, to which all the main rivers flow in a westerly direction except the Guadiana, which turns south by east in the lower art of its course. The Minho (Spanish Miño) is the most northerly river of Portugal, and in size and importance is only inferior to the three great waterways already mentioned. It rises in the highlands of Galicia, and, after forming for some distance the boundary between that province and Entre-Minho-e-Douro, falls into the sea below the port of Caminha. Its length is 170 m. Small coasters can ascend the river as far as Salvatierra in Galicia (20 m.), but larger vessels are excluded by a sandy bar at the mouth. Between the Minho and Douro the chief rivers are the Lima (Spanish Limia or Antela), which also rises in Galicia, and reaches the sea at Vianna do Castello; the Cavado, which receives the Homem on the right, and forms the port of Espozende in its estuary; and the Ave, which rises in the Serra da Cabreira and issues at the port of Villa do Conde. Between the Douro and Tagus the Vouga rises in the Serra da Lapa and reaches the sea through the lagoon of Aveiro; the Mondego flows north-east through a long ravine in the Serra da Estrella, and then bends back so as to flow west-south-west. Its estuary contains the important harbour of Figueira da Foz; its chief tributaries are the Dão on the right, and the Alva, Ceira and Arunca on the left; its length is 125 m. of which 52 m. are navigable by small coasters. Several comparatively unimportant streams, chief among which are the Liz and Sizandro, enter the Atlantic between the mouths of the Mondego and Tagus. Between the Tagus and Cape St Vincent the principal rivers are the Sado, which is formed by the junction of several lesser streams and flows north-west to the port of Setubal; and the Mira, which takes a similar direction from its headwaters south of Monte Vigia to the port of Villa Nova de Milfontes. On the south coast the united waters of the Odelouca and Silves form the harbour of Villa Nova de Portimão, and the Algoz, Algibre or Quarteira, and the Asseca flow into the sea farther east. Portugal abounds in hot and medicinal springs, such as those of Caldas de Monchique, Caldas da Rainha and Vidago.
Geology.—By far the greater part of Portugal is occupied by ancient rocks of Archean and Palaeozoic age, and by eruptive masses which probably belong to various periods. All the higher mountains are formed of these rocks, and it is only near the coast and in the plain of the Tagus that later deposits are found. The Mesozoic beds form an irregular triangle extending from Lisbon and Torres Novas on the south to Oporto on the north. There are also a narrow strip along the southern shores of the Algarve and a few smaller patches along the western coast. The Tertiary deposits cover the plain of the Tagus and are found in other low-lying areas near the coast. Of the Lower Palaeozoic rocks the Ordovician appears to be the most widely-spread. Large areas have been referred to the Cambrian, but it is only at Villa Boim, about 6 m. W.S.W. of Elvas, that Cambrian fossils have been found. The Ordovician beds have yielded fossils in several places, Vallongo and Bussaco being amongst the best-known localities. The succession is similar to that of Brittany and Spain. Supposed Silurian beds have been described at Portalegre, and in the same neighbourhood Devonian fossils have been found. The Lower Carboniferous, which belongs to the “Culm” facies so widely spread in central Europe, occupies a wide area in southern Portugal; but the Upper Carboniferous is very restricted in extent, and occurs in small basins like those of the Central Plateau of France, resting unconformable upon the rocks below. The deposits in these basins consist largely of coarse sandstones and conglomerates, amongst which lie seams of coal. It is possible that some of these deposits may belong to the Permian or at least to the Perma-Carboniferous. Of the Mesozoic systems the Jurassic is the most widely-spread. Supposed Triassic beds are found, but they are confined chiefly to the eastern margin of the Mesozoic area north of Lisbon. The Jurassic deposits are partly marine and partly fresh-water or terrestrial, including beds of lignite. On the whole, excepting in eastern Algarve, the Upper jurassic beds indicate the neighbourhood of a shore-line. The Cretaceous system is very limited in extent. Its most interesting feature is the occurrence near its summit, north of Cape Mondego, of sands and gravels containing plant remains. Here both Cretaceous and Tertiary forms are found, and the Mondego beds seem to represent the passage between the two systems. At the close of the Cretaceous period great eruptions of basalt and basaltic tuff took place, especially in the Lisbon area. The volcanic rocks then formed are followed by marine deposits of Oligocene and Miocene age. Towards the north these are associated with fresh-water limestones, indicating the presence of land in that direction. Marine Pliocene beds occur at the mouth of the Tagus. The contemporaneous beds inland are of freshwater origin. Eruptive masses of various age are found in many localities. The Cintra granite sends veins into the base of the Upper Jurassic, and is very probably of Tertiary age. The Serra de Monchique is petrographically of great interest. It consists chiefly of elaeolite-syenite and other rocks derived from the same igneous magma.
Climate.—The climate of Portugal is equable and temperate. Lisbon, Coimbra, Evora and Oporto have mean temperatures between 60° and 61.5° F., and the daily variation nowhere exceeds 23°. This equability of temperature is partly caused by the very heavy rainfall precipitated on Portugal as one of the westernmost countries of Europe and the one most exposed to the Atlantic. The rainfall has been as heavy as 16 ft. in a year, and sometimes, as in the winter of 1909–1910, great damage is wrought by floods. Heavy fogs are also common along the coast, rendering it dangerous to ships. The rainfall is heaviest in the north and on the Serra da Estrella; it is least in Algarve. A fine climate and equability of temperature are not universal in Portugal; they are to be enjoyed mainly in Beira and Estremadura, especially at Cintra and Coimbra, and in the northern provinces. In the deep valleys where the mountains keep off the cool winds, it is excessively hot in summer; while on the summits of the mountains snow lies for many months. The meteorological station on the Serra da Estrella, with a mean annual temperature of 44.7° F., is the coldest spot in Portugal in which systematic observations are taken. Montalegre has a mean of 48.3° and Guarda of 50.3°. Even in Lisbon the yearly variation is not less than 50°. In Alemtejo the climate is very unfavourable, and, though the heat is not so great as in Algarve (where Lagos has a mean of 63°), the country has a more deserted appearance; while in winter when the Tagus overflows, unhealthy swamps are left. Notwithstanding that Algarve is hotter than Alemtejo, a profuse vegetation takes away much of the tropical effect. Portugal is very rarely visited by thunderstorms; but shocks of earthquake are frequently felt, and recall the great earthquake of Lisbon (q.v.) in 1755.
Fauna and Flora.—An account of the fauna of the Iberian Peninsula as a whole is given under Spain. Wolves are found in the wilder parts of the Serra da Estrella, and wild boars are preserved in some districts. As far as the constituents of its flora are concerned Portugal is not very dissimilar from Spain, but their distribution is peculiar. The vegetation of Spain is distributed in clearly marked zones; but over the whole of Portugal, except the hottest parts of Algarve and Alemtejo, the plants of northern Europe flourish side by side with cacti, palms, aloes and tree-ferns (see Cintra). This is largely due to the fact that the moisture laden winds from the Atlantic penetrate almost as far inland as the Portuguese frontier, but do not reach the interior of Spain. The soil is fertile, and the indigenous flora has been greatly enriched by the importation of such plants as the agave, the Mexican opuntia, the American maple, the Australian eucalyptus, the Scotch fir and the so-called Portuguese cypress (Cupressus lusitanica) from the Azores. There are many fine tracts of forest, among which may be mentioned the famous convent-wood of Bussaco (q.v.); cork ​ trees are extensively cultivated, Barbary oaks (Quercus ballota, Port. azinheira) furnish edible acorns and excellent timber for charcoal, and carob-trees (Ceratonia siligua, Port. alfarrobeira) also produce edible seed-pods somewhat resembling beans. Elms, limes and poplars are common north of the Tagus, ilexes, araucarias, myrtles, magnolias and a great variety of conifers in all parts. The Serra da Estrella has a rich alpine flora, and the lagoon of Aveiro contains a great number of aquatic plants.
Inhabitants.—The population of Portugal numbered 4,550,699 in 1878, 5,049,729 in 1890 and 5,423,132 in 1900. These totals include the inhabitants of the Azores and Madeira, which together amounted to 406,865 in 1900. Few immigrants enter the country, but the birth-rate is about 30 per 1000, while the mortality is only about 20 per 1000. Large bodies of emigrants, chiefly recruited from the sober, hardy and industrious peasantry of the northern provinces, annually leave Portugal to seek fortune in America. A few go to the Portuguese colonies, the great majority to Brazil. Many of these emigrants return with considerable savings and settle on the land. The mortality is highest among male children, and the normal excess of females is in the proportion of 109 to 100. Six-sevenths of the population of continental Portugal inhabit the provinces north of the Tagus. The density of population is greatest in Madeira (479.5 per sq. m. in 1900), Entre-Minho-e-Douro (419.5) and the Azores (277-9), nowhere else does it reach 200 per sq. m. In Alemtejo the percentage sinks to 45.1, and for the whole country, including the islands, it amounts only to 152.8.
The Portuguese people is composed of many racial elements. Its earliest known ancestors were the Iberians (q.v.). The peasantry, especially in the north, are closely akin to the Galician and Asturian Spaniards in character, physique and dialect; and these three ethnical groups-Portuguese of the north, Galicians, Asturians-may perhaps be regarded as the purest representatives of the Spanish stock. The first settlers with whom they intermarried were probably Carthaginians, who were followed in smaller numbers by Greeks; but the attempts which have sometimes been made to ascribe certain attributes of the Portuguese to the influence of these races are altogether fanciful. The Romans, whose supremacy was not seriously threatened for some six centuries after the Punic Wars, gave to Portugal its language and the foundation of its civilization; there is, however, no evidence that they seriously modified the physical type or character of its people. In these respects the Suevic and Visigothic conquests left a more permanent impression, especially in the northern provinces. After 711 came the long period of Moorish (i.e. Arab and Berber) predominance. The influence of the Moors was greatest south of the Tagus. In Alemtejo, and still more in Algarve, Arab and Berber types are common; and the influence of these races can everywhere be discerned in the architecture, handicrafts and speech of the peasantry. So complete was the intellectual triumph of the Moors that an intermediate “Mozarabic” population arose, Portuguese in blood, Christian in religion, but Arab in language and manners. Many of the Mozarabs even adopted the characteristic Mahommedan rite of circumcision. Under the tolerant rule of Islam the Portuguese Jews rose to a height of wealth and culture unparalleled in Europe; they intermarried with the Christians both at this period and after their forced conversion by King Emanuel I. (1495–1521). After 1450 yet another ethnical element was introduced into the nation, through the importation of African slaves in vast numbers. Negroid types are common throughout central and southern Portugal. No European race confronted with the problem of an immense coloured population has solved it more successfully than the Portuguese and their kinsmen in Brazil; in both countries intermarriage was freely resorted to, and the offspring of these mixed unions are superior in character and intelligence to most half-breeds.
National Characteristics.—The normal type evolved from this fusion of many races is dark-haired, sallow-skinned, brown eyed and of low stature. The poorer classes, above all the fishermen and small farmers, are physically much finer than the well-to-do, who are prone to excessive stoutness owing to their more sedentary habits. The staple diet of the labouring classes and small farmers is fish, especially the dried codfish called bacalháo, rice, beans, maize bread and meal, olive oil, fruit and vegetables. Meat is rarely eaten except on festivals. In Alemtejo chestnuts and figs are important articles of diet. Drunkenness is extremely rare. There is no single national dress, but a great variety of picturesque costumes are worn. The sashes, broad-brimmed hats and copper-tipped quarterstaves of the men, and the brilliant cotton dresses and gold or silver filigree ornaments worn on holidays by the women are common throughout the country; but many classes have their own costumes, varying in detail according to the district or province. These costumes may be seen at their best at bull-fights and at such popular festivals as the romarias or pilgrimages, which combine religion with the attractions of a fair. The national sport of bull-fighting (q.v.) is conducted as humanely as possible, for the Portuguese are lovers of animals. The artistic sense of the nation is perhaps greatest among the peasantry, although Portugal has the most illiterate peasantry in western Europe. It is manifested in their poetry and music even more than in their admirable costumes and in the good taste which has preserved the Roman or Moorish forms of their domestic pottery. Even the men and women who till the soil are capable of improvising verse of real merit, and sometimes excel in the ancient and difficult art of composing extempore amoebean rhymes. In this way, although the ancient ballads are not forgotten, new Words are also fitted to the plaintive folk-tunes (fados) which every farm-hand knows and sings, accompanied sometimes by a rude clarinet or bagpipes, but more frequently by the so-called Portuguese guitar—an instrument which resembles a mandolin rather than the guitars of Italy and Spain. The native dances, slow but not ungraceful, and more restrained than those of Andalusia or the south of France, are obviously Moorish in origin, and depend for their main effects on the movement of the arms and body. Many curious superstitious survive in the country districts, including the beliefs in witches (feitiçeiras, bruxas) and werewolves (lobishomens); in sirens (sereias) which haunt the dangerous coast and lure fishermen to destruction; in fairies (fadas) and in many kinds of enchantment. It will be observed that the nomenclature of Portuguese folk-lore suggests that the popular superstitions are of the most diverse origin—Latin, Greek, Arabic, native: lobishomem is the Latin lupus homo, wolf-man, sereia is the Greek σειρήν, bruxa is Arabic, feitiçeira and fada Portuguese. Other beliefs can be traced to Jewish and African sources.
Chief Towns.—The chief towns of Portugal are Lisbon (pop. 1900, 356,009), the capital and principal seaport; Oporto (167,955), the capital of the northern provinces and, after Lisbon, the most important centre of trade; the seaports of Setubal (22,074), Ilhavo (12,617), Povoa de Varzim (12,623), Tavira (12,175), Faro (11,789), Ovar (10,462), Olhão (10,009) Vianna do Castello (10,000), Aveiro (9975), Lagos (8291), Leixões (7690) and Figueira da Foz (6221); and the inland cities or towns of Braga (24,202), Loulé (22,478), Coimbra (18,144), Evora (16,020), Covilhã (15,469), Elvas (13,981), Portalegre (11,820), Palmella (11,478), Torres Novas (10,746), Silves (9687), Lamego (9471), Guimarães (9104), Beja (8885), Santarem (8628), Vizeu (8057), Estremoz (7920), Monchique (7345), Castello Branco (7288), Abrantes (7255), Torres Vedras (6900), Thomar (6888), Villa Real (6716), Chaves (6388), Guarda (6124), Cintra (5914), Braganza (5535), Mafra (4769), Leiria (4459), Batalha (3858), Almeida (2330), Alcobaça (2309), Bussaco (1661). All these are described in separate articles.
Communications.—Up to 1851 there was practically no good carriage road in the country except the highway between Lisbon and Cintra. In 1853 the work of constructing a proper system of roads was undertaken, and by the end of the century all the larger towns were linked together by the main or “royal” highways to which the “district" and “municipal” roads were subsidiary. Each class of road was named after the authority responsible for its construction and upkeep. In some of the remoter rural districts there are only bridle-paths, or rough tracks, which become almost impassable in wet seasons, and are never suitable for vehicles less solid than the Portuguese ox-carts. The first railway was opened in 1853 to connect Lisbon with Badajoz. In 1910 1758 m. were completed, of which 672 m. were state lines. The Portuguese ​ railways meet the Spanish at Valença do Minho on the northern frontier, at Barca d’Alva, at Villar Formoso, near Valencia de Alcantara, and near Badajoz on the eastern frontier. In some of the chief towns there are electric tramways. The most important internal waterways are the lower Tagus and the Douro between Oporto and the Paiz do Vinho. In 1908, 11,045 vessels of 19,354,967 tons entered Portuguese seaports, but a very large-majority of these ships were foreign, and especially British. The postal and telegraphic services are adequate; telephone systems are installed in Lisbon, Oporto and other large towns; and the Eastern Telegraph Co. has an important cable station at Carcavellos near Lisbon (q.v.).
Land Tenure.—Four modes of land tenure are common in Portugal. The poor and thinly-peopled region of Alemtejo is divided into large estates, and cultivated by tenant farmers. Numerous estates in various provinces are held on the metayage system (q.v.). In the north, where the land is much subdivided, peasant proprietorship and a kind of emphyteusis (see Roman Law) are the most usual tenures. The Portuguese form of emphyteusis is called aforamento; the landlord parts with the user of his property in exchange for a quit-rent (fora or canon). He may evict his tenant Should the rent be in arrear for five years, and may at any time distrain if it be overdue; but he cannot otherwise interfere with the holding. which the tenant may improve or neglect. Should the tenant sell or exchange his interest in the property, the right of pre-emption is vested in the landlord, and a corresponding right is enjoyed by the tenant should the quitrent be for sale. As this tenure is very ancient, though modified in 1832 and 1867. the value of such holdings has been greatly enhanced with the improvement of the land and the decline in the purchasing power of currency.
Agriculture.—Many of the instruments and processes of Portuguese agriculture and viticulture were introduced by the Romans. and are such as Columella described in the first century A.D. The characteristic spring less ox-cart which is used for heavy loads may be seen represented on Roman frescoes of even earlier date. One form of plough still used consists of a crooked bough, with an iron share attached. Oxen are employed for all field-work: those of the commonest breed are tawny. of great muscular power, very docile, and with horn's measuring 5 or 6 ft. from tip to tip. The ox-yokes are often elaborately carved in a traditional pattern in which Gothic and Moorish designs are blended. The Moors introduced many improvements, especially in the system of irrigation: the characteristic Portuguese wells with their perpetual chains or buckets are of Moorish invention, and retain their Moorish name of noras. In all, rather more than 45% of the country is uncultivated, chiefly in Alemtejo, Traz-os-Montes and the Serra da Estrella. The principal grain-crops are maize, wheat and rye; rice is grown among the marshes of the coast. Gourds, pumpkins, cabbages and other vegetables are cultivated among the cereals. The large onions sold in Great Britain as Spanish are extensively produced in the northern provinces. Every district has its vineyards, the finest of which are in the Paiz do Vinho (see Oporto and Wine). The bush vines of this region are more exposed to the attacks of Oidium Tuckeri, which invaded the country in 1851, and of Phylloxera vastatrix, which followed in 1863, than the more deeply-rooted vines trained on trellises or trees. Both these pests have been successfully combated. largely by the use of sulphur and by grafting immune American vines upon native stocks. In addition to grapes the commoner fmits include quinces, apples, pears, cherries, limes, lemons and loquats (Port. nespras); Condeixa is famous for oranges, Amarante for peaches, Elvas for plums, the southern provinces for carobs and figs. Large quantities of olive oil are manufactured south of the Douro. Almost all cattle, except fighting-bulls, are stall-fed. The fighting-bulls are chiefly reared in the marshes and alluvial valleys; the are bred for strength and swiftness rather than size, and a good specimen should be sufficiently agile to leap over the inner barrier of the arena (about 68 in. high). Large herds of swine are fed in the oak and chestnut woods of Alemtejo; sheep and goats are reared in the mountains, where excellent cheeses are made from goats’ milk.
Fisheries.—About 50,000 Portuguese are classed as hunters and fishermen. The majority of these are employed in the sardine and tunny fisheries. This industry is carried on in a fleet of more than 10,000 small vessels, including the whalers of the Azores and the cod-boats which operate outside Portuguese waters. The fishermen and fisherwomen form a quite distinct class of the people; both sexes are noted for their bodily strength, and the men for their bold and skilful seamanship. Tunny and sardines are cured and exported in large quantities, oysters are also exported, and many other sea fish, such as hake, sea-bream, whiting, conger and various flat-fish are consumed in the country. In the early years of the 20th century the competition of foreign steam trawlers inflicted much hardship on the fishermen. The average yearly value of the fish landed in Portugal (exclusive of cured fish from foreign countries) is about £800,000. Salmon, lampreys and eels are caught in some of the larger rivers; trout aboun in the streams of the northern provinces; but many fresh-water fish common elsewhere in Europe, including pike, perch, tench and chub, are not found.
Mines.—It is usually stated that Portugal is rich in minerals, especially copper, but that want of capital and, especially in the south, of transport and labour, has retarded their exploitation. The mineral deposits of the country are very varied, but their extent is probably exaggerated. The average yearly output from 1901 to 1905 was worth less than £300,000. Copper is mined in southern Portugal. Common salt (chiefly from Alcacer do Sal near Setubal), gypsum, lime and marble are exported; marble and granite of fine quality abound in the southern provinces. Iron is obtained near Beja and Evora, tin in the district of Braganza. Lead, wolfram, antimony and auriferous quartz exist in the districts of Coimbra, Evora, Beja and Faro. Lignite occurs at many points around Coimbra, Leiria and Santarem; asphalt abounds near Alcobaca; phosphorite, asbestos and sulphur are common south of the Tagus. Petroleum has been found near Torres Vedras; pitchblende, arsenic, anthracite and zinc are also mined. Gold was washed from some of the Portuguese rivers before the Christian era, and among the Romans the auriferous sands of the Tagus were proverbially famous; it is, however, extremely improbable that large quantities of gold were ever obtained in this region, although small deposits of alluvial gold may still be found in the valleys of the Tagus and Mondego.
Manufactures.—The Methuen Treaty of 1703 prevented the establishment of some manufacturing industries in Portugal by securing a monopoly for British textiles, and it was only after 1892 that Portuguese cotton-spinning and weaving were fostered by heavy protective duties. In 20 years these industries became the most important in the country after agriculture, the wine and cork trades and the fisheries. In connexion with the wine trade there are many large cooperages; cork products are extensively manufactured for export. Lisbon is the headquarters of the ship-building trade. Here, and in other cities, tanning, distilling, various metallurgical industries, and manufactures of soap, Hour. tobacco, &c., are carried on; the entire output is sold in Portugal or its colonies. There is a steady trade in natural mineral waters, which occur in many parts of continental Portugal and the Azores. From the 16th century to the 18th many artistic handicrafts were practised by the Portuguese in imitation of the fine pottery, cabinetwork, embroideries, &c., which they imported from India and Persia. Portuguese cabinet-work deteriorated in the 19th century; the glass works and potteries of the Aveiro and Leiria districts have lost much of their ancient reputation; and even the exquisite lace of Peniche and Vianna do Castello is strangely neglected abroad. The finest Caldas da Rainha china-ware, with its fantastic representations of birds, beasts and fishes, still commands a fair price in foreign markets; but the blue and white ware originally copied from Delft and later modified under the influence of Persian pottery is now only manufactured in small quantities, of inferior quality. Skilful copies of Moorish metal-work may be purchased in the goldsmiths’ and silversmiths’ shops of Lisbon and Oporto; conspicuous among these are the filigree ornaments which are bought by the peasant women as investments and by foreign visitors as curiosities. In 1900 the total industrial population of Portugal was 455,296.
Commerce.—The annual value of the foreign trade of Portugal amounts approximately to £19,000,000. The following table shows the value for five years of the exports, and of all imports not re-exported (exclusive of coin and bullion):—
In 1910 the principal exports, in order of value, were wine tchiefiy port, common wines and Madeira), raw and manufactured cork, preserved fish, fruits and vegetables, cottons and yarn, copper ore, timber, olive oil, skins, grain and flour, tobacco and wool. The imports were raw and manufactured cotton, wool and silk, wheat and maize, coal, iron and machinery, dried codfish, sugar, rice, hides and skins, oils. The United Kingdom, which annually purchases wine to the value of about £900,000 and cork to the value of about, £500,000, is the chief consumer of Portuguese goods. and the chief exporter to Portugal. Germany and the United States rank respectively second and third among the countries which export to Portugal; Spain, which buys bullocks and pigs, Brazil, which buys wine, and the Portuguese colonies, which buy textiles. are among the chief purchasers of Portuguese products. In addition to its direct foreign commerce Portugal derives much benefit from its share in the trade between South America and Europe. Large liners from Liverpool, Southampton, London, Hamburg, Havre and Antwerp call in regularly for passengers or cargo at Leixões or Lisbon, or both ports, on their way to and from South America (especially Brazil). In connexion with this trade an important tourist traffic, chiefly from Great Britain and Germany, was developed towards the end of the 19th century.
Banks and Money.—In 1910 the Bank of Portugal, to which the ​ treasury was deeply indebted, had a capital of £I,500,000, and a monopoly of note issue in continental Portugal, but the notes of the Ultramarine Bank circulated in the colonies. The notes of the Bank of Portugal in circulation amounted in value to about £14,000,000. For an account of the Monte Pio Geral, which is a combined bank, pawnbroking establishment and benefit society, see Pawnbroking; the deposits in the Monte Pio and the State Savings Bank amounted in 1910 to some £5,228,000. There are also many private banks, including savings banks. Gold is the standard of value, but the actual currency is chiefly Bank of Portugal notes. The values of coin and notes are expressed in multiples of the real (plural reis), a monetary unit which does not actually exist. The milreis, 1000 reis of the par value of 4s. 5d. (or 4·5 milreis to the pound sterling) and the conto of reis (1000 milreis) are used for the calculation of large sums. Gold pieces of 10, 5, 2 and I milreis were coined up to 1891; 10, 5, and 2 testoon (testão) pieces, worth respectively 1000, 500 and 200 reis, are coined in silver; testoons of 100 reis and half testoons of 50 reis, in nickel; pieces of 20, 10 and 5 reis in bronze. The milreis fluctuates widely in value, the balance of exchange being usually adverse to Portugal; for the purposes of this article the milreis has been taken at par. The British sovereign is legal tender for 4500 reis, but in practice usually commands a premium. The metric system of weights and measures has been officially adopted, but many older standards are used, such as the libra (1·012 ℔ avoirdupois), alquetre (0.36 imperial bushel), moio (2·78 imp. bushels), almude of Lisbon (3.7 imp. gallons) and almude of Oporto (5·6 imp. gallons).
Finance.—For the five financial years, 1901–1902 to 1905–1906, the average revenue of Portugal was about £13,300,000 and the average expenditure £13,466,000. The chief sources of revenue were customs duties, taxes on land and industries, duties on tobacco and bread stuffs, the Lisbon octroi, receipts from national property, registration and stamps, &c. The heaviest expenditure (nearly £5,000, o0o) was incurred for the service of the consolidated debt; payments for the civil list, cortes, pensions, &c., amounted to more than £2,000,000, and the cost of public works to nearly as large a sum. The ministries of war and marine together spent about £2,500,000 each year. The practice of meeting deficits by loans, together with the great expenditure, after 1853, on public works, especially roads and railways, explains the rapid growth of the national debt in modern times. In 1853 the total public debt, internal and external, amounted to £2,082,680. It exceeded £90,000,000 in 1890, and in 1891–1892 the finances of the kingdom reached a crisis, from which there was no escape except by arranging for a reduction in the amount payable as interest (see History, below). By the law of the 26th of February 1892 30% was deducted from the internal debt payable in currency; by the law of the 20th of April 1893 662/3% was deducted from the interest on the external debt, due in gold. A law of the 9th of August 1902 provided for the conversion of certain gold debts into three series of consolidated debt, at reduced interest. In 1909 the total outstanding debt amounted to £161,837,430, made up as follows: new external 3% converted in three series, £34,223,465; 41/2% tobacco loan £7,267,480; internal 3% (quoted in London) £113,132,979. Internal debt at 3, 4 and 41/2% was also outstanding to the amount of £7,213,506.
Constitution.—Up to October 1910 the government was an hereditary and constitutional monarchy, based on the constitutional charter which was granted by King Pedro IV. on the 29th of April 1826, and was afterwards several times modified; the most important changes were those effected by the acts of the 5th of July 1852, the 24th of July 1885, and the 28th of March and 25th of September 1895. The revolution of the 5th of October 1910 brought the monarchy to an end and substituted republican government for it. The monarchical constitution recognized four powers in the state, the executive, moderating, legislative and judicial. The two first of these were vested in the sovereign, who might be a woman, and who shared the legislative power with two chambers, the Camaro dos Pares or House of Peers, and the Camera dos Deputados or House of Commons; these were collectively styled the Cortes Geraes, or more briefly the Cortes. The royal veto could not be imposed on legislation passed twice by both houses. The annual session lasted four months, and a general election was necessary at the end of every four years, or immediately after a dissolution. A committee representing both houses adjudicated upon all cases of conflict between Peers and Commons; should it fail to reach a decision, the dispute was referred to the sovereign, whose award was final. Up to 1885 some members sat in the House of Peers by hereditary right, while others were nominated for life. It was then decided that such rights should cease, except in the case of princes of royal blood and members then sitting, and that when all the hereditary peerages had lapsed the house should be composed of the princes of the royal blood, the archbishops and bishops of the continental dioceses, a hundred legislative peers appointed by the king for life, and fifty elected every new parliament by the Commons. In 1895 the number of nominated life peers was reduced to ninety and the elective branch was abolished. Subject to certain limitations and to a property qualification, any person over 40 years of age was eligible to a peerage. The titles and social position of the Portuguese aristocracy were not affected when its political privileges were abolished. In the nomination of life peers, and in certain administrative matters the sovereign was advised by a council of state, whose twelve members were nominated for life and were principally past or present ministers. The sovereign exercised his executive power through a. cabinet which was responsible to the cortes, and consisted of seven members, representing the ministries of (1) the interior, (2) foreign affairs, (3) finance, (4) justice and worship, (5) war, (6) marine and colonies, (7) public works, industry and commerce. The House of Commons was composed of 148 members, representing the 26 electoral divisions of Portugal, the Azores and Madeira, which returned 113 elected members and 35 representatives of minorities, and of 7 members representing the colonies. Peers, naturalized foreigners and certain employees of the state were unable to sit in the House of Commons; members were required to be graduates of one of the highest, secondary or professional schools, or to possess an income of not less than 400 milreis (£88). All members might, in connexion with their official duties, travel free on railways and ships owned by the state; but since 1892 none had received any salary except the colonial members, who were paid 100 milreis (£22) per month during the session, and 50 milreis (£11) per month during the remainder of the year. All male citizens 21 years old who could read and write, or who paid taxes amounting to 500 reis yearly, had the parliamentary franchise, except convicts, beggars, undischarged bankrupts, domestic servants, workmen permanently employed by the state and soldiers or sailors below the rank of commissioned officer. (For changes made under republican rule, see History, § 8.)
Local Government.—Continental Portugal was formerly divided for administrative purposes into six provinces which corresponded to a great extent with the natural geographical divisions of the country and are described in separate articles; the names of these, which are still commonly used, are Entre-Minho-e-Douro (also called Entre-Douro-e-Minho or Minho), Traz-os-Montes, Beira, Estremadura, Alemtejo and Algarve. The province of Douro, another administrative division of less antiquity, comprised the present districts of 'Aveiro and Oporto, or part of Beira and Entrel-Minho-e-Douro. The six ancient provinces were subdivided on the 28th of June 1833 into districts, each named after its chief town, as follows: Entre-Minho-e-Douro into Vianna do Castello, Braga, Oporto; Traz-os-Montes, into Villa Real, Braganza; Beira, into Aveiro, Vizeu, Coimbra, Guarda, Castello Branco; Estremadura, into Leiria, Santarem, Lisbon; Alemtejo, into Portalegre, Evora, Beja; Algarve was renamed Faro. In 1910 the Azores comprised three districts and Madeira formed one. Each district was governed by a commission composed of (1) the civil governor, who was nominated by the central authority and presided over the commission; (2) the administrative auditor; and (3) three members chosen by indirect suffrage. The districts were divided into communes (concelhos), each administered by an elected council, and a mayor nominated by the central authority. The mayor could not preside over the council, which appointed one of its own members to preside and to give effect to its decisions. The communes were subdivided into parishes (freguesias), which were administered by the elected council (junta de parochia) over which the parish priest (prerbitero) presided, and by the regedor, an official who represented the mayor of the commune and was nominated by the civil governor. The central authority had almost complete control over local administration through its representatives, the civil governor, mayors and regedores.
Justice.—In 1910 Portugal was divided into 193 judicial districts (comarcas), in each of which there was a court of first instance. The three courts of appeal (tribunaes de relação) sat at Lisbon, Oporto and Ponta Delgada (Azores), and there was a Supreme Court in Lisbon.
Colonies.—At the beginning of the 19th century Portugal possessed a larger colonial empire than any European power except Great Britain and Spain. At the beginning of the 20th century its trans marine possessions had been greatly reduced in size by the loss of Brazil, but were still only surpassed in extent ​ by those of three powers-Great Britain, France and Germany. Their total area was about 803,000 sq. m., of which 794,000 sq. m. are in Africa. They comprised, in Africa, the Cape Verde Islands, St Thomas and Prince’s Islands, Portuguese Guinea, Angola and Portuguese East Africa, or Mozambique; in India, Goa, Damaun and Diu; in China, Macao; and in the Malay Archipelago part of Timor. All these are described in separate articles. In all the white population is in a minority; in most the climate is unsuitable for European colonization, nor is the commercial value of the colonies commensurate with their extent. Viewed as a whole, Portuguese administration has been carried on under difficulties which have rendered it costly and inefficient, the home government being compelled to contribute a large annual subsidy towards its maintenance. The amount paid in subsidies from 1870 to 1900 was about £15,000,000.
Religion.—Roman Catholicism was the state religion until 1910, but other creeds were tolerated, and the Church lost its temporal authority in 1834, when the monasteries were suppressed and their property confiscated for the first time. There are three ecclesiastical provinces-Braga, Lisbon and Evora, each under an archbishop. The archbishop of Braga, whose see is the most ancient, has the title of Primate; the archbishop of Lisbon has the honorary title of Patriarch, and is usually elected a cardinal. His province includes Madeira, the Azores and the West African colonies. There are fourteen dioceses, of which Oporto is the most important. T he annual revenues of the upper hierarchy of the Church amounted, up to 1910, to about £65,000 In some of the larger towns the foreign residents have their own places of worship. (See further under History.)
Education.—Primary education is regulated by a law of 1844, under which children between the ages of 7 and 15 are bound to attend a school, should there be one within a mile, under penalty to the parents of a fine and deprivation of civil rights. This law has not been strictly enforced; primary education was never properly organized; and, according to census returns, the proportion of the population (including children) unable to read was 82·4% in 1878, 79·2 in 1890 and 78·6 in 1900. There were in 1910 5250 public and 1750 private primary schools. In the chief towns there are training schools for teachers. The system of secondary education was reorganized in 1894. In 1905 there were state lyceums in each district capital and in Guimaraes, Lamego and Amarante; 5 municipal lyceums, at Celorico de Basto, Chaves, Ponte de Lima, Povoa de Varzim and Setubal; military and naval colleges; a secondary school for girls in Lisbon; numerous private secondary schools and ecclesiastical seminaries; industrial, commercial and technical schools; and pilot schools at Lisbon, Oporto, Faro and Ponta Delgada (Azores). Other important educational institutions are described under Lisbon and Oporto. The national university is at Coimbra (q.v.).
Defence.—Under the monarchy, the army was maintained at its normal strength partly by voluntary enlistment and conscription, the chief law regulating it being that of 1887, as variously modified in subsequent years. The cortes fixed the number of conscripts to be enrolled in each year: in 1905, 15,000 men for the army, 1000 for the navy, 500 for the municipal guards and 400 for the fiscal guards. The organization of the army was based on the acts of the 7th of September 1899 and the 24th of December 1901. With certain exceptions all men over 21 years of age were liable for service—3 years in the regular army, 5 years in the first reserve and 7 years in the second reserve; but exemption could always be purchased. In time of war, the municipal guards, numbering about 2200, and the fiscal guards, numbering about 5200, might be incorporated in the army. The total effective force of the active army on a peace footing was 1787 officers, 31,281 men, 6479 horses and mules and 100 guns. The total effective force on a war footing, inclusive of reservists, municipal guards and fiscal guards, was 4221 officers, 178,603 men, 19,600 horses and mules and 336 guns. Lisbon, Elvas and Angra in the Azores, were considered first-class fortresses, but only Lisbon had modern defences. The Portuguese navy in 1910 consisted of 1 armoured vessel, 5 protected cruisers, 2 third-class cruisers, 19 gunboats, 1 torpedo gunboat, 4 torpedo boats, 16 river gunboats, 4 transports and 3 training ships. Twelve other vessels, including 2 submarines, were under construction. The whole fleet was manned by about 5000 men.
Bibliography.—Numerous official reports, chiefly statistical, are published periodically in Lisbon; a few are written in French, the majority in Portuguese. Read in conjunction with the British consular and diplomatic reports, they afford 2. comprehensive survey of the movement of population, the progress of trade, &c. The following state papers deserve special notice: Caminhos de ferro (1877, &c.), Commercio e navigação (annual, issued by the Ministry of Marine), Le Portugal vinicole (1900), Le Portugal . . . . agricole (1900), Notas sobre Portugal (2 vols., 1908). For geology, see the section of Le Portugal . . . . agricola written by P. Cholfat and entitled “Aperçu de la geologie de Portugal,” also “The Work of the Portuguese Geological Survey,” by Philip Lake, in Science Progress (1896) v. 439–453; both these summaries refer to the most important original papers. Two illustrated volumes by Oswald Crawford, Portugal Old and New (London, 1880) and Round the Calendar in Portugal (London, 1890) contain much valuable information on agriculture, viticulture and peasant life in the northern provinces. Through Portugal, by Major Martin Hume (London, 1907) and Lisbon and Cintra, by A. A. Inchbold (London, 1908), describe the towns, &c., most frequently visited by tourists, and are illustrated in colours. Le Portugal (Paris, 1899), by 18 writers, is a brief but encyclopaedic description of continental Portugal. See also Portugal: its Land and People, by W. H. Koebel (London, 1909), and Portuguese Architecture, by W. C. Watson (London, 1908). The following books deal comprehensively with the Portuguese colonies; As Colonias portuguezas, by E. J. de Vasconcellos (2nd ed., Lisbon, 1903), Les Colonies portugaises, by A. de Almada Negreiros (Paris, 1908). (K. G. J.)
History
Throughout the centuries which witnessed the destruction of Carthaginian power by Rome, the establishment and decline of Latin civilization, the invasion by Alani, Suevi and other barbarian races, the resettlement under Visigothic rule and the overthrow of the Visigoths by Arab and Berber tribes from Africa, Portugal remained an undifferentiated part of Hispania, without sign of national consciousness. The Iberian Peninsula was one: and its common history is related under Spain. It is true that some Portuguese writers have sought to identify their race with the ancient Lusitani, and have claimed for it a separate and continuous existence dating from the 2nd century B.C. The revolt of Lusitania against the Romans has been regarded as an early manifestation of Portuguese love of liberty, Viriathus as a national hero. But this theory, which originated in the 15th century and was perpetuated in the title of The Lusiads, has no historical foundation. In 1095 Portugal was an obscure border fief of the kingdom of Leon. Its territories, far from the centres of European civilization and consisting largely of mountain, moorland and forest, were bounded on the north by the Minho, on the south by the Mondego. Its name (Portucolia, Terra portucalensis) was derived from the little seaport of Portus Cale or Villa Nova de Gaia, now a suburb of Oporto, at the mouth of the Douro. Its inhabitants, surrounded by Moorish or Spanish enemies and distracted by civil war, derived such rudiments of civilization as they possessed from Arabic or Leonese sources. But from these obscure beginnings Portugal rose in four centuries to be the greatest maritime, commercial and colonial power in Europe.
The history of the nation comprises eight periods. (1) Between 1095 and 1279 a Portuguese kingdom was established and extended until it reached its present continental limits. (2) Between 1279 and 1415 the monarchy was gradually consolidated in spite of resistance from the Church, the nobles and the rival kingdom of Castile. (3) In 1415 began a period of crusades and discoveries, culminating in the discovery of an ocean-route to India (1497–1499). (4) From 1499 to 1580 Portugal acquired an empire stretching from Brazil eastward to the Moluccas, reached the zenith of its prosperity and entered upon a period of swift decline. (5) Spanish kings ruled over Portugal from 1581 to 1640. (6) The chief event of the years 1640 to 1755 was the restoration of the Portuguese monarchy. (7) Between 1755 and 1826 the reforms of Pombal and the Peninsular War prepared the country for a change from absolutism to constitutional monarchy. (8) In 1826 the era of constitutional government began.
1. The Establishment of the Monarchy.—The origin of Portugal, as a separate state, was an incident in the Christian reconquest of Spain. Towards the close of the 11th century crusading knights came from every part of Europe to aid the kings of northern and central Spain in Count Henry. driving out the Moors. Among these adventurers was Count Henry of Burgundy, an ambitious warrior who, in 1095, married Theresa, natural daughter of Alphonso VI., king of Leon. The county of Portugal, which had already been won back from the Moors (1055–1064), was included in Theresa’s dowry. Count Henry ruled as a vassal of Alphonso VI., whose Galician marches were thus secured against any sudden Moorish raid. But in ​ 1109 Alphonso VI. died, bequeathing all his territories to his legitimate daughter Urraca, and Count Henry at once invaded Leon, hoping to add to his own dominions at the expense of his suzerain. After three years of war against Urraca and other rival claimants to the throne of Leon, Count Henry himself died in 1112. He left Theresa to govern Portugal north of the Mondego during the minority of her infant son Affonso Henriques (Alphonso I.): south of the Mondego the Moors were still supreme.
Theresa renewed the struggle against her half-sister and suzerain Urraca in 1116–1117, and again in 1120; in 1121 she was besieged in Lanhoso and captured. But a peace was negotiated by the archbishops Diogo Gelmires of Santiago de Compostela and Burdino of Braga, rival churchmen whose wealth and military resources Theresa, 1112–1128. enabled them to dictate terms. Bitter jealousy existed between the two prelates, each claiming to be primate of “all the Spains,” and their antagonism had some historical importance in so far as it fostered the growth of separatist tendencies among the Portuguese. But the quarrel was temporarily suspended because both Gelmires and Burdino had reason to dread the extension of Urraca’s authority. It was arranged that Theresa should be liberated and should continue to hold the county of Portugal as a fief (honor) of Leon. During the next five years she lavished wealth and titles upon her lover Fernando Peres, count of Trava, thus estranging her son, the archbishop of Braga and the nobles, most of whom were foreign crusaders. In 1128, after her power had been crushed in another unsuccessful conflict with Leon and Castile, she was deposed by her own rebellious subjects and exiled in company with Peres. She died in 1130.
Alphonso, who became count of Portugal in 1128, was one of the warrior heroes of medieval romance; his exploits were sung by troubadours throughout south-western Europe, and even in Africa “ibn Errik”—the son of Henry—was known and feared. The annals of his reign have been encumbered with a mass of legends, among which must be Alphonso I., 1128–1185. included the account of a cortes held at Lamego in 1143; probably also the description of the Valdevez tournament, in which the Portuguese knights are said to have vanquished the champions of Leon and Castile. Alphonso was occupied in almost incessant border fighting against his Christian or Moorish neighbours. Twelve years of campaigning on the Galician frontier were concluded in 1143 by the peace of Zamora, in which Alphonso was recognized as independent of any Spanish sovereign, although he promised to be a faithful vassal of the pope and to pay him a yearly tribute of four ounces of gold. In 1167, however, the war was renewed. Alphonso succeeded in conquering part of Galicia, but in attempting to capture the frontier fortress of Badajoz he was wounded and forced to surrender to Ferdinand II. of Leon (1169). Ferdinand was his son-in-law, and was probably disposed to leniency by the imminence of a Moorish invasion in which Portugal could render useful assistance. Alphonso was therefore released under promise to abandon all his conquests in Galicia.
He had already won many victories over the Moors. At the beginning of his reign the religious fervour which had sustained the Almoravide dynasty was rapidly subsiding; in Portugal independent Moorish chiefs ruled over cities and petty states, ignoring the central government; in Africa the Almohades were destroying the remnants of the Almoravide power. Alphonso took advantage of these dissensions to invade Alemtejo, reinforced by the Templars and Hospitallers, whose respective headquarters were at Soure and Thomar. On the 2 5th of July 1139 he defeated the combined forces of the Moors on the plains of Ourique, in Alemtejo. Legend has magnified the victory into the rout of 200,000 Moslems under five kings; but so far was the battle from being decisive that in 1140 the Moors were able to seize the fortress of Leiria, built by Alphonso in 1135 as an outpost for the defence of Coimbra, his capital. In 1144 they defeated the Templars at Soure. But on the 15th of March 1147 Alphonso stormed the fortress of Santarem, and about the same time a band of crusaders on their way to Palestine landed at Oporto and volunteered for the impending siege of Lisbon. Among them were many Englishmen, Germans and Flemings, who were afterwards induced to settle in Portugal. Aided by these powerful allies, Alphonso captured Lisbon on the 24th of October 1147. This was the greatest military achievement of his reign. The Moorish garrisons of Palmella, Cintra and Almada soon capitulated, and in 1158 Alcacer do Sal, one of the chief centres of Moorish commerce, was taken by storm. At this time, however, the Almohades had triumphed in Africa and invaded the Peninsula, where they were able to check the Portuguese reconquest, although isolated bands of crusading adventurers succeeded in establishing themselves in various cities of Alemtejo. The most famous of these free-lances was Giraldo Sempavor (“Gerald the Fearless”), who captured Evora in 1166. In 1171 Alphonso concluded a seven years truce with the Moors; weakened by his wound and by old age, he could no longer take the field, and .when the war broke out afresh he delegated the chief command to his son Sancho. Between 1179 and 1184 the Moors retrieved many of their losses in Alemtejo, but were unable to retake Santarem and Lisbon. Alphonso died on the 6th of December 1185. He had secured for Portugal the status though not the name of an independent kingdom, and had extended its frontier southwards from the Mondego to the Tagus. He had laid the foundation of its navy and had strengthened, if he did not inaugurate, that system of co-operation between the Crown and the military orders which afterwards proved of incalculable service in the maritime and colonial development of the nation.
Sancho I. continued the war against the Moors with varying fortune. In 1189 he won Silves, then the capital of Algarve; in 1192 he lost not only Algarve but the greater part of Alemtejo, including Alcacer do Sal. A peace was then arranged, and for the next eight years Sancho was engaged in hostilities against Alphonso IX. of Leon. The Sancho I., 1185–1211. motives and course of this indecisive struggle are equally obscure. It ended in 1201, and the last decade of Sancho’s reign was a period of peaceful reform which earned for the king his popular name of o Povoador, the “maker of towns.” He granted fresh charters to many cities, legalizing the system of self-government which the Romans had bequeathed to the Visigoths and the Moors had retained or improved. Lisbon had already (1179) received a charter from Alphonso I. Sancho also endeavoured to foster immigration and agriculture, by granting estates to the military orders and municipalities on condition that the occupiers should cultivate or colonize their lands. Towards the close of his reign he became embroiled in a dispute with Pope Innocent III. He had insisted that priests should accompany their flocks in battle, had made them amenable to secular jurisdiction, had withheld the tribute due to Rome and had even claimed the right of disposing of ecclesiastical domains. Finally he had quarrelled with Martinho Rodrigues, the unpopular bishop of Oporto, who was besieged for five months in his palace and then forced to seek redress in Rome (1209). As Sancho was in weak health and had no means of resisting Papal pressure, he made full submission (1210); and after bestowing large estates on his sons and daughters, he retired into the monastery of Alcobaça (q.v.), where he died in 1211.
The reign of Alphonso II. (“the Fat”) is noteworthy for the first meeting of the Portuguese cortes, to which the upper hierarchy of the Church and the nobles (fidalgos and ricos homens) were summoned by royal writ. The was no warrior, but in 1212 a Portuguese contingent aided the Castilians to defeat the Moors at Las NavasAlphonso II. 1211–1223. de Tolosa, and in 1217 the ministers, bishops and captains of the realm, reinforced by foreign Crusaders, retook Alcacer do Sal. Alfonso II. repudiated the will of his father, refused to surrender the estates left to his brothers, who went into exile, and only gave up the property bequeathed to his sisters after a prolonged civil war in which Alphonso IX. of Leon took part against them. Even then he compelled the heiresses to take the veil. His attempts to strengthen the monarchy and fill the treasury at the expense of the Church resulted in his excommunication by ​ Pope Honorius III., and Portugal remained under interdict until Alphonso II. died in 1223.
Sancho II. succeeded at the age of thirteen. To secure the removal of the interdict the leading statesmen who were identified with the policy of his father—Gongalo Mendes the chancellor, Pedro Annes the lord chamberlain (mordomo-mor) and Vicente, dean of Lisbon—resignedSancho II., 1223–1248. their offices. Estevao Soares, archbishop of Braga, placed himself at the head of the nobles and churchmen who threatened to usurp the royal power during Sancho II.'s minority, and negotiated an alliance with Alphonso IX., by which it was arranged that the Portuguese should attack Elvas, the Spaniards Badajoz. Elvas was taken from the Moors in 1226, and in 1227 Sancho assumed control of the kingdom. He reinstated Pedro Annes, made Vicente chancellor, and appointed Martim Annes chief standard-bearer (alferes mór). He continued the crusade against the Moors, who were driven from their last strongholds in Alemtejo, and in 1239–1244, after a dispute with Rome which was once more ended by the imposition of an interdict and the submission of the Portuguese ruler, he won many successes in the Algarve. But his career of conquest was cut short by a revolution (1245), for which his marriage to a Castilian lady, D. Mecia Lopez de Haro, furnished a pretext. The legitimacy of the union has been questioned, on grounds which appear insufficient; but of its unpopularity there can be no doubt. The bishops, resenting the favour shown by Sancho to his father's anti-clerical ministers, took advantage of this unpopularity to organize the rebellion. They found a leader in Sancho's brother Alphonso, count of Boulogne, who owed his title to a marriage with Matilda, countess of Boulogne. The pope issued a bull of deposition in favour of Alphonso, who reached Lisbon in 1246; and after a civil war lasting two years Sancho II. retired to Toledo, where he died in January 1248.
One of the first acts of the usurper, and one of the most important, was to abandon the semi-ecclesiastical titles of visitor (visitador) or defender (curador) of the realm, and to proclaim himself king (rei). Hitherto the position of the monarchy had been precarious; as in AragonAlphonso III., 1248–1279. the nobles and the church had exercised a large measure of control over their nominal head, and though it would be pedantry to over-emphasize the importance of the royal title, its assumption by Alphonso III. does mark a definite stage in the evolution of a national monarchy and a centralized government. A second stage was reached shortly afterwards by the conquest of Algarve, the last remaining stronghold of the Moors. This drew down upon Portugal the anger of Alphonso X. of Leon and Castile, surnamed the Wise, who claimed suzerainty over Algarve. The war which followed was ended by Alphonso III. consenting to wed Donna Beatriz de Guzman, illegitimate daughter of Alphonso X., and to hold Algarve as a fief of Castile. The celebration of this marriage, while Matilda, countess of Boulogne and first wife of Alphonso III., was still alive, entailed the imposition of an interdict upon the kingdom. In 1254 Alphonso III. summoned a cortes at Leiria, in which the chief cities were represented, as well as the nobles and clergy. Fortified by their support the king refused to submit to Rome. At the cortes of Coimbra (1261), he further strengthened his position by conciliating the representatives of the cities, who denounced the issue of a debased coinage, and by recognizing that taxation could not be imposed without consent of the cortes. The clergy suffered more than the laity under a prolonged interdict, and in 1262 Pope Urban VI. legalized the disputed marriage and legitimized Dom Diniz, the king's eldest son. Thus ended the contest for supremacy between Church and Crown. The monarchy owed its triumph to its championship of national interests, to the support of the municipalities and military orders, and to the prestige gained by the royal armies in the Moorish and Castilian wars. In 1263 Alphonso X. renounced his claim to suzerainty over Algarve, and thus the kingdom of Portugal simultaneously reached its present European limits and attained its complete independence. Lisbon was henceforth recognized as the capital. Alphonso III. continued to reign until his death in 1279, but the peace of his later years was broken by the rebellion (1277–1279) of D. Diniz, the heir-apparent.
2. The Consolidation of the Monarchy: 1279–1415.—The chief problems now confronting the monarchy were no longer military, but social, economic and constitutional. It is true that the reign of Diniz was not a period of uninterrupted peace. At the outset his legitimacy was disputed by his brother Alphonso, and a brief civil war ensued. Hostilities between Portugal and the reunited kingdoms of Leon and Castile were terminated in 1297 by a treaty of alliance, in accordance with which Ferdinand IV. of Leon and Castile married Constance, daughter of Diniz, while Alphonso, son of Diniz, married Beatrice of Castile, daughter of Ferdinand. A further outbreak of civil war, between the king and the heir—apparent, was averted in I293 by the queen-consort Isabella of Portugal, who had married Diniz in 1281, and was canonized for her many virtues in the 16th century. She rode between the hostile camps, and succeeded in arranging an honourable peace between her husband and her son.
These wars were too brief to interfere seriously with the social reconstruction to which the king devoted himself. At his accession the Portuguese people was far from homogeneous; it would be long before its component races—Moors and Mozarabs of the south, GaliciansDiniz, 1279–1325. of the north, Jews and foreign crusaders—could be fused into one nationality. There were also urgent economic problems to be solved. The Moors had made Alemtejo the granary of Portugal, but war had undone their work, and large tracts of land were now barren and depopulated. Commerce and education had similarly been subordinated to the struggle for national existence. The machinery of administration was out of date and complicated by the authority of feudal and ecclesiastical courts. The supremacy of the Crown, though recognized, was still unstable. It was Diniz who initiated the needful reforms. He earned his title of the rei lavrador or “farmer king” by introducing improved methods of cultivation and founding agricultural schools. He encouraged maritime trade by negotiating a commercial treaty with England (1294) and forming a royal navy (1317) under the command of a Genoese admiral named Emmanuele di Pezagna (Manoel Pessanha). In 1290 he founded the university of Coimbra (q.v.). He was a poet and a patron of literature and music (see Literature, below), His chief administrative reforms were designed to secure centralized government and to limit the jurisdiction of feudal courts. He encouraged and nationalized the military orders. In 1290 the Portuguese knights of Sao Thiago (Santiago) were definitely separated from the parent Spanish order. The orders of Crato and of St Benedict of Aviz had already been established, the traditional dates of their incorporation being 1113 and 1162. After the condemnation of the Templars by Pope Clement V. (1312) an ecclesiastical commission investigated the charges against the Portuguese branch of the order, and found in its favour. As the Templars were rich, influential and loyal, Diniz took advantage of the death of Clement V. to maintain the order under a new name; the Order of Christ, as it was henceforth called, received the benediction of the pope in 1319 and subsequently played an important part in the colonial expansion of Portugal.
Alphonso IV. adhered to the matrimonial policy initiated by Diniz. He arranged that his daughter Maria should wed Alphonso XI. of Castile (1328), but the marriage precipitated the war it was intended to avert, and peace was only restored (1330) after Queen Isabella Alphonso IV. 1325–1357. again intervened. Pedro, the crown prince, afterwards married Constance, daughter of the duke of Penafiel (near Valladolid), and Alphonso IV. brought a strong Portuguese army to aid the Castilians against the Moors of Granada and their African allies. In the victory won by the Christians on the banks of the river Salado, near Tarifa, he earned his title of Alphonso the Brave (1340). In 1347 he married his daughter Leonora ​ (Lenor) to Pedro IV. of Aragon. The later years of his reign were darkened by the tragedy of Inez de Castro (q.v.). He died in 1357, and the first act of his successor, Pedro the Severe, Pedro, was to take vengeance on the murderers of Inez.Pedro I. 1357–1367. Throughout his reign he strengthened the central government at the expense of the aristocracy and the Church, by a stern enforcement of law and order. In 1361, at the cortes of Elvas, it was enacted that the privileges of the clergy should only be deemed valid in so far as they did not conflict with the royal prerogative. Pedro maintained friendly relations with England, where in 1352 Edward III. issued a proclamation in favour of Portuguese traders, and in 1353 the Portuguese envoy Affonso Martins Alho signed a covenant with the merchants of London, guaranteeing mutual good faith in all commercial dealings.
The foreign policy of Diniz, Alphonso IV. and Pedro I. had been, as a rule, successful in its main object, the preservation of peace with the Christian kingdoms of Spain; in consequence, the Portuguese had advanced in prosperity and culture. They had supported the monarchy because it was a national institution, hostile to the tyranny of nobles and clergy. During the reign of Ferdinand (1367–1383) and under the regency of Leonora the ruling dynasty ceased to represent the national will; the Portuguese people therefore made an end of the dynasty and chose its own ruler. The complex events which brought about this crisis may be briefly summarized.
Ferdinand, a weak but ambitious and unscrupulous king, claimed the thrones of Castile and Leon, left vacant by the Ferdinand death of Pedro I. of Castile (1369); he based his claim on the fact that his grandmother Beatrice belonged to the legitimate line of Castile. WhenFerdinand and Leonora, 1367–1385. the majority of the Castilian nobles refused to accept a Portuguese sovereign, and welcomed Henry of Trastamara (see Spain History), as Henry II. of Castile, Ferdinand allied himself with the Moors and Aragonese; but in 1371 Pope Gregory XI. intervened, and it was decided that Ferdinand should renounce his claim and marry Leonora, the daughter of his successful rival. Ferdinand, however, preferred his Portuguese mistress, Leonora Telles de Menezes, whom he eventually married. To avenge this slight, Henry of Castile invaded Portugal and besieged Lisbon. Ferdinand appealed to John of Gaunt, who also claimed the throne of Castile, on behalf of his wife Constance, daughter of Pedro I. of Castile. An alliance between Portugal and England was concluded; and although Ferdinand made peace with Castile in 1374, he renewed his claim in 1380, after the death of Henry of Castile, and sent João Fernandes Andeiro, count of Ourem, to secure English aid. In 1381 Richard II. of England dispatched a powerful force to Lisbon, and betrothed his cousin Prince Edward to Beatrice, only child of Ferdinand, who had been recognized as heiress to the throne by the cortes of Leiria (1376). In 1383, however, Ferdinand made peace with John I. of Castile at Salvaterra, deserting his English allies, who retaliated by ravaging part of his territory. By the treaty of Salvaterra it was agreed that Beatrice should marry John I. Six months later Ferdinand died, and in accordance with the terms of the treaty Leonora became regent until, the eldest son of John I. and Beatrice should be of age.
Leonora had long carried on an intrigue with the count of Ourem, whose influence was resented by the leaders of the The aristocracy, while her tyrannical rule also aroused bitter opposition. The malcontents chose D. John, grand-master of the knights of Aviz and illegitimateThe Rebellion of 1383. son of Pedro the Severe, as their leader, organized a. revolt in Lisbon, and assassinated the count of Ourem within the royal palace (Dec. 6, 1383). Leonora fled to Santarem and summoned aid from Castile, while D. John was proclaimed defender of Portugal. In 1384 a Castilian army invested Lisbon, but encountered a heroic resistance, and after five months an outbreak of plague compelled them to raise the siege. John I. of Castile, discovering or alleging that Leonora had plotted to poison him, imprisoned her in a convent at Tordesillas, where she died in 1386. Before this, Nuno Alvares Pereira, constable of Portugal, had gained his popular title of “The Holy Constable” by twice defeating the invaders, at Atoleiro and Trancoso in the district of Guarda.
On the 16th of April 1385 the cortes assembled at Coimbra declared the crown of Portugal elective, and at the instance of João das Regras, the chancellor, D. John was chosen king. No event in the early constitutional history of Portugal is more important than thisCortes of Coimbra. election, which definitely affirmed the national character of the monarchy. The choice of the grand-master of Aviz ratified the old alliance between the Crown and the military orders; his election by the whole cortes not only ratified the alliance between the Crown and the commons, but also included. the nobles and the Church. The nation was unanimous.
Ferdinand had been the last legitimate descendant of Count Henry of Burgundy. With John I. began the rule of a new dynasty, the House of Aviz. The most urgent John I matter which confronted the king—or the group of statesmen, led by João das Regras and theJohn I. 1385–1433. “Holy Constable” who inspired his policy—was the menace of Castilian aggression. But on the 14th of August 1385 the Portuguese army, aided by 500 English archers, utterly defeated the Castilians at Aljubarrota. By this victory the Portuguese showed themselves equal in military power to their strongest rivals in the Peninsula. In October the “Holy Constable” won another victory at Valverde; early in 1386 5000 English soldiers, under John of Gaunt, reinforced the Portuguese; and by the treaty of Windsor (May 9, 1386), the alliance between Portugal and England was confirmed and extended. Against such a. combination the Castilians were powerless; a truce was arranged in 1387 and renewed at intervals until 1411, when peace was concluded. D. Diniz, eldest son of Inez de Castro, claimed the throne and invaded Portugal in 1398, but his supporters were easily crushed. The domestic and foreign policy pursued by John I. until his death in 1433 may be briefly described. At home he endeavoured to reform administration, to encourage agriculture and commerce, and to secure the loyalty of the nobles by grants of land and privileges so extensive that, towards the end of his reign, many nobles who exercised their full feudal rights had become almost independent princes. Abroad, he aimed at peace with Castile and close friendship with England. In 1387 he had married Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt; Richard II. sent troops to aid in the expulsion of D. Diniz; Henry IV., Henry V. and Henry VI. of England successively ratified the treaty of Windsor; Henry IV. made his ally a knight of the Garter in 1400. The convent of Batalha (q.v.), founded to commemorate the victory of Aljubarrota, is architecturally a monument of the English influence prevalent at this time throughout Portugal.
The cortes of Coimbra, the battle of Aljubarrota and the treaty of Windsor mark the three final stages in the consolidation of the monarchy. A period of expansion oversea began in the same reign, with the capture of Ceuta in Morocco. The three eldest sons of King John and Queen Philippa—Edward, Pedro and Henry, afterwards celebrated as Prince Henry the Navigator—desired to win knighthood by service against the Moors, the historic enemies of their country and creed. In 1415 a Portuguese fleet, commanded by the king and the three princes, set sail for Ceuta. English men-at-arms were sent by Henry V. to take part in the expedition, which proved successful. The town was captured and garrisoned, and thus the first Portuguese outpost was established on the mainland of Africa.
3. The Period of Discoveries: 1415–1499.—Before describing in outline the course of the discoveries which were soon to render Portugal the foremost colonizing power in Europe it is necessary to indicate the main causes which contributed to that result. As the south-westermnost of the free peoples of Europe, the Portuguese were the natural inheritors of that work of exploration which had been carried on during the middle ages. ​ chiefly by the Arabs. They began where the Arabs left off, by penetrating far into the Atlantic. The long littoral of their country, with its fine harbours and rivers flowing westward to the ocean, had been the training-ground of a race of adventurous seamen. It was impossible, moreover, to expand or reach new markets except by sea: the interposition of Castile and Aragon, so often hostile, completely prevented any intercourse by land between Portugal and other European countries. Consequently the Portuguese merchants sent their goods by sea to England, Flanders, or the Hanse towns. The whole history of the nation had also inspired a desire for fresh conquests among its leaders. Portugal had won and now held its independence by the sword. The long struggle to expel the Moors, with the influence of foreign Crusaders and the military orders, had given a religious sanction to the desire for martial fame. Nowhere was the ancient crusading spirit so active a political force. To make war upon Islam seemed to the Portuguese their natural destiny and their duty as Christians.
It was the genius of Prince Henry the Navigator (q.v.) that co-ordinated and utilized all these tendencies towards expansion. Prince Henry placed at the disposal of his captains the vast resources of the Order of Christ, the best information and the most accuratePrince Henry the Navigator. instruments and maps which could be obtained. He sought to effect a junction with the half-fabulous Christian Empire of “Prester John” by way of the “Western Nile,” i.e. the Senegal, and, in alliance with that potentate, to crush the Turks and liberate Palestine. The conception of an ocean route to India appears to have originated after his death. On land he again defeated the Moors, who attempted to re-take Ceuta in 1418; but in an expedition to Tangier, undertaken in 1436 by King Edward (1433–1438), the Portuguese army was defeated, and could only escape destruction by surrendering as a hostage Prince Ferdinand, the king’s youngest brother. Ferdinand, known as “the Constant,” from the fortitude with which he endured captivity, died unransomed in 1443. By sea Prince Henry’s captains continued their exploration of Africa and the Atlantic. In 1433 Cape Bojador was doubled; in 1434 the first consignment of slaves was brought to Lisbon; and slave trading soon became one of the most profitable branches of Portuguese commerce. The Senegal was reached in 1445, Cape Verde was passed in the same year, and in 1446 Alvaro Fernandes pushed on almost as far as Sierra Leone. This was probably the farthest point reached before the Navigator died (1460). Meanwhile colonization progressed in the Azores and Madeira, where sugar and wine were produced; above all, the gold brought home from Guinea stimulated the commercial energy of the Portuguese. It had become clear that, apart from their religious and scientific aspects, these voyages of discovery were highly profitable. Under Alphonso V., surnamed the African (1443–1481), the Gulf of Guinea was explored as far as Cape St Catherine, and three expeditions (1458, 1461, 1471) were sent to Morocco; in 1471 Arzila (Asila) and Tangier were captured from the Moors. Under John II. (1481–1495) the fortress of Sāo Jorge da Mina, the modern Elmina (q.v.), was foundedExploration under Alphonso V. and John II. for the protection of the Guinea trade in 1481–1482; under Diogo Cam (q.v.), or Cāo, discovered the Congo in 1482 and reached Cape Cross in 1486; Bartholomeu Diaz (q.v.) doubled the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, thus proving that the Indian Ocean was accessible by sea. After 1492 the discovery of the West Indies by Columbus rendered desirable a delimitation of the Spanish and Portuguese spheres of exploration. This was accomplished by the treaty of Tordesillas (June 7, 1494) which modified the delimitation authorized by Pope Alexander VI. in two bulls issued on the 4th of May, 1493. The treaty gave to Portugal all lands which might be discovered east of a straight line drawn from the Arctic Pole to the Antarctic, at a distance of 370 leagues west of Cape Verde. Spain received the lands discovered west of this line. As, however, the known means of measuring longitude were so inexact that the line of demarcation could not in practice be determined (see J. de Andrade Corvo in Journal das Sciencias Mathematicas, xxxi. 147–176, Lisbon, 1881), the treaty was subject to very diverse interpretations. On its provisions were based both the Portuguese claim to Brazil and the-Spanish claim to the Moluccas (see Malay Archipelago: History). The treaty was chiefly valuable to the Portuguese as a recognition of the prestige they had acquired. That prestige was enormously enhanced when, in 1497–1499, Vasco da Gama (q.v.) completed the voyage to India.
While the Crown was thus acquiring new possessions, its authority in Portugal was temporarily overshadowed by the growth of aristocratic privilege. At the cortes of Evora (1433) King Edward had obtained the enactment of a law declaring that the estatesThe monarchy and the Nobles. granted by John I. to his adherents could only be inherited by the direct male descendants of the grantees, and failing such descendants, should revert to the Crown. After the death of Edward further attempts to curb the power of the nobles were made by his brother, D. Pedro, duke of Coimbra, who acted as regent during the minority of Alphonso V. (1438–1447). The head of the aristocratic opposition was the duke of Braganza, who contrived to secure the sympathy of the king and the dismissal of the regent. The quarrel led to civil war, and in May 1449 D. Pedro was defeated and killed. Thenceforward the grants made by John I. were renewed, and extended on so lavish a scale that the Braganza estates alone comprised about a third of the whole kingdom. An unwise foreign policy simultaneously injured the royal prestige, for Alphonso married his own niece, Joanna, daughter of Henry IV. of Castile, and claimed that kingdom in her name. At the battle of Toro, in 1476, he was defeated by Ferdinand and Isabella, and in 1478 he was compelled to sign the treaty of Alcantara, by which Joanna was relegated to a convent. His successor, John II. (1481–1495) reverted to the policy of matrimonial alliances with Castile and friendship with England. Finding, as he said, that the liberality of former kings had left the Crown “no estates except the high roads of Portugal,” he determined to crush the feudal nobility and seize its territories. A cortes held at Evora (1481) empowered judges nominated by the Crown to administer justice in all feudal domains. The nobles resisted this infringement of their rights; but their leader, Ferdinand, duke of Braganza, was beheaded for high treason in 1483; in 1484 the king stabbed to death his own brother-in-law, Ferdinand, duke of Vizeu; and 80 other members of the aristocracy were afterwards executed. Thus John “the Perfect,” as he was called, assured the supremacy of the Crown. He was succeeded in 1495 by Emanuel (Manoel) I., who was named “the Great” or “the Fortunate,” because in his reign the sea route to India was discovered and a Portuguese Empire founded.
4. The Portuguese Empire: 1499–1580.—In 1500 King Emanuel assumed the title “Lord of the conquest, navigation and commerce of India, Ethiopia, Arabia and Persia,” which was confirmed by Pope Alexander VI. in 1502. It was now upon schemes of conquest that the energy of the nation was to be concentrated, although the motives which called forth that energy were unchanged. “We come to seek Christians and spices,” said the first of Vasco da Gama’s sailors who landed in India: and the combination of missionary ardour with commercial enterprise which had led to the exploration of the Atlantic led also to the establishment of a Portuguese Empire. This expansion of national interests proceeded rapidly in almost every quarter of the known world. In the North Atlantic Gaspar and Miguel Corte-Real penetrated as far as Greenland (their “Labrador”) in 1500–1501; but these voyages were politically and commercially unimportant. Equally barren was the intermittent fighting in Morocco, which was regarded as a crusade against the Moors. In the South Atlantic, however, the African coast was further explored, new settlements were founded, and a remarkable development of Portuguese-African Civilization took place in the kingdom of Kongo (see Angola). ​ Pedro Alvares Cabral, sailing to India, but steering far westward to avoid the winds and currents of the Guinea coast, reached Brazil (1500) and claimed it for his sovereign. João da Nova discovered Ascension (1501) and St Helena (1502); Tristão da Cunha was the first to sight the archipelago still known by his name (1506). In East Africa the small Mahommedan states along the coast—Sofala, Mozambique, Kilwa, Brava, Mombasa, Malindi—either were destroyed or became subjects or allies of Portugal. Pedro de Covilham had reached Abyssinia (q.v.) as early as 1490; in 1520 a Portuguese embassy arrived at the court of “Prester John,” and in 1541 a military force was sent to aid him in repelling a Mahommedan invasion. In the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, one of Cabral’s ships discovered Madagascar (1501), which was partly explored by Tristão da Cunha (1507); Mauritius was discovered in 1507, Socotra occupied in 1506, and in the same year D. Lourenço d’Almeida visited Ceylon. In the Red Sea Massawa was the most northerly point frequented by the Portuguese until 1541, when a fleet under Estevao da Gama penetrated as far as Suez. Hormuz, in the Persian Gulf, was seized by Alphonso d’Albuquerque (1515), who also entered into diplomatic relations with Persia. On the Asiatic mainland the first trading-stations were established by Cabral at Cochin and Calicut (1501); more important, however, were the conquest of Goa (1510) and Malacca (1511) by Albuquerque, and the acquisition of Diu (1535) by Martim Alfonso de Sousa. East of Malacca, Albuquerque sent Duarte Fernandes as envoy to Siam (1511), and dispatched to the Moluccas two expeditions (1512, 1514), which founded the Portuguese dominion in the Malay Archipelago (q.v.). Fernão Pires de Andrade visited Canton in 1517 and opened up trade with China, where in 1557 the Portuguese were permitted to occupy Macao. Japan, accidentally discovered by three Portuguese traders in 1542, soon attracted large numbers of merchants and missionaries (see Japan, § viii.). In 1522 one of the ships of Ferdinand Magellan (q.v.)—a Portuguese sailor, though in the Spanish service—completed the first voyage round the world.
Up to 1505 the Portuguese voyages to the East were little more than trading ventures or plundering raids, although a few “factories” for the exchange of goods were founded in Malabar. In theory, the objects of King Emanuel’s policy were the establishment ofAlmeida and Albuqu-querque. friendly commercial relations with the Hindus (who were at first mistaken for Christians “not yet confirmed in the faith,” as the king Wrote to Alexander VI.) and the prosecution of a crusade against Islam. But Hindu and Mahommedan interests were found to be so closely interwoven that this policy became impracticable, and it was superseded when D. Francisco d’Almeida (q.v.) went to India as first Portuguese viceroy in 1505. Almeida sought to subordinate all else to sea power and commerce, to concentrate the whole naval and military force of the kingdom on the maintenance of maritime ascendancy; to annex no territory, to avoid risking troops ashore, and to leave the defence of such factories as might be necessary to friendly native powers, which would receive in return the support of the Portuguese fleet. Almeida’s statesmanship was to a great extent sound. The Portuguese could never penetrate far inland; throughout the 16th century their settlements were confined to the coasts of Asia, Africa or America, and the area they were able effectively to occupy was far less than the area of their empire in the 20th century. A Chinese critic, quoted by Faria y Sousa, said of them that they were like fishes, “remove them from the water and they straightway die.” It is thus absurd to speak of a “Portuguese conquest of India”; in a land campaign they would have been outnumbered and destroyed by the armies of any one of the greater Indian states. But their artillery and superior maritime science made them almost invulnerable at sea, and their principal military achievements consisted in the capture or defence of positions accessible from the sea, e.g. the defence of Cochin by Duarte Pacheco Pereira in 1504, the defence of Diu (q.v.) in 1538 and 1546.
Alphonso d’Albuquerque (q.v.), who succeeded Almeida in 1509, found it necessary to modify the policy formulated by his predecessor. Command of the sea could not be maintained—least of all in the monsoon months—while the Portuguese fleets were based on Lisbon, which could only be reached after a six months' voyage; and experience had proved that almost every Portuguese factory required a fortress for its defence when the fleets were absent. Portugal, like every great maritime trading community from Carthage to Venice, discovered that the ideal of “sea power and commerce” led directly to empire. In 1510 Albuquerque seized Goa, primarily as a naval base, and in so doing recognized the fact that his country was committed to a policy of territorial aggrandisement. Other seaports and islands were conquered or colonized in rapid succession, and by 1540 Portugal had acquired a line of scattered maritime possessions extending along the coasts of Brazil, East and West Africa, Malabar, Ceylon, Persia, Indo-China and the Malay Archipelago. The most important settlements in the East were Goa, Malacca and Hormuz.
To a superficial observer the prosperity of Portugal might well seem to have culminated during this period of expansion. Vast profits were derived from the import trade in the innumerable products of the tropics, of which Portugal was the sole purveyor in Europe. This influx of wealth furnished the economic basis for a sudden development of literary and artistic activity, inspired by contrast with the new world of the tropics. The 16th century was the golden age of Portuguese literature; humanists, such as Damião de Goes (q.v.), and scientists, such as the astronomer Pedro Nunes (Nonius), played conspicuous parts in the great intellectual movements of the time; a distinctive school of painters arose, chief among them being the so-called “Grão Vasco” (Vasco Fernandes of Vizeu); in architecture the name or King Emanuel was given to a new and composite style (the Manoeline or Manoellian), in which decorative forms from India and Africa were harmonized with Gothic and Renaissance designs; palaces, fortresses, cathedrals, monasteries, were built on a scale never before attempted in Portugal; and even in the minor arts and handicrafts—in goldsmith’s work, for example, or in pottery—the influence of the East made itself felt. Oriental splendour and Renaissance culture combined to render social life in Lisbon hardly less brilliant than in Rome or Venice.
In order to understand the apparently sudden collapse of Portuguese power in 1578–1580 it is necessary to examine certain facts and tendencies which from the first rendered a catastrophe inevitable. Chief among these were the extent of the empire and its organization, the financial and commercial policy of its rulers, the hostility, often wantonly provoked, of the chief Oriental states, the depopulation of Portugal and the slave trade, the expulsion of the Jews, the growth of ecclesiastical influence in secular affairs, and the decadence of the monarchy.
It is necessary to exclude Brazil from any survey of the Portuguese imperial system, because the colonization of Brazil (q.v.) was effected on distinctive lines. Otherwise the whole empire was governed on a more or less uniform system, although it included communities of the most diverse nature—protectorates such as Hormuz and Ternate in the Moluccas, colonies such as Goa and Madeira, captaincies under military rule such as Malacca, tributary states such as Kilwa, fortified factories as at Colombo and Cochin. West of the Cape the settlements in Africa and the Atlantic were governed, as a rule, by officials directly nominated by the king. East of the Cape the royal power was delegated to a Viceroy or governor—the distinction was purely titular—whose legislative and executive authority was almost unlimited during his term of office. The vice royalty was created in 1505, and from 1511 the Indian capital was Goa. Between 1505 and 1580 only four holders of the office—Almeida (1505–1500), Albuquerque (1509–1515), D. Vasco da Gama (1524) and D. João de Castro (1545–1548)—were men of marked ability and high character. All officials, including the Viceroy and naval and military officers, were usually appointed for no more than three years. Although few large ​ salaries were paid, the perquisites attached to official positions were enormous; at the beginning of the 17th century, for example, the captain of Malacca received not quite £300 yearly as his pay, but his annual profits from other sources were estimated at £20,000. Even judges were expected to live on their perquisites, in the shape of bribes. The competition for appointments was naturally very keen; Couto mentions the case of one grantee who received the reversion of a post to which 30 applicants had a prior claim. Such reversions could be sold, bequeathed, or included in the dowries of married women; the right of trading with China might be part of the endowment of a school; a monastery or a hospital might purchase the command of a fortress. In 1538 the Viceroy, D. Garcia de Noronha, publicly sold by auction every vacant appointment in Portuguese India—an example followed in 1614 by the king. Hardly less disastrous than the system by which officials were chosen and paid was the influence exercised by the Church. Simāo Botelho, an able revenue officer, was denied absolution in 1543 because he had reorganized the Malacca customs-house without previously consulting the Dominicans in that city. In 1560 a. supposed tooth of Buddha was brought to Goa; the raja of Pegu offered £100,000 for the relic, and as Portuguese India. was virtually bankrupt the government wished to accept the offer; but the archbishop intervened and the relic was destroyed.
The empire in the East was rarely solvent. Almeida and Albuquerque had hoped to meet the expense of administration mainly out of the fees extorted for safe-conducts at sea and trading-licences, with the tribute wrung from native states and the revenue from Crown lands in India.Finance. But the growth of expenditure—chiefly of an unremunerative kind, such as the cost of war and missions—soon rendered these resources inadequate; and after 1515 the empire became ever more dependent on the spoils of hostile states and on subsidies from the royal treasury in Lisbon. Systematic debasement of the coinage was practised both in India, where the monetary system was extremely complex, and in Portugal; and owing to the bullionist policy adopted by Portuguese financiers little permanent benefit accrued to the mother country from its immense trade. Seeking for commercial profit, not in the exchange of commodities, but solely in the acquisition of actual gold and silver, and realizing that the home market could not absorb a tithe of the merchandise imported, the Lisbon capitalists sent their ships to discharge in Antwerp (where a Portuguese staple was established in 1503), or in some other port near the central markets of Europe. The raw materials purchased by Flemish, German or English traders were used in the establishment of productive industries, while Portugal received a vast influx of bullion, most of which was squandered on war, luxuries or the Church.
In theory the most lucrative branches of commerce, such as the pepper trade, were monopolies vested in the Crown; the chartered companies and associations of merchant adventurers, which afterwards became the pioneers of British and Dutch colonial development, had no counterpartCommercial Policy. in Portuguese history, except in the few cases in which trading concessions were granted to military or monastic orders. But the Crown frequently farmed out its monopolies to individual merchants, or granted trading-licences by way of pension or reward. These were often of great value; e.g. in 1612 the right of sending a merchant ship to China was valued at £25,000. Great loss was necessarily inflicted on native traders by the monopolist system, which pressed most hardly on the Mahommedans, who had been the chief carriers in Indian waters. Two great powers, Egypt and Turkey, challenged the naval and commercial supremacy of the Portuguese, but an Egyptian armada was destroyed by Almeida in 1509, and though Ottoman fleets were on several occasions (as in 1517 and 1521) dispatched from Suez or Basra, they failed to achieve any success, and the Portuguese were able to close the two principal trade routes between India and Europe. One of these trade routes passed up the Persian Gulf to Basra, and thence overland to Tripoli, for Mediterranean ports, and to Trebizond, for Constantinople. The other passed up the Red Sea to Suez, and thence to Alexandria, for Venice, Genoa and Ragusa. But by occupying Hormuz the Portuguese gained command of the Gulf route; and though they thrice failed to capture Aden (1513, 1517, 1547), and so entirely to close the Red Sea, they almost destroyed the trafhc between India and Suez by occupying Socotra and sending fleets to cruise in the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb. In Malacca they possessed the connecting link between the trade routes of the Far and Middle East, and thus they controlled the three sea-gates of the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea—the Straits of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb and Malacca—and diverted the maritime trade with Europe to the Cape route. During the critical period in which their empire was being established (c. 1505–1550) the Portuguese were fortunate in escaping conflict with any Oriental power of the first rank except Egypt and Turkey; for the Bahmani sultanate of the Deccan had been already disintegrated before 1498, and the Mughals and Mahrattas were still far off. A coalition of the minor Mahommedan states was prevented by the great Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar, which comprised the southern half of the Indian Peninsula. Vijayanagar gave the militant Mahommedanism of Northern India no opportunity for a combined attack on the Portuguese settlements. After 1565, when the power of Vijayanagar was broken at the battle of Talikot, a Mussulman coalition was at last formed, and the Portuguese were confronted by a line of hostile states stretching from Gujarat to Achin; but by this time they were strong enough to hold their own. It is characteristic of their native policy that they had not only refrained from aiding Vijayanagar in 1565, but had even been willing to despoil their Hindu allies. In 1543 Martim Affonso de Sousa, governor of India, organized an expedition to sack the Hindu temples at Conjeveram in Vijayanagar it.self, and similar incidents are common in Indo-Portuguese history. Albuquerque was almost the only Portuguese statesman who strove to deal justly with both Hindus and Mahommedans, to respect native customs, and to establish friendly relations with the great powers of the East. Apart from the rigorous restrictions imposed by his successors upon trade, the sympathies of the natives were estranged by the harshness and venality of Portuguese administration, by such barbarities as the wholesale mutilation of non-combatants in war-time, and by religious persecution. After the arrival of the Franciscan missionaries, in 1517, Goa gradually became the headquarters of an immense proselytizing organization, which by 1561 had extended to East Africa, China, Japan and the Malay Archipelago (see Goa: Ecclesiastical History). Wherever the Portuguese were supreme they endeavoured to obtain converts by force. The widespread resentment thus aroused was a frequent cause of insurrection, and between 1515 and 1580 not a single year passed without war between the Portuguese and at least one African or Asiatic people.
Centuries of fighting against the Moors and Castilians had already left Portugal thinly populated; large tracts of land were uncultivated, especially in Alemtejo, and wolves still common throughout the kingdom. It was impossible, from the first, to garrison the empire with trainedDepopu- lation. men. As early as 1505 one of Almeida's ships contained a crew of rustics unable to distinguish between port and starboard; soon afterwards it became necessary to recruit convicts and slaves, and in 1538 a royal pardon was granted to all prisoners who would serve in India, except criminals under sentence for treason and canonical offences. Linschoten estimates that of all those who went to the East not one in ten returned. The heaviest losses were due to war, shipwreck and tropical diseases, but large numbers of the underpaid or unpaid soldiers deserted to the armies of native states. It is impossible to give more than approximately accurate statistics of the resultant depopulation of Portugal; but it seems probable that the inhabitants of the kingdom decreased from about 1,800,000 or 2,000,000 in 1500 to ​ about 1,080,000 in 1586. The process of decay was hastened by frequent outbreaks of plague, sometimes followed by famine; a contemporary manuscript estimates that no fewer than 500 persons died daily in Lisbon alone during July, August and September 1569, and in some other years the joint effects of plague and famine were little less disastrous.
While the country was being drained of its best citizens, hordes of slaves were imported to fill the vacancies, especially into the southern provinces. Manual labour was thus discredited; the peasants sold their farms and emigrated or flocked to the towns; and small holdingsThe Slave Trade. were merged into vast estates, unscientifically cultivated by slaves and comparable with the latifundia which caused so many agrarian evils during the last two centuries of the Roman republic. The decadence of agriculture partly explains the prevalence of famine at a time when Portuguese maritime commerce was most prosperous. The Portuguese intermarried freely with their slaves, and this infusion of alien blood profoundly modified the character and physique of the nation. It may be said without exaggeration that the Portuguese of the “age of discoveries” and the Portuguese of the 17th and later centuries were two different races. Albuquerque, foreseeing the dangers that would arise from a shortage of population in his colonies, had encouraged his soldiers to marry captive Brahman and Mahommedan women, and to settle in India as farmers, shopkeepers or artisans. Under his rule the experiment was fairly successful, but the married colonists afterwards became a privileged caste, subsisting upon the labour of their slaves, and often disloyal to their rulers. Intermarriage led to the adoption, even by the rich, and especially by women (see Goa), of Asiatic dress, manners and modes of thought. Thus in the East, as in Europe, slavery reacted upon every class of the Portuguese.
The banishment, or forcible conversion, of the Jews deprived Portugal of its middle class and of its most scientific traders and financiers. Though the Jews had always been compelled to reside in separate quarters called Juderías, or Jewries, they had been protected byThe Perse-cution of the Jews. the earlier Portuguese kings. Before 1223 their courts had received autonomy in civil and criminal jurisdiction; their chief rabbi was appointed by the king and entitled to use the royal arms on his seal. Alphonso V. even permitted his Jewish subjects to live outside the Juderías, relieved them from the obligation to wear a distinctive costume (enforced in 1325), and nominated a Jew, Isaac Abrabanel (q.v.), as his minister of finance. In culture the Portuguese Jews surpassed their rulers. Many of them were well versed in Aristotelian and Arabic philosophy, in astronomy, mathematics, and especially in medicine. Three Hebrew printing-presses were established between 1487 and 1495; both John II. and Emanuel I. employed Jewish physicians; it was a Jew—Abraham Zacuto ben Samuel—who supplied Vasco da Gama with nautical instruments; and Jews were employed in the overland journeys by which the Portuguese court first endeavoured to obtain information on Far Eastern affairs. The Jews paid taxes on practically every business transaction, besides a special poll-tax of 30 dinheiros in memory of the 30 pieces of silver paid to Judas Iscariot; and for this reason they were protected by the Crown. For centuries they were also tolerated by the commons; but the other orders-ecclesiastics and nobles-resented their religious exclusiveness or envied their wealth, and gradually fostered the growth of popular prejudice against them. In 1449 the Lisbon Juderías were stormed and sacked, and between 1450 and 1481 the cortes four times petitioned the Crown to enforce the anti-Jewish provisions of the canon law. John II. gave asylum to 90,000 Jewish refugees from Castile, in return for a heavy poll-tax and on condition that they should leave the country within eight months, in ships furnished by himself. These ships were not provided in time, and the Jews who were thus unable to depart were enslaved, while their children were deported to the island of St Thomas, and there left to survive as best they might. In 1496 Emanuel I. desired to wed Isabella, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, but found that he was first required to purify his kingdom of the Jews, who were accordingly commanded to leave Portugal before the end of October 1497. But in order to avoid the economic dangers threatened by such an exodus, every Jew and Jewess between the ages of 4 and 24 was seized and forcibly baptized (19th March): “Christians” were not required to emigrate. In October 20,000 adults were treated in the same Way. These “New Christians” or “Maranos,” as they were called, were forbidden to leave the country between 1498 and 1507. In April 1506 most of those who resided in Lisbon were massacred during a riot, but throughout the rest of Emanuel’s reign they were immune from violence, and were again permitted to emigrate—an opportunity of which the majority took advantage. Large numbers settled in Holland, where their commercial talent afterwards greatly assisted the Dutch in their rivalry with the Portuguese.
The Reformation never reached Portugal, but even here the critical tendencies which elsewhere preceded Reform, were already at work. Their origin is to be sought not so much in the Revival of Learning as in the fact that The Inquisition and the Jesuits. the Portuguese had learned, on their voyages of discovery, to see and think for themselves. The Jesuits true scientific spirit may be traced throughout the Roteiros of D. João de Castro (q.v.) and the Colloquios of Garcia de Orta—men who deserted books for experiment and manifested a new interest in the physical world. But orthodox churchmen feared that even in Portugal this appeal from authority to experience would lead to an attack upon religious doctrines previously regarded as beyond criticism. To check this dangerous movement of ideas, they demanded the introduction of the Inquisition into Portugal. The agents of the “New Christians” in Rome long contrived, by lavish bribery and with the support of many enlightened Portuguese, to delay the preliminary negotiations; but in 1536 the Holy Office was established in Lisbon, where the first auto-da-fé was held in 1540, and in 1560 its operations were extended to India. It seems probable that the influence of the tribunal upon Portuguese life and thought has been exaggerated. Autos-da-fé were rare events; their victims were not as a rule serious thinkers, but persons accused of sorcery or Judaizing, nor were they more numerous than the victims of the English laws relating to witchcraft and heresy. But the worst vices of the Inquisition were the widespread system of delation it encouraged by paying informers out of the property of the condemned, and its action as a trading and landholding association. Quite as serious, in their effects upon national life, were the severe censorship to which all printed matter was liable before publication and the control of education by the Jesuits. Poetry and imaginative literature usually escaped censure; but histories were mutilated and all original scientific and philosophical work was banned. Portuguese education centred in the national university of Coimbra, which had long shown itself ready to assimilate new ideas; between 1537 and 1547 John III. persuaded many eminent foreign teachers—among them the Scottish humanist George Buchanan (q.v.) and the French mathematician Ếlie Vinet—to lecture in its schools. But the discipline of the university needed reform, and the task was entrusted to the Jesuits. By 1555 they had secured control over Coimbra—a control which lasted for two centuries and extended to the whole educational system of the country. The effects of this change upon the national character were serious and permanent. Portugal sank back into the middle ages. The old initiative and self-reliance of the nation, already shaken by years of disaster, were now completely undermined, and the people submitted without show of resistance to a theocracy disguised as absolute monarchy.
Emanuel I. had been a fearless despot, such as Portugal needed if its scattered dependencies were to remain subject to the central government. During his reign (1495–1521) the Church was never permitted to encroach upon the royal ​ prerogative. He even sent ambassadors to Rome to protest against ecclesiastical corruption, as well as to checkmate the Venetian diplomatists who threatened Europe with Ottoman vengeance if the Portuguese commercial monopoly were not relaxed. The Oriental magnificence of these embassies, notably that of 1514, and the fact that a king of Portugal dared openly to criticize the morals of the Vatican, temporarily enhanced the prestige of the monarchy. But Emanuel I. was the last great king of the Aviz dynasty. He had pursued the traditional policy of intermarriage with the royal families of Castile and Aragon, hoping to weld together the Spanish and Portuguese dominions into a single world-wide empire ruled by the house of Aviz. His ambition narrowly missed fulfilment, for Prince Miguel, his eldest son, was recognized (1498) as heir to the Spanish thrones. But Miguel died in infancy, and his inheritance passed to the Habsburgs. Frequent intermarriage, often so far within the prohibited degress as to require a papal dispensation, may possibly explain the weakened vitality of the Portuguese royal family, which was now subject to epilepsy, insanity and premature decay. The decadence of the monarchy as a national institution was reflected in the decadence of the cortes, which was rarely summoned between 1521 and 1580. John III. (1521–1557) was a ruler of fair ability, who became in his later years wholly subservient to his ecclesiastical advisers. He was succeeded by his grandson Sebastian (1557–1578), aged three years. Until the king came of age (1568), his grandmother, Queen Catherine, a fanatical daughter of Isabella the Catholic, and his great-uncle, Prince Henry, cardinal and inquisitor-general, governed as joint regents. Both were dominated by their Jesuit confessors, and a Jesuit, D. Luiz Gonçalves da Camara, became the tutor and, after 1568, the principal adviser of Sebastian.
The king was a strong-willed and weak-minded ascetic, who entrusted his empire to the Jesuits, refused to marry, although the dynasty was threatened with extinction, and of spent years in preparing for a crusade against the Moors. The wisest act of John III. had been hisThe Disaster of Al Kasr. withdrawal of all the Portuguese garrisons in Morocco except those at Ceuta, Arzila and Tangier. Sebastian reversed this policy. His first expedition to Africa (1574) was a mere reconnaissance, but four years later a favourable opportunity for invasion arrived. A dethroned sultan of Morocco, named Mulai Ahmad (Mahommed XI.), offered to acknowledge Portuguese suzerainty if he were restored to the throne by Portuguese arms, and Sebastian eagerly accepted these terms. The flower of his army was in Asia and his treasury was empty; but he contrived to extort funds from the “New Christians,” and collected a force of some 18,000 men, chiefly untrained lads, wornout veterans, and foreign free-lances. At Arzila, where he landed, he was joined by Mulai Ahmad, who could only muster 800 soldiers. Thence Sebastian sought to proceed overland to the seaport of El Araish, despite the advice of his ally and of others who knew the country. After a long desert march under an August sun, he tookup an indefensible position in a valley near Al Kasr al Kebir (q.v.). On the morrow (Aug. 4, 1578) they were surrounded by the superior forces of Abd el Malek, the reigning sultan, and after a brave resistance Sebastian was killed and his army almost annihilated. So overwhelming was the disaster that the Portuguese people refused to believe the truth. It was rumoured that Sebastian still lived and would sooner or later return and restore the past greatness of his country.
“Sebastianism” became a religion; its votaries were numbered by thousands, and four impostors arose in succession, each claiming to be the rei encuberto, or “hidden king,” whose advent was so ardently desired (see Sebastian).
There was no surviving prince of the Aviz dynasty except the aged, feeble and almost insane Cardinal Prince Henry, who, as a younger son of Emanuel I., now became king. Henry died on the 31st of January 1580, and the throne was thus left vacant. There were five principal claimants-Philip II. of Spain; Philibert, duke of Savoy; Antonio, prior of Crato; Catherine, duchess of Braganza; and Ranuccio, duke of Parma—whose relationship to Emanuel I. is shown(in the following table:—
Emanuel. :
| John III., | Isabel, | Beatrice, | Louis, | Ferdinand, | Alphonso, | Henry, | Edward, |
| b. 1502, d. 1557, | b. 1503, d. 1539, | b. 1504, d. 1538, | b. 1506, d. 1545, | b. 1507, d. 1534, | b. 1509, d. 1540, | b. 1512, d. 1580, | b. 1515, d. 1545, |
| m. Catherine of Austria. | m. Charles V. | m. Charles III. of Savoy. | duke of Beia. | duke of Guarda. | cardinal and arch- bishop of Lisbon. | cardinal and king. | duke of Guimarāes, m. Isabel of Braganza. |
| John, | Philip II. of | Philibert Emmanuel, | Antonio, | | | Catherine, | Maria, |
| b. 1537, d. 1554, m. Joanna of Spain. | Spain. | duke of Savoy. | prior of Crato. (illegitimate). | | | m. duke of Braganza. | m. duke of Parma. |
| Sebastian, b. 1554, d. 1578. | | | | | | | Ranuccio, duke of Parma. |
Tentative and hardly serious claims were also put forward by Pope Gregory XIII., as ex officio heir-general to a cardinal, and by Catherine de’ Medici, as a descendant of Alphonso III. and Matilda of Boulogne.
5. The “Sixty Years’ Captivity”: 1581–1640.—The university of Coimbra declared in favour of Catherine, duchess of Braganza, but the prior of Crato was the only rival who offered any serious resistance to Philip II. D. Antonio proclaimed himself king and occupied Lisbon. The advocates of union with Spain, however, were numerous, influential, and ably led by their spokesmen in the cortes, Christovao de Moura and Antonio Pinheiro, bishop. of Leiria. The duke of Braganza was won over to their side, chiefly by the promise that he should be king of Brazil if Philip II. became king of Portugal—a promise never fulfilled. Above all, the Church, including the Society of Jesus, naturally favoured the Habsburg claimant, who represented its two foremost champions, Spain and Austria. In 1581 a Spanish army, led by the duke of Alva, entered Portugal and easily defeated the levies of D. Antonio at Alcantara. The prior escaped to Paris and appealed to France and England for assistance. In 1582 a French fleet attempted to seize the Azores in his interest, but was defeated. In 1589 an English fleet was sent to aid the prior in a projected invasion of Portugal, but owing to a quarrel between its commanders, Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Norris, the expedition was abandoned. D. Antonio returned to Paris, where he died in 1594.
Meanwhile the victory of Alcantara left Philip II. supreme in Portugal, where he was soon afterwards crowned king. His constitutional position was defined at the Cortes of Thomar (1581). Portugal was not to be regarded as a conquered or annexed province, but as a separate kingdom, joined to Spain solely by a personal union similar to the union between Castile and Aragon under Ferdinand and Isabella. At Thomar Philip II. promised to maintain the rights and liberties conceded by his predecessors on the Portuguese throne, to summon the Cortes at frequent intervals, and to create a Portuguese privy council which should accompany the king everywhere and be consulted on all matters affecting Portuguese interests. Brazil and the settlements in Africa and Asia were still to belong to Portugal, not to Spain, and neither in Portugal nor in its colonies was any alien to be given lands, public office, or jurisdiction. On these terms the political union of the Iberian Peninsula was accomplished. It was the final stage in a process of accretion dating back to the beginnings of the Christian reconquest in the 8th century. Asturias had been united with Leon, Leon with Castile, Castile with Aragon. All these precedents seemed to indicate that Spain and Portugal would ultimately form one state; and despite the strong nationalism which their separate language and ​ history had inspired among the Portuguese, the union of 1581 might have endured if the terms of the Thomar compact had been observed. But few of the promises made in 1581 were kept by the three Spanish kings who ruled over Portugal—Philip II. (1581–1598), Philip III. (1598–1621) and Philip IV. (1621–1640). The cortes was only once summoned (1619), and the government of Portugal was entrusted by Philip III. chiefly to Francis duke of Lerma, by Philip IV. chiefly to Olivares (q.v.). The kingdom and its dependencies were also involved in the naval disasters which overtook Spain. Faro in Algarve was sacked in 1595 by the English, who ravaged the Azores in 1596; and in many parts of the world English, French and Dutch combined to harass Portuguese trade and seize Portuguese possessions. (See especially Brazil; India; Malay Archipelago.) Union with Spain had exposed Portugal to the hostility of the strongest naval powers of western Europe, and had deprived it of the power to conclude an independent peace.
Insurrections in Lisbon (1634) and Evora (1637) bore witness to the general discontent, but until 1640 the Spanish ascendancy was never seriously endangered. In 1640 war with France and a revolution in Catalonia had taxed the military resources of Spain to the utmost. TheThe Rebellion of 1640. royal authority in Portugal was delegated to Margaret of Savoy, duchess of Mantua, whose train of Spanish and Italian courtiers aroused the jealousy of the Portuguese nobles, while the harsh rule of her secretary of state, Miguel de Vasconcellos de Brito, provoked the resentment of all classes. Even the Jesuits, whose influence in Portugal had steadily increased since 1555, were now prepared to act in the interests of Cardinal Richelieu, and therefore against Philip IV. A leader was found in John, 8th duke of Braganza, who as a grandson of the duchess Catherine was descended from Emanuel I. The duke, however, was naturally indolent, and it was with difficulty that his ambitious and energetic Castilian wife, D. Luiza de Guzman, obtained his assent to the proposed revolution. He refused to take any active part in it; but D. Luiza and her confidential adviser, João Pinto Ribeiro, recruited a powerful band of conspirators among the disaffected nobles. Their plans were carefully elaborated, and on the 1st of December 1640 various strategic points were seized, the few partisans of Spain who attempted resistance were overpowered, and a provisional government was formed under D. Rodrigo da Cunha, archbishop of Lisbon, who was appointed lieutenant general of Portugal.
6. The Restoration: 1640–1755.—On the 13th of December 1640 the duke of Braganza was crowned as John IV., and on the 19th of January 1641 the cortes formally accepted him as king. The whole country had already declared in his favour and expelled the Spanish garrisons, an example followed by all the Portuguese dependencies. Thus the “Sixty Years’ Captivity” came to an end and the throne passed to the house of Braganza. But the Portuguese were well aware that they could hardly maintain their independence without foreign assistance, and ambassadors were at once sent to Great Britain, the Netherlands and France. The struggle between the Crown and the parliament prevented Charles I. from offering aid, but he immediately recognized John IV. as king. Richelieu and the states-general of the Netherlands dispatched fleets to the Tagus; but commercial rivalry in Brazil and the East led soon afterwards to a colonial war with the Dutch, and Portugal was left without any ally except France.
The Portuguese armies were at first successful. D. Matheus d’Albuquerque defeated the Spaniards under the baron of Molingen at Montijo (May 26, 1644), and throughout the reign of John IV. (1640–1656) they suffered no serious reverse. But great anxiety was causedWar with Spain, 1640–1668. by a plot to restore Spanish rule, in which the duke of Caminha and the archbishop of Braga were implicated; and especially by the action of Mazarin, who had assumed control of French foreign policy in 1642. At the congress of Münster (1643) he refused to make the independence of Portugal a condition of peace between France and Spain; and in a letter dated the 4th of October 1647 he even offered the Portuguese Crown to the duke of Longueville—an offer which illustrates the weakness of John IV. and the dependence of Portugal upon France.
John IV. was succeeded by his second son, Alphonso VI. (1656–1683), who was then aged thirteen. During the king’s minority the queen-mother, D. Luiza, acted as regent. She prosecuted the war with vigour, and on the 14th of January 1659 a Portuguese army commanded by D. Antonio Luiz de Menezes, count of Cantanhede, defeated the Spaniards under D. Luiz de Haro at Elvas. In March 1659, however, the war between France and Spain was ended by the treaty of the Pyrenees; and D. Luiz de Haro, acting as the Spanish plenipotentiary, obtained the inclusion in the treaty of a secret article by which France undertook to give no further aid to Portugal. Neither Louis XIV. nor Mazarin desired the aggrandisement of Spain at the expense of their own ally; they therefore evaded the secret article by sending Marshal Schomberg to reorganize the Portuguese army (1660), and by helping forward a marriage between Charles II. of England and Catherine of Braganza, the sister of Alphonso VI. This project had been already mooted by D. Luiza, who had foreseen the restoration of the Stuart monarchy, and- had in 1650 welcomed the exiled princes Rupert and Maurice at the court of John IV. The dowry to be paid by Portugal was fixed at £500,000 and the cession to Great Britain of Bombay and Tangier. In May 1663 the marriage was celebrated, and thus Great Britain took the place of France as the active ally of Portugal.
Meanwhile, on the 20th of June 1662, the regency had been terminated by a palace revolution. Alphonso VI. declared himself of age and seized the royal authority; D. Luiza retired to a convent. The king was feeble and and vicious, but had wit enough to leave theSchomberg and Castello Melhor. conduct of affairs to stronger hands. D. Luiz de Sousa e Vasconcellos, count of Castello Melhor, directed the policy of the nation while Schomberg took charge of its defence. The army, reinforced by British troops under the earl of Inchiquin and by French and German volunteers or mercenaries, was led in the field by Portuguese generals, who successfully carried out the plans of Schomberg. On the 8th of June 1663 the count of Villa Flor utterly defeated D. John of Austria, and retook Evora, which had been captured by the invaders; on the 7th of July 1664 Pedro de Magalhaes defeated the duke of Osuna at Ciudad Rodrigo; on the 17th of June 1665 the marquess of Marialva destroyed a Spanish army led by the marquess of Carracefia at the battle of Montes Claros, and Christovão de Brito Pereira followed up this victory with another at Villa Viçosa. The Spaniards failed to gain any compensating advantage, and on the 13th of February 1668 peace was concluded at Lisbon, Spain at last consenting to recognize the independence of the Portuguese kingdom.
The signature of the treaty of Lisbon had been preceded by; another palace revolution. Castello Melhor, hoping to secure. further French support for his country, had arranged a marriage between Alphonso VI. and Marie Francoise Elisabeth, daughter of, Charles Amadeus of Nemours, and grand-daughter of Henry IV. of France. The marriage, celebrated in 1666, caused the downfall both of Castello Melhor and of the king. Queen Marie detested Alphonso and fell in love with his brother D. Pedro; and after four months of a hated union she left the palace and applied to the chapter of Lisbon cathedral to annul her marriage on the ground of non-consummation. D. Pedro imprisoned the king and assumed the regency; on the 1st of January 1668 his authority was recognized by the cortes; on the 24th of March the annulment of the queen’s marriage was pronounced and confirmed by the pope; on the 2nd of April she married the regent. Castello Melhor was permitted to escape to France, while Alphonso VI. was banished to Terceira in the Azores. A conspiracy to restore him to the throne was discovered in 1674, and he was removed to Cintra, where he died in 1683.
Pedro II., who had acted as regent for fifteen years, now ​ became king. His reign (1683–1706) is a period of supreme importance in the economic and constitutional history of Portugal. The goldfields of Minas Geraes in Brazil, discovered about 1693, brought a vast revenue inThe Cortes and the Methuen Treaty. Methuen royalties to the Crown, which was thus enabled to govern without summoning the cortes to vote supply. In 1697 the cortes met for the last time before the era of constitutional government. Even more important was the change effected when the Whig ministry of Great Britain sent John Methuen to Lisbon to negotiate a commercial agreement. The Methuen Treaty, signed on the 27th of December 1703, detached Portugal from the French alliance, and made her for more than 150 years a commercial and political satellite of Great Britain. ts most far-reaching provisions were those which admitted Portuguese wines to the British market at a lower rate of duty than was imposed upon French and German wines, in return for a corresponding preference to English textiles. The demand for “Port” and “Madeira” was thus artificially stimulated to such an extent that almost the whole productive energy of Portugal was concentrated upon the wine and cork trades. Other industries, including agriculture, were neglected, and even food-stuffs were imported from Great Britain. The disastrous economic results of the treaty were temporarily concealed by the influx of gold from Brazil, the check upon emigration from the wine-growing northern provinces, and the military advantages of alliance with Great Britain. Nor was the virtual abolition of the cortes seriously felt at first, owing to the excellent internal administration of Pedro II. and his minister the duke of Cadaval.
Pedro II. had at first wished to remain neutral in the impending struggle between Philip V. and the archduke Charles, rival claimants for the throne of Spain. But Queen Marie had died in 1683, and in 1687 Cadaval had induced the king to marry Maria Sophia de Neuberg,War of the Spanish Succession. daughter of the elector-palatine. Louis XIV. of France, who had hoped through the influence of Queen Marie to secure Portuguese support for his own grandson Philip V., realized that this second marriage might thwart his policy, and strove to redress the balance by creating a strong party at the court of Lisbon. He so far succeeded that in 1700 Pedro II. recognized Philip V. as king of Spain and in 1701 protected a French fleet in the Tagus against the British. It was this incident that caused the despatch of the Methuen mission and the renewal of the Anglo-Portuguese alliance in 1703. On the 7th of March 1704 a British fleet under Sir George Rooke reached Lisbon, convoying the archduke Charles and 10,000 British troops, who were joined by a Portuguese army under D. João de Sousa, marquess das Minas, and at once invaded Spain. (For the campaigns of 1704–13, see Spanish Succession, War of the.) In 1705 Pedro II. was compelled by failing health to appoint a regent, and chose his sister, Catherine of Braganza, queen-dowager of England. On the death of the king (Dec. 9, 1706) Cadaval arranged a marriage between his successor John V. (1706–1750) and the archduchess Marianna, sister of the archduke Charles, thus binding Portugal more closely to the Anglo-Austrian cause. The strain of the war was acutely felt in Portugal, especially in 1711, when the French admiral Duguay-Trouin sacked Rio' de Janeiro and cut off the Brazilian treasure ships. At last, on the 6th of February 1715, nearly two years after the treaty of Utrecht, peace between Spain and Portugal was concluded at Madrid.
Never was the Portuguese Crown richer than in the years 1715–1755; rarely had the kingdom prospered less. The commercial and financial evils rife under the last kings of the Aviz dynasty were now repeated. More gold had been discovered in Matto Grosso,The Mon-archy and the Church. diamonds in Minas Geraes. As in the 16th century immense quantities of bullion were imported by the treasury, and were lavished upon war, luxury and the Church, while agriculture and manufactures continued to decline, and the countryside was depopulated by emigration to Brazil. John V. was a spendthrift and a bigot. He gave and lent enormous sums to successive popes, and at the bidding of Clement XI. he joined a “crusade ” against the Turks in which his ships helped to win a naval action off Cape Matapan (1717). For these services he received the title of Fidelissimus, “Most Faithful", “Majesty” had already been adopted by John IV. instead of the medieval “Highness,” and the new style was intended to place the king of Portugal on an equality with his Most Christian Majesty of France and his Most Catholic Majesty of Spain. John V. was also empowered to create a multitude of new ecclesiastical dignities, and the archbishop of Lisbon was granted the rank and style of Patriarch ex officio. To the patriarchate was appended a Sacred College of 24 prelates, who were privileged to officiate in the scarlet robes of cardinals, while the patriarch wore the vestments of a second pope. Though regiments were disbanded, fleets put out of commission and fortresses dismantled to save the cost of their upkeep, the Crown paid nearly £100,000 yearly for the maintenance of this new hierarchy, and squandered untold wealth on the erection of churches and monasteries. In the church of São Roque in Lisbon, the decoration of a single chapel measuring 17 ft. by 12 ft. cost £225,000; the expenditure on the convent-palace of Mafra (q.v.) exceeded £4,000,000.
John V. was succeeded by his son Joseph (1750–1777). Five years afterwards Portugal was overtaken by the tremendous disaster of the Lisbon earthquake (see Lisbon), which, as Oliveira Martins justly observes, was “more than a cataclysm of nature; it was a moral revolution.” It brought the Restoration period to an end (1755). Throughout that period the monarchy had occupied a precarious position, dependent until 1668 for its very existence, and after 1668 for its stability, on foreign support. Its policy had been moulded to suit France or Great Britain, while its internal administration had normally been directed by the Church. The cortes had grown obsolete; the feudal aristocracy were become courtiers. Once more, as in 1586, Portugal was governed by ecclesiastics in the name of an absolute monarch; once more, as in 1580, the chief strength of the ecclesiastical party was the Society of Jesus, which still controlled the conscience and mind of the nation and of its nominal rulers, through the confessional and the schools.
7. The Reform of the Monarchy: 1755–1826:—The unity of Portuguese history is hard to perceive in the years which witnessed the rise and fall of the Pombaline régime, the reign of the mad queen l/Iaria, the Peninsular War and the subsequent chaos of revolutionary intrigue. At first sight it seems absurd to characterize this period of despotism ending in war, ruin and anarchy as a period of reform. Nevertheless, it is possible to trace through the apparent chaos an uninterrupted movement from absolutism to representative institutions. Pombal liberated the monarchy from clerical domination, and thus unwittingly opened the door to those “French principles,” or democratic ideas, which spread rapidly after his downfall in 1777. The destruction of an obsolete political system, begun by Pombal, was completed by the Peninsular War; while French invaders and British governors together quickened among the Portuguese a new consciousness of their nationality, and a new desire for political rights, which rendered inevitable the change to constitutional monarchy.
Two days after the accession of King Joseph, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Mello, better known as the marquess of Pombal (q.v.), was appointed secretary of state for foreign affairs and war. In a few months he gained an ascendancy over the king’s mind which lasted until the end of thePombal, 1750–1777. reign, and was strengthened by the courage and wisdom shown by Pombal at the time of the great earthquake. His policy was to strengthen the monarchy and to use it for the furtherance of a comprehensive scheme of reform. Beginning with finance and commerce, he reversed the bullionist policy of his predecessors and reorganized the entire system of taxation. He sought to undo the worst consequences of the Methuen treaty by the creation of national industries, establishing a gunpowder factory and a sugar refinery in 1751, a silk industry in 1752, wool, paper and glass factories after 1759. Colonial development was fostered, and the commercial dependence of Portugal upon ​ Great Britain was reduced, by the formation of chartered companies, the first of which (1753) was given control of the Algarve sardine and tunny fisheries. The Oldembourg Company (1754) received a monopoly of trade with the Portuguese colonies in the East; extensive monopolist rights were also conceded to the Para and Maranhao Company (1755) and the Pernambuco and Parahyba Company (1759). In Lisbon a chamber of commerce (Junta do commercio) was organized in 1756 to replace an older association of merchants, the Meza dos homens de negocio, which had attacked the Pará Company; and in the same year the Alto Douro Company was formed to control the port-wine trade and to break the monopoly enjoyed by a syndicate of British wine merchants. This company met with strong opposition, culminating in a rising at Oporto (February 1757), which was savagely suppressed.
Both his commercial policy and his desire to strengthen the Crown brought Pombal into conflict with the Church and the aristocracy. In 1751 he had made all sentences passed by the Inquisition subject to revision by the Crown. The liberation of all slaves in Pará and Maranhao except negroes (1755), and the creation of the Para Company, were prejudicial to the interests of the Jesuits, whose administrative authority over the Indians of Brazil was also curtailed. Various charges were brought against the Society by Pombal, and in September 1759, after five years of heated controversy (see Jesuits), he published a decree of expulsion against all its members in the Portuguese dominions. His power at court had previously been strengthened by the so-called Tavora plot. The marquess and marchioness of Tavora and their two sons, with the duke of Aveiro, the count of Atouguia and other noblemen, were accused of complicity in an attempt upon the life of King Joseph (September 1758). Pombal appointed a special tribunal to judge the case; many of the accused, including those already mentioned, were found guilty and executed; and an attempt was made to implicate the Jesuits. Pombal’s enemies declared that he himself had organized the attack upon the king, in such a manner as to throw suspicion upon his political opponents and to gain credit for himself. This accusation was not proved, but the history of the Tavora plot remains extremely obscure. The expulsion of the Jesuits involved Portugal in a dispute with Pope Clement XIII.; in June 1760 the papal nuncio was ordered to leave Lisbon, and diplomatic relations with the Vatican were only resumed after the condemnation of the Jesuits by Clement XIV., in July 1773.
His victory over the Jesuits left Pombal free to develop his plans for reform. He devoted himself especially to education and defence. A school of commerce was founded in 1759; in 1760 the censorship of books was transferred from an ecclesiastical to a lay tribunal; in 1761 the former Jesuit college in Lisbon was converted into a college for the sons of noblemen; in 1768 a royal printing-press was established; in 1772 Pombal provided for a complete system of primary and secondary education, entailing the foundation of 837 schools. He founded a college of art in Mafra; he became visitor of Coimbra University, recast its statutes and introduced the teaching of natural science. Funds for these reforms were to a great extent provided out of the sequestrated property of the Jesuits; Pombal also effected great economies in internal administration. He abolished the distinction between Old and New Christians, and made all Portuguese subjects eligible to any office in the state. Far-reaching reforms were at the same time carried out in the army, navy and mercantile marine. In 1760 Admiral Boscawen had violated Portuguese neutrality by burning four French ships off Lagos; Pombal protested and the British government apologized, but not before the military weakness of Portugal had been demonstrated. Two years later, when the Family Compact involved Portugal in a war with Spain, Pombal called in Count William of Lippe-Bückeburg to reorganize the army, which was reinforced by a British contingent under Brigadier-General John Burgoyne, and was increased from 5000 to 50,000 men. The Spaniards were at first successful, and captured Braganza and Almeida; but they were subsequently defeated at Villa Velha and Valencia de Alcantara, and the Portuguese fully held their own up to the signature of peace at Fontainebleau, in February 1763. Towards the close of the reign, a long-standing controversy with Spain as to the frontier between Brazil and the Spanish colonies threatened a renewal of the War; but in this crisis Pombal was deprived of power by the death of King Joseph (Feb. 20, 1777) and the accession of his daughter Maria I.
The queen was married to her uncle, who became king consort as Pedro III. Pombal’s dismissal, brought about by the influence of the queen-mother Mariana Victoria, did not involve an immediate reversal of his policy. The controversy with Spain was amicably settledMaria I., Pedro III. and D. John. by the treaty of San Ildefonso (1777); and further industrial and educational reforms were inaugurated, chief among them being the foundation, in 1780, of the Royal Academy of Sciences. Queen Maria, who had previously shown signs of religious mania, became wholly insane after 1788, owing to the deaths of Pedro III. (May 1786), of the crown prince D. Joseph, and of her confessor, the inquisitor-general D. Ignacio de San Caetano. Her second son, D. John, assumed the conduct of affairs in 1792, although he did not take the title of regent until 1799. Meanwhile a two-fold reaction—on one side clericalism, on the other democratic—had set in against the reforms of Pombal. D. John told William Beckford in 1786 that “the kingdom belonged to the monks,” and his consort Carlota Joaquina, daughter of Charles IV. of Spain, exercised a powerful influence in favour of the Church. But new ideas had been introduced with the new system of education, and the inevitable revolt against absolutism had resulted in the formation of a Radical party, which sympathized with the Revolution in France and carried on an active propaganda through the numerous masonic lodges which were in fact political clubs. D. John became alarmed, and the intend ant of police in Lisbon, D. Diogo Ignacio de Pina Manique, organized an elaborate system of espionage which led to the imprisonment or exile of many harmless enthusiasts.
From similar motives, a treaty of alliance with Spain was signed at Aranjuez in March 1793; 5000 Portuguese troops were sent to assist in a Spanish invasion of France; a Portuguese squadron joined the British Mediterranean fleet. But in July 1795 Spain concluded a peaceRelations with Spain, France and Great Britain, 1793–1806. with the French republic from which, Portugal, as the ally of Great Britain, was deliberately excluded. In 1796 Spain declared war upon Great Britain, and in 1797 a secret convention for the partition of Portugal was signed by the French ambassador in Madrid, General Pérignon, and by the Spanish minister Godoy. D. John appealed for help to Great Britain, which sent him 6000 men, under Sir Charles Stuart and a subsidy of £200,000. Though Spain, through the influence of D. John’s father-in-law Charles IV., still remained neutral, a state of war between Portugal and France existed until 1799. D. John then reopened negotiations with Napoleon, and Lucien Bonaparte was sent to dictate terms in Madrid. But D. John dared not consent to close the harbours of Portugal against British ships. England was the chief market for Portuguese Wine and grain; and the long Portuguese littoral was at the mercy of the British navy. Compelled to choose between fighting on land and fighting at sea, D. John rejected the demands of Lucien Bonaparte, and on the 10th of February 1801 declared war upon Spain. His territories were at once invaded by a Franco-Spanish army, and on the 6th of June 1801 he was forced to conclude the peace of Badajoz, by which he ceded the frontier fortress of Olivenza to Spain, and undertook to pay 20,000,000 francs to Napoleon and to exclude British ships from Portuguese ports. Napoleon was dissatisfied with these terms, and although he ultimately ratified the treaty, he sent General Lannes to Lisbon as his ambassador, instructing him to humiliate the Portuguese and if possible to goad them into a renewal of the war. The same policy was continued by General Junot, who succeeded Lannes in 1804. Junot required D. John to declare war upon Great Britain, but this demand was not immediately pressed owing to the preoccupation of Napoleon with greater affairs, and in October 1805 Junot left Portugal.
By his Berlin decree of the 21st of November 1806 Napoleon ​ required all continental states to close their ports to British ships. As Portugal again refused to obey, another secret Franco-Spanish treaty was signed at Fontainebleau on the Peninsular 27th of October 1807, providing for the partitionThe Peninsular War. of Portugal. Entre-Minho-e-Douro was to be given to Louis II. of Etruria in exchange for his Italian kingdom; Algarve and Alemtejo were to form a separate principality for Godoy; the remaining provinces were to be garrisoned by French troops until a general peace should be concluded. To give effect to these terms, General Junot hastened westward across Spain, at the head of 30,000 French soldiers and a large body of Spanish auxiliaries. So rapid were his movements that there was no time to organize effective resistance. On the 29th of November D. John, acting on the advice of Sir Sidney Smith, British naval commander in the Tagus, appointed a council of regency and sailed for Brazil, convoyed by Sir Sidney Smith’s squadron. For a detailed account of the subsequent military operations, see Peninsular War.
Junot, who was everywhere well received by the Portuguese democrats, entered Lisbon at the end of November 1807. He assumed command of the Portuguese army, divided the kingdom into military governments, and, on the 1st of February 1808 announced that the BraganzaInvasion by Junot, November 1807–August 1808. dynasty had forfeited its right to the throne. He himself hoped to succeed D. John and sought to conciliate the Portuguese by reducing the requisition demanded by Napoleon from 40,000,000 francs to 20,000,000. But the action of the French troops in occupying the fortresses of northern Spain provoked in May 1808 a general rising in that country, which soon spread to Portugal. The Spanish garrison in Oporto expelled the French governor and declared for the Braganzas, compelling Junot to march towards the north. He left Lisbon under the control of a regency, headed by the bishop of Oporto, who applied to Great Britain for help, promoted an insurrection against the French, and organized juntas (committees) of government in the larger towns. On the 1st of August 1808 Sir Arthur Wellesley, with 9000 British troops, landed at Figueira da Foz. He defeated a French division at Rolica (“Roleia”) on the 17th, and on the 21st won a victory over Junot at Vimeiro (“Vimiera”). Fearing an attack by Portuguese auxiliaries and the arrival of British reinforcements under Sir John Moore, Junot signed the convention of Cintra by which, on the 30th of August 1808, he agreed to evacuate Portugal (see Wellington). The regency appointed by D. John was now reconstituted and in October Sir John Moore assumed command of all the allied troops in Portugal. From Lisbon Moore marched north-eastward with about 32,000 men to assist the Spanish armies against Napoleon; his subsequent retreat to join Sir David Baird in Galicia, in January 1809, diverted the pursuing army under Napoleon to the north-west, and temporarily saved Portugal from attack.
In February Major-General William Carr Beresford was given command of the Portuguese army. Organized and by disciplined by British officers, the native troops played a gallant part in the subsequent campaigns. In March 1809 the second invasion of Portugal began;Invasion by Soult, March–May 1809. Soult crossed the Galician frontier and captured Oporto, while an auxiliary force under General Lapisse advanced from Salamanca. On the 22nd of April, however, Wellesley, who had been recalled after the convention of Cintra, landed in Lisbon. On the 12th of May he forced the passage of the Douro, subsequently retaking Oporto and pursuing Soult into Spain. Valuable assistance had been rendered by the Portuguese generals Antonio da Silveira and Manoel de Brito Mousinho—the first a leader, the second an organizer.
After the battle of Wagram (July 6, 1809) the French armies in the Peninsula received large reinforcements, and Marshal Masséna, with 120,000 men, was ordered to operate against Portugal. He crossed the frontier in June 1810 and besieged Almeida, which capitulatedInvasion by Masséna, June 1810–April 1811. on the 27th of August. Wellesley, who had now become Viscount Wellington, opposed his march southwards, and won a victory at Bussaco on the 27th of September, but Masséna subsequently turned the position of the allied army on the Serra de Bussaco, and caused Wellington to fall back upon the fortified lines which he had already constructed at Torres Vedras. Here he stood upon the defensive until the invaders should be defeated by starvation. The Portuguese troops cut Masséna’s communications; the peasants, under instructions from Wellington, had already laid waste their own farms, destroyed the roads and bridges by which Masséna might retreat, and burned their boats on the Tagus. On the 5th of March 1811, after a winter of terrible sufferings, Masséna’s retreat began; he was harassed by the allied troops all the way to Sabugal, where the last rearguard action in Portugal took place on the 3rd of April. The invaders retired with a loss of nearly 30,000 men; Almeida was retaken on the 6th; and the remainder of the war was fought out on Spanish and French soil. The Portuguese troops remained under Wellington’s command until 1814, and distinguished themselves in many actions, notably at Salamanca and on the Nivelle.
At the congress of Vienna (1814–1815) Portugal was represented by three plenipotentiaries, who were instructed to press for the retrocession of Olivenza and to oppose the restoration of French Guiana, which the Brazilians had conquered in 1809. Neither object was attained;Results of the War and this failure, which was attributed to the lack of British support, hastened the reaction against British influence which had already begun. Since 1808 Portugal had theoretically been governed by the regency representing D. John. But as the regency was corrupt and unable to co-operate with Wellington and Beresford, the British government had demanded that Sir Charles Stuart (son of the Sir Charles Stuart mentioned above) should be appointed one of its members. The real control of affairs soon afterwards passed into the strong hands of Stuart and Beresford; and while the war lasted the Portuguese acquiesced in what was in fact an autocracy exercised by foreigners. In 1815, however, they desired to resume their independence. A further cause of dissatisfaction was the mutual jealousy of Portugal and Brazil. The colony claimed as high a political status as the mother-country, and by a decree dated the 16th of January 1815 it was raised to the rank of a separate kingdom. Thenceforward, until 1822, the Portuguese sovereignty was styled the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. The importance of this change became apparent when Queen Maria I. died (March 1816) and D. John succeeded to the united thrones as John VI. The king refused to leave Brazil, partly owing to the intrigues of Carlota Joaquina, who hoped to become queen of an independent Brazilian kingdom. Thus Portugal, which had been almost ruined by the war, was now humiliated by the failure of her diplomacy at Vienna and by her continued dependence upon Great Britain and Brazil. The resultant discontent found expression in the cry of “Portugal for the Portuguese” and in the demand for a constitution.
In 1817 a military revolt (pronunciamento) in Lisbon was crushed by Beresford, and the leader, General Gomes Freire de Andrade, was executed; but on the 16th of August 1820, after Beresford had sailed to Brazil to secure the return of John VI., a second rising took placeThe Con- stitutional Movement, 1820–1826. in Oporto. It soon spread southward. A new council of regency was established in Lisbon, the British oihcers were expelled from the army; Beresford, on his return from Brazil, was not permitted to land; a constituent assembly was summoned. This body suppressed the Inquisition and drew up a highly democratic constitution, by which all citizens were declared equal before the law and eligible to any office; all class privileges were abolished, the liberty of the Press was guaranteed, and the government of the country was vested in a single chamber, subject only to the suspensive veto of the Crown. So extreme a change was disliked by most of the powers and by many Portuguese, especially those of the clerical party. Great Britain insisted on the return of John VI., who entrusted the government of Brazil to his elder son D. Pedro and landed in Portugal on the 3rd of July 1821. In 1822, on the advice of ​ D. Pedro, he swore to obey the constitution (thenceforward known as the “constitution of 1822”). But his younger son, D. Miguel, and the queen, Carlota Joaquina, refused to take the oath; and in December 1822 sentence of banishment was pronounced against them, though not enforced. They had many supporters at home and abroad. French troops had invaded Spain in the interests of Ferdinand VII. (1823), and the French government was prepared to countenance the absolutist party in Portugal in order to check British influence there. Another military revolt broke out in Traz-os-Montes on the 3rd of February 1823, its leader being the count of Amarante, who was opposed to the constitution. D. Miguel appealed to the army to “restore liberty to their king,” and the army, incensed by the loss of Brazil (1822), gave him almost unanimous support. At this juncture John VI., vainly seeking for a compromise, abrogated the constitution of 1822, but appointed as his minister D. Pedro de Sousa Holstein, count (afterwards duke) of Palmella and leader of the “English” or constitutional party. These half-measures did not satisfy D. Miguel, whose soldiers seized the royal palace in Lisbon on the 30th of April 1824. Palmella was arrested, and John VI. forced to take refuge on the British flagship in the Tagus. But the united action of the foreign ministers restored the king and reinstated Palmella; the insurrection was crushed; D. Miguel submitted and went into exile (June 1824).
In Brazil also a revolution had taken place. The Brazilians demanded complete independence, and D. Pedro sided with them. The Portuguese garrison of Rio de Janeiro was overpowered; on the 7th of September 1822 D. Pedro declared the country independent, and on the 12th of October he was proclaimed constitutional emperor. He took no notice of the constituent assembly in Lisbon, which on the 19th of September had ordered him to return to Portugal on pain of forfeiting his right to inherit the Portuguese Crown. By the end of 1823 all Portuguese resistance to the new régime in Brazil had been overcome.
John VI. died on the 10th of March 1826, leaving (by will) his daughter D. Isabel Maria as regent for Pedro I. of Brazil, who now became Pedro IV. of Portugal. A crisis was evidently imminent, for Portugal would not tolerate an absentee sovereign who was far more Brazilian than Portuguese. The unsatisfied ambition of Carlota Joaquina and the hostility between absolutists and constitutionalists might at any moment precipitate a civil war. To conciliate the Portuguese, Pedro IV. drew up a charter (known as the “charter of 1826”) which provided for moderate parliamentary government on the British model. To conciliate the Brazilians, he undertook (by decree dated May 2nd 1826) to surrender the Portuguese Crown to his daughter D. Maria da Gloria (then aged seven); but this abdication was made contingent upon her marriage with her uncle D. Miguel, who was first required to swear fidelity to the charter. 8. Constitutional Government.-The charter of 1826 forms the basis of the present Portuguese constitution and the starting point of modern Portuguese history. That history comprises four periods: (a) From 1826 to 1834 the clerical and absolutist parties led by D. Miguel united every reactionary element throughout the kingdom in a last unsuccessful stand against constitutional government; (b) From 1834 to 1853 the main problem for Portuguese statesmen was whether the constitution, now accepted as inevitable, should embody the radical ideas of 1822 or the moderate ideas of 1826; (c) From 1853 to 1889 there was a period of transition marked by the rise of three new parties-Progressive, Regenerator, Republican; (d) From 1889 to 1908 the Progressives and Regenerators monopolized the control of public affairs, but the strength of Republicanism was not to be gauged by its representation in the Cortes. At the beginning of the 20th century the question whether the monarchy should be replaced by a republic had become a living political issue, which was decided by the revolution of October 5, 1919.
The charter was brought to Lisbon by Sir Charles Stuart in July 1826. The absolutists had hoped that D. Pedro would abdicate unconditionally in favour of D. Miguel, and the council of regency at first refused to publish the charter. They were forced to do so (July 12) by a pronunciamento issued by D. João Carlos de Saldanha de Oliveira e Daun, count of Saldanha and commander of the army in Oporto. Saldanha, a prominent constitutionalists, threatened to march on Lisbon if the regency did not swear obedience to the charter by the 31st of July. Amid wild enthusiasm the charter was proclaimed on that day, and on the 3rd of August Saldanha became head of a Liberal ministry. An absolutist counter-revolution at once broke out in the north. It was organized by the marquess of Chaves, and supported openly by the Church and the Miguelite majority of the army; secret assistance was also given by Spain. As civil war appeared imminent, Canning dispatched 5000 British troops under Sir William Clinton to restore order, and to disband the troops under Chaves. By March 1827 Clinton and Saldanha had secured the acceptance of the charter throughout Portugal.
In October 1826 D. Miguel also swore to obey the charter and was betrothed to his niece D. Maria da Gloria (Maria II.). Pedro IV. appointed him regent in July 1827 and in February 1828 he landed in Lisbon, where he was received with cries of “Viva D. Miguel I., rei absoluto!” In March he dissolved the parliament which had met in accordance with the charter. In April the Tory ministry under Wellington withdrew Clinton’s division, which was the mainstay of the charter. In May D. Miguel summoned a cortes of the ancient type, which offered him the Crown; and on the 7th of July 1828 he took the oath as king. Saldanha, Palmella, the count of Villa Flor (afterwards duke of Terceira), and the other constitutionalists leaders were driven into exile, while scores of their adherents were executed and thousands imprisoned. Austria and Spain supported D. Miguel, who was able to dispose of the vast wealth of Carlota Joaquina; Great Britain and France remained neutral. Only the emperor D. Pedro and a handful of exiles upheld the cause of Maria II., who returned to Brazil in 1829.
The Azores, although the majority of their inhabitants favoured absolutism, now became a centre of resistance to D. Miguel. In 1828 the garrison of Angra declared for Maria II., endured a siege lasting four months, and finally took refuge in the island of Terceira, where it was reinforced by volunteers from Brazil and constitutionalists refugees from England and France. In March 1829 Palmella established a regency on the island, on behalf of Maria II.; and D. Miguel’s fleet was defeated in Praia Bay on the 12th of August. Fortune played into the hands of Palmella, Saldanha, Villa Flor and their followers in Terceira. In 1830 a Whig ministry came into office in Great Britain; the “July revolution” placed Louis Philippe on the throne of France; Carlota Joaquina, the power behind D. Miguel’s throne, died on the 7th of January. The fanaticism of the clerical and absolutist parties in Portugal (collectively termed apostolicos) was enhanced by recrudescence of Sebastianism. Men saw in the brutal boor D. Miguel (q.v.) a personification of the hero-king Sebastian, whose second advent had been expected for two and a half centuries. In the orgy of persecution, outrages were committed on British and French subjects; and a French squadron retaliated by seizing D. Miguel’s fleet in the Tagus (July 1831). In Brazil, D. Pedro abdicated (April 1831); he determined to return to Europe and conduct in person a campaign for the restoration of Maria II. He was received with enthusiasm by Louis Philippe. In Great Britain Palmella raised a loan of £2,000,000 and purchased a small fleet, of which Captain Sartorius, a retired British naval officer, was appointed admiral. In February 1832 the “Liberators,” as they were styled, sailed from Belleisle to the Azores, with D. Pedro aboard the flagship. In July they reached Portugal and occupied Oporto, but the expected constitutionalists rising did not take place. The country was almost unanimous in its loyalty to D. Miguel, who had 80,000 troops against the 6500 (including 500 French and 300 British) of D. Pedro. But the Miguelites had no navy, and no competent general. They besieged D. Pedro in Oporto from July 1832 to July 1833, when the duke of Terceira and ​ Captain Charles Napier, who had succeeded Sartorius, effected a daring and successful diversion which resulted in the capture of Lisbon (July 24, 1833). Maria II. arrived from France in September. The war went in her favour, largely owing to the brilliant generalship of Saldanha and the financial straits to which D. Miguel was reduced. In April 1834 a Quadruple Alliance was concluded between France, Spain, Great Britain and the government of Maria II. The allied army defeated the Miguelites at Asseiceira on the 16th of May, and D. Miguel surrendered at Evora-Monte on the 24th. By the convention of Evora-Monte he was condemned to perpetual banishment from the Peninsula. On the 24th of September D. Pedro died. During the few months in which he acted as regent for his daughter, he had transformed Portugal from a semi-feudal into a modern state. Tithes, many hereditary privileges and all monopolies were abolished; every convent was closed and its property nationalized; the Jesuits, who had returned after the death of Pombal, were again expelled; the charter of 1826 was restored.
Maria II. was fifteen years old at her accession. She was twice married—in December 1834 to Augustus, duke of Leuchtenberg, who died four months afterwards; and in April .1836 to Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, who received the title of king consort in September 1837. BothMaria II., 1834–1853. the queen and the king consort were strangers to Portugal, and could exercise little control over the turbulent factions whose intrigues and pronunciameutor made orderly government impossible. There were three political parties: the Miguelites, who were still strong enough to cause trouble; the Chartists, who advocated the principles of 1826; the Septembrists, who advocated those of 1822 and took their name from the successful coup d’état of the 9th-11th of September 1836. By this coup d’état the constitution of 1822 was substituted for the charter of 1826; and a Septembrist ministry under the Viscount sa da Bandeira replaced the Chartist ministry under Saldanha, Terceira. and Palmella. A counterrevolution, planned in the royal palace at Belem and hence known as the Belcmzada, was frustrated in November 1836; and in 1837 a Chartist insurrection was crushed after severe fighting. This was known as the “War of the Marshals,” from the rank of the two Chartist leaders, Saldanha and Terceira. In 1839 a moderate ministry took office, with Antonio Bermudo da Costa Cabral as its real, though not its ostensible, head. A pramuzcriameuto by Costa Cabral led to the restoration of the charter on the 10th of February 1842, and a Cabral government was formed under the nominal leadership of Terceira. Costa Cabral, who became count of Thomar in 1845, ruled despotically, despite many insurrections, until May 1846, when a coalition of Miguelites, Septembrists and Chartist malcontents drove him into exile. On this occasion the rebellion—known as the “War of Maria da Fonte”—proved formidable. Oporto was held by a revolutionary junta, and Saldanha, who had become prime minister, persuaded the Quadruple Alliance to intervene. In June 1847 the Oporto junta surrendered, under promise of an amnesty, to a combined British and Spanish force, and the convention of Gramido (July 24, 1847) ended the war. Saldanha was rewarded with a dukedom, and retained office until Tune 1849. The dictatorial rule of his successor—the returned exile, Thomar—provoked another successful rising on the 7th of April 1851. Thomar again fled from the country; Saldanha again became prime minister, but at the head of a moderate coalition. He remained in power during five years of unbroken peace (1851–1856), and carried many useful reforms. The most important of these was the so-called Additional Act of the 5th of July 1852, which amended the charter of 1826 by providing for the direct election of deputies, the decentralization of the executive, the creation of representative municipal councils, and the abolition of capital punishment for political offences. Maria II. died on the 13th of November 1853, and was succeeded by her eldestison D. Pedro, during whose ministry the king consort D. Ferdinand acted as regent.
Under the brothers Pedro V. (1853–1861) and Luiz (1861–1889) Portugal obtained a respite from civil strife. Both monarchs delegated the conduct of affairs to their ministers, who constructed new railways, reformed the educational system, and gradually improved the economicPedro V. and Luiz. condition of the kingdom and its colonies. Pedro V. came of age and assumed the government on the 16th of November 1855, in 1857 he married Princess Stephanie of Hohenzollern. The only political disturbance which marred the peace of his reign arose out of the seizure of the “Charles et Georges,” a French slave-trader which was captured off Mozambique. Napoleon III. sent a fleet to the Tagus and demanded an indemnity, which Portugal was compelled to pay. In 1869–1861 cholera ravaged the whole kingdom, and especially the capital. The king died of this disease on the 11th of November 1861, and two of his brothers, D. Ferdinand and D. John, died shortly afterwards. D. Luiz was absent at the time, and his father D. Ferdinand again became regent until his return, soon after which (1862) the new king married Maria Pia, daughter of Victor Emanuel II. of Italy. In 1869 slavery was abolished in every Portuguese colony. In 1870 the duke of Saldanha, the last survivor of the turbulent statesmen of Queen Maria's reign, threatened an appeal to arms if the king would not dismiss his minister, the duke of Loulé, an advanced Radical and Freemason, whose influence, dating from the reign of Pedro V., was viewed with disfavour by Saldanha, as well as by more conservative politicians. The king yielded; and Saldanha himself became prime minister, retaining office until 1874, when, at the age of 80, he was sent as ambassador to London. He had been by far the most influential man in Portugal, and his death in 1876 was followed by a regrouping of political parties.
The party of the Regenerators (Regeneradores), formed in 1852 out of a coalition of Septembrists and Chartists, had already been disintegrated. Its more radical elements, known at first as the Historic Left, were in 1877 reorganized as the Progressives (Progressistas).Political Parties. Its more conservative elements carried on the tradition and retained the name of the original Regenerators. Besides these two monarchist parties—the Regenerators or Conservative right and the Progressives or Constitutional left—a strong Republican party was formed in 1881. There were also the Miguelites, active but impotent intriguers; and the advocates of Iberian union, who became prominent in 1867, 1869, 1874, and especially in July 1872, when many well known politicians were implicated in a fantastic conspiracy for the establishment of an Iberian republic. Portuguese nationalism was too strong for these advocates of union with Spain, whose propaganda was discredited as soon as any national interest was seriously endangered. This was the case in 1872, when Great Britain claimed the southern part of Delagoa Bay. The claim was submitted to the arbitration of M. Thiers, the French president, whose successor, Marshal Macmahon, delivered an award in favour of Portugal on the 19th of April 1875 (see Delagoa Bay).
King Luiz died on the 19th of October 1889, and was succeeded by his son D. Carlos (q.v.). Colonial affairs had for some time received close attention. In 1885 Portugal recognized the Congo Free State, and admitted its sovereignty over the north bank of the LowerColonial Affairs: Relations with Great Britain. Congo, although, in an unratified treaty of 1884, Great Britain had recognized both banks of the river as Portuguese territory. In 1886 Germany, France and Portugal defined by treaty the limits of their adjacent spheres of influence, and on the 26th of March 1887 Macao, hitherto leased to Portugal, was formally ceded by the Chinese government. In 1889 a resolution unanimously adopted by both chambers invited the ministry, of which José de Castro was president and Barros Gomes foreign minister, to press forward the territorial claims of Portugal in East and Central Africa. Shortly after the accession of King Carlos this active policy led to a dispute with Great Britain (see Africa, § 5). A Portuguese force under Major Serpa Pinto had invaded the ​ Shiré highlands in order to forestall their annexation by the British, and the British government demanded satisfaction. Public opinion rendered compliance difficult until a British squadron was dispatched to the mouth of the Tagus, and the British minister presented an ultimatum (Jan. 11, 1890), requiring the withdrawal of all Portuguese forces from the Shire. Barros Gomes was then able to yield under protest; but disturbances at once broke out in Lisbon and Oporto, and the ministry resigned. A coalition government took office on the 14th of January, with Serpa Pimentel as prime minister and J. Hintze-Ribeiro as foreign minister. The king, in a letter to Queen Victoria, declined for the time being to receive the Order of the Garter, which had just been offered him, and on the 6th of February the government addressed a circular letter to the powers, proposing to submit the issues in dispute to a European conference. Meanwhile a Republican rising was suppressed in Lisbon, and many suspected officers were degraded. On the 20th of August an Anglo-Portuguese agreement was negotiated in London, but the cortes refused to ratify it. The ministry therefore resigned, and on the 14th of October Abreu e Sousa fomed a new cabinet, which arranged with Great Britain a modus vivemii for six months, pending the conclusion of another agreement. The British government was ready to make concessions, but more than one collision took place between Portuguese troops in Manica and the forces of the British South Africa Company. The defeat of the Portuguese was the chief cause of a serious military rising in Oporto, which broke out on the 30th of January 1891. The suppression of this rising so far enhanced the prestige of the cabinet that the cortes forthwith approved the convention with Great Britain; and the dehnitive treaty, by which Portugal abandoned all claim to a trans-African dominion, was ratified by the cortes on the 28th of May. Relations with Great Britain, however, remained far from cordial until the celebration of the fourth centenary of Vasco da Gama’s voyage to India afforded the opportunity for a rapprochement in 1898.
The extravagant management of the railways guaranteed by the state had entailed such heavy deficits that the payment of the coupon of the railway state loan, due on the of 2nd of January 1892 had to be suspended. Thus arose a serious financial crisis, involving three changesFinancial Crisis of 1892. of ministry. In May the Portuguese government committed a formal act of bankruptcy by issuing a decree reducing the amount then due to foreign bondholders by two-thirds. The bondholders’ committees, supported by some of the powers concerned, protested against this illegal action. A compromise was at last arranged by Hintze-Ribeiro, who assumed office in February 1895 as head of a Progressive government. His cabinet promised only slightly better terms to the foreign bondholders, but it relieved the financial tension in some degree; and by coming to an agreement with Germany in East Africa and with Great Britain in South Africa as to the delimitation of frontiers, he minimized the risks of conflict with either country.
Portugal observed neutrality on the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War, but the permission it conceded to the British consul at Lourenço Marques to search for contraband of war among goods imported there, and the free passage accorded to an armed force under General Carrington from Beira through Portuguese territory to Rhodesia, were vehemently attacked in the Press and at public meetings. The award of the Swiss arbitrators in the matter of the Delagoa Bay railway was given in 1900 (see Lourenço Marques). Portugal was condemned to pay 15,314,000 francs compensation; and this sum (less than was expected) was immediately raised by loan from the Portuguese Tobacco Company.
A law of the 8th of August 1901 regulated the conditions of election to the lower house, thus ending a long series of parliamentary reforms. The most important of these had provided for the gradual extinction of the right of hereditary peers to sit in the upper house (July 24, 1885), had reduced the number of deputies and fixed the qualifications required for the exercise of the franchise (March 28, 1895); and had abolished the electiveConsti-tutional Changes, 1885–1901. branch in the upper house (Sept. 25, 1895). These changes left untouched the most serious evil in Portuguese public life. The two great parties, Progressives and Regenerators, were largely composed of professional politicians whose votes were determined by their private interests. Skilful manipulation of the electoral returns enabled these two parties to hold office in fairly regular rotation; hence arose the popular nickname of rotativos, applied to Progressives and Regenerators alike. The same methods enabled them to obstruct the election of Republican and Independent candidates.
Under such a system of government it was natural that economic issues should still dominate Portuguese politics at the beginning of the 20th century. Year by year the budget showed a deficit, and the indebtedness of the state increased. A large proportion of theRepublican-ism and the Army. expenditure was unproductive, corruption was rife in the public services, and the poverty of the overtaxed peasant and artisan classes gave rise to sporadic outbreaks of violence. In 1902 the students at Coimbra and Oporto organized an agitation against the proposed conversion of the gold debt; and anti-clerical riots, followed by a strike, rendered necessary the proclamation of martial law in Aveiro. In January 1903 an insurrection of peasants armed with scythes took place at Fundao; the imposition of a new market tax provoked riots at Coimbra in March; a serious strike of weavers took place at Oporto in June. In the same year the general distress was intensified by the failure of the Rural and Mortgage Bank of Brazil. In these circumstances Republicanism rapidly gained ground. Its real strength was masked by the system which enabled any ministry in power to control the election of candidates to the cortes. In April 1806, for example, only one Republican deputy was returned, although it was notorious that the Republican party could command a majority in many constituencies. Though the army as a whole was monarchist, certain regiments had become imbued with revolutionary ideals, which were fortified by the unwise employment of soldiers and sailors for the suppression of industrial disputes. During the Weavers' strike the cruiser “Rainha D. Amelia” was converted into a temporary prison, and at Fundao, Aveiro and elsewhere troops had been ordered to fire on men with whom they sympathized. In November 1902, while King Carlos was in England, a military rising was organized in Oporto, but never took place. On the 23rd of April 1905 a body of cavalry and artillery mutinied in Lisbon and proclaimed a republic; but they were overpowered and ultimately transported to Mozambique. Such incidents, unimportant in themselves, were symptoms of a dangerous state of public opinion, which was debarred from expression in the cortes.
The constitution empowered the sovereign to veto any bill, to dissolve or prorogue the cortes, and to govern by means of ministerial decrees. The use of these extraordinary powers would be a breach of constitutional practice, but not of law. King Carlos had already beenThe Dic-tatorship, 1906–1908. criticized for alleged excessive interferences in politics. An experiment in government by decree had been made in May—October 1894; it was repeated in September 1905, when the king consented to prorogue the cortes until January 1906 in order to postpone discussion of the terms upon which the tobacco monopoly was to be allocated. A general election, in February 1906, was followed by three changes of ministry, the last of which, on the 19th of May, inaugurated the régime known in Portugal as the dictadura, or dictatorship. João Franco, the new prime minister, was conspicuous among Portuguese politicians for his integrity, energy and courage; he intended to reform the national finances and administration—by constitutional means, if possible. The cortes, opened on the 6th of June 1906, was dissolved on the 14th; another election took place, preceded by an official announcement that on this occasion all votes would be fairly counted; and the Franquistas or “New Regenerators” obtained a majority. When the ​ cortes met, on the 29th of September, the opposition accused King Carlos of complicity in grave financial scandals. It was admitted that he had borrowed largely from the treasury, on the security of his civil list, and the Republican deputies accused him of endeavouring to assign the tobacco monopoly to one of his own foreign creditors, in settlement of the debt. Franco organized a coalition in defence of the Crown, but in January 1907 business in the cortes was brought to a standstill and many sittings ended in uproar. The attacks on the king were repeated at the trial of the poet Guerra Junqueiro, who was indicted for lese-majesté. All parties believed that the ministry would fall, and the rotations prepared once more to divide the spoils of office, when, on the 2nd of May 1907, João Franco reconstructed his cabinet, secured the dissolution of the cortes and announced that certain bills still under discussion would receive the force of law. His partisans in the press hailed the advent of a second Pombal, and their enthusiasm was shared by many enlightened Portuguese, who had previously held aloof from politics but now rallied to the support of an honest dictator. Backed by these forces, as well as by the king and the army, Franco effected some useful reforms. But his opponents included not only the Republicans, the professional politicians and those officials who feared inquiry, but also the magistracy, the district and municipal councils, and the large body of citizens who still believed in parliamentary government. The existing debt owed by D. Carlos to the nation was assessed at £154,000. This sum was ostensibly paid by the transference to the treasury of the royal yacht “Amelia” and certain palaces; but the cost and upkeep of the “Amelia” had been paid with public money, while the palaces had long been maintained as state property. These transactions, though perhaps necessary to save the credit of the sovereign at the least possible cost, infuriated the opposition. Newspapers and politicians openly advocated rebellion; Franco had recourse to coercion. Seditious journals were suppressed; gaols and fortresses were crowded with prisoners; the upper house, which was hostile to the dictator, was deprived of its judicial powers and reconstituted on a less democratic basis (as in 1826); the district and municipal councils were dissolved and replaced by administrative commissions nominated by the Crown (Jan. 1, 1908).
The ministerial press from time to time announced the discovery of sensational plots against the king and the dictator. It is, however, uncertain whether the assassination of King Carlos and the crown prince (see Carlos I.), on the 1st of February 1908, was part of a widelyAssassination of King Carlos. Accession of Manoel. organized conspiracy; or whether it was the act of an isolated band of fanatics, unconnected with any political party. The republican press applauded the murder; the professional politicians benefited by it. But the regicide Buica and his associates probably acted on their own initiative. The immediate results were the accession of Prince Manoel or Manuel (Emanuel II.) to the throne and the resignation of Franco, who sailed for Genoa. A coalition ministry, representing all the monarchist parties, was formed under the presidency of Admiral Ferreira do Amaral. The administrative commissions appointed by Franco were dissolved; the civil list was reduced; the upper house was reconstituted. A general election took place; in April the cortes met and the balance of power between Progressives and Regenerators was restored. On the 6th of May 1908 D. Manoel swore to uphold the constitution and was acclaimed king by the cortes. His uncle D. Affonso (b. 1865) took a similar oath as crown prince on the 22nd of March 1910.
The failure of the dictatorship and the inability of the monarchists to agree upon any common policy had discredited the existing régime, and at the general election of August 1910 the Republican candidates in Lisbon and Oporto were returned by large majorities. OnThe Revolution of 1910. the 3rd of October the murder of a distinguished Republican physician, Dr Miguel Bombarda, precipitated the revolution which had been organized to take place in Lisbon ten days later. The Republican soldiers in Lisbon, aided by armed civilians and by the warships in the Tagus, attacked the loyal garrison and municipal guards, shelled the Necessidades Palace, and after severe street-fighting (Oct. 4th-6th) became masters of the capital. The king escaped to Ericeira, and thence, with the other members of the royal family, to Gibraltar. Soon afterwards they travelled undisturbed to England, where the king was received by the duke of Orleans. Throughout Portugal the proclamation of a republic was either welcomed or accepted without further resistance. A provisional government was formed under the presidency of Dr Theophilo Braga (b. 1843), a native of the Azores, who had since 1865 been prominent among Portuguese men of letters (see Literature, below). The new government undertook to carry out part of the Republican programme before summoning a constituent assembly to remodel the constitution. Among its most important acts were the expulsion of the religious congregations which had returned after 1834, the nationalization of their property, and the abolition, by decree, of the council of state, the upper house and all hereditary titles or privileges. The Republ ican programme also included the separation of Church and State, and the concession of local autonomy (on federal lines, if possible) to the provinces and colonies of Portugal.
Bibliography.—1. Sources.—There are separate articles on the Portuguese 15th- and 16th-century chroniclers, G. E. de Azurara, J. de Barros, D. de Goes, F. Lopes, J. Osorio da Fonseca, R. de Pina, G. de Resende and L. de Sousa, and on the 19th-century historians, A. Herculano and J. P. Oliveira Martins. The most important collections of documents are Collecçāo dos livros ineditos, &c., ed. J. F. Correa da Serra (11 vols., Lisbon, 1790–1804); Quadro elementar das relações politicos e diplomaticas de Portugal, ed. first by the Viscount de Santarem (1856–1861) and afterwards, under the title of Corpo diplomatico portuguez, by L. A. Rebello da Silva (vols. i.–iv.), J. J. da Silva Mendes Leal (v.–ix.) and J. C. de Freitas Moniz (x., &c.). The Collecçāo de tratados, &c. (30 vols., Lisbon, 1856–1879), was ed. successively by Viscount J. F. Borges de Castro and J. Judice Biker; it was continued by the Royal Academy as the Nova collecçāo de tratados (2 vols., Lisbon, 1890–1891). See also Portugaliae monumenta historica, ed. A. Herculano and J. J. da Silva Mendes Leal (12 parts, Lisbon, 1856–1897); Diogo Barbosa Machado, Bibliotheca lusitana (4 vols., Lisbon, 1741–1759); Innocencio da Silva and (after vol. x.) P. W. de Brito Aranha, Diccionario bibliographic portuguez (Lisbon, 1858, &c.). Periodicals containing valuable historical matter are the Archivo historico portuguez (Lisbon, 1903, &c.), the Boletim of the Lisbon Geographical Society (1873, &c.), and Portugalia (Oporto, 1898, &c.).
2. General Histories.—The Historia de Portugal, by J. P. Oliveira Martins (2 vols., 4th ed., Lisbon, 1901), is a series of brilliant impressionist studies. There is a popular illustrated Historia de Portugal, by A. Ennes, M. Pinheiro Chagas and others, in 37 parts (Lisbon, 1877–1883). See also H. Morse Stephens, Portugal, 4th ed., with additional chapter on the reign of D. Carlos, by Martin Hume (London, 1908); E. MacMurdo, History of Portugal (2 vols., London, 1888–1889); H. Schaefer, Geschichte von Portugal (5 vols., 2nd ed., Hamburg, 1874).
3. Special Periods.—A. Herculano’s classic Historia de Portugal (4 vols., Lisbon, 1846–1853) covers the period up to 1279. H. da Gama Barros, Historia da administração publica em Portugal nos seculos XII. á XV. (2 vols., Lisbon, 1895–1896) is a scientific study of the highest value. For the periods 1415–1460 and 1750–1777, see the authorities quoted under Henry the Navigator, and Pombal. A critical bibliography for the period 1460–1580 is given by K. G. Jayne, in Vasco da Garna, &c. (London, 1910). For later history, see L. A. Rebello da Silva, Historia de Portugal nos seculos XVII. e XVIII. (5 vols., Lisbon, 1860–1871); J. M. Latino Coelho, Historia de Portugal desde os, fins do XVIII. .reculo até 1814 (3 vols., Lisbon, 1874–1891); the authorities cited under Peninsular War; S. J. da Luz Soriano, Historia do guerraem Portugal (19 vols., Lisbon, 1866–1890); J. P. Oliveira Martins, Portugal contemporaneo (1826–1868), (2 vols., 4th ed., Lisbon, 1906); J. L. Freire de Carvalho, Memorias . . . para . . . a usurpagéo de D. Miguel (4 vols., Lisbon, 1841–1849); Sir C. Napier, An Account of the War . . . . between D. Pedro and D. Miguel, (2 vols., London, 1835); W. Bollaert, The Wars of Succession of Portugal and Spain, from 1821 to 1840 (2 vols., London, 1870). (K. G. J.)
Literature
The Portuguese language can be most conveniently described in relation to the other languages of the Peninsula (see Spain: Language). Portuguese literature is distinguished by the wealth and variety of its lyric poetry, by its primacy in bucolic verse and prose, by the number of its epics and historical books, by the relative slightness of the epistolary element, and by the almost complete absence of the memoir. Rich as its romanceiro is, its volume is far less than the Spanish, but the cancioneiros ​ remain to prove that the early love songs of the whole Peninsula were written in Portuguese, while the primitive prose redaction of Amadis, the prototype of all romances of chivalry, was almost certainly made in Portugal, and a native of the same country produced in the Diana of Montemôr (Montemayor) the masterpiece of the pastoral novel. The Lusiads may be called at once the most successful epic cast in the classical mould, and the most national of poems, and the great historical monuments and books of travel of the 16th and 17th centuries are worthy of a nation of explorers who carried the banner of the Quinas to the ends of the earth. On the other hand Portugal gave birth to no considerable dramatist from the time of Gil Vicente, in the 16th century, until that of Garrett in the 19th, and it has failed to develop a national drama.
Its geographical position and history have rendered Portugal very dependent for intellectual stimulus and literary culture on foreign countries, and writers on Portuguese literature are wont to divide their subjects into periods corresponding to the literary currents from abroad which have modified its evolution. To summarize, the first literary activity of Portugal was derived from Provence, and Provençal taste ruled for more than a century; the poets of the 15th century imitated the Castilians, and the 16th saw the triumph of Italian or classical influence. Spain again imposed its literary standards and models in the 17th century, France in the 18th, while the Romantic movement reached Portugal by way of England and France; and those countries, and in less degree Germany, have done much to shape the literature of the 19th century. Yet as regards the Peninsula, the literatures of Portugal and Castile act and react on one another and if the latter gave much, she also received much, for nearly every Portuguese author of renown from 1450 until the 18th century, except Antonio Ferreira, wrote in Spanish, and some, like Jorge de Montemôr and Manoel de Mello, produced masterpieces in that language and are numbered as Spanish classics. Again, in no country was the victory of the Italian Renaissance and the classical revival so complete, so enduring.
But notwithstanding all its dependence on classical and foreign authors, Portuguese literature has a distinct individuality which appears in the romanceiro, in the songs named cantares de amigo of the cancioneiros, in the Chronicles of Fernão Lopes, in the Historia tragico-maritima, in the plays of Gil Vicente, in the bucolic verse and prose of the early 16th century, in the Letters of Marianna Alcoforado and, above all, in The Lusiads.
Early Period.—Though no literary documents belonging to the first century of Portuguese history have survived, there is evidence that an indigenous popular poetry both sacred and profane existed, and while Provengal influences moulded the manifestations of poetical talent forPoetry. nearly two hundred years, they did not originate them. The close relations that prevailed between the reigning houses of Portugal, Provence and Aragon, cemented by intermarriages, introduced a knowledge of the gay science, but it reached Portugal by many other ways—by the crusaders who came to help in fighting the Moors, by the foreign prelates who occupied Peninsular sees, by the monastic and military orders who founded establishments in Portugal, by the visits of individual singers to court and baronial houses, but chiefly perhaps by the pilgrims who streamed from every country along the Frankish way to the far-famed shrine of Santiago de Compostela. Already by the end of the 12th century the lyric poetry of the troubadours had found cultivators in Portugal, and a few compositions which have come down to us bear a date slightly anterior to the year 1200. One of the earliest singers was D. Gil Sanches, an illegitimate son of Sancho I., and we possess a cantar de amigo in Galician-Portuguese, the first literary vehicle of the whole Peninsula, which appears to be the work of Sancho himself, and addressed to his concubine, A. Ribeirinha. The pre-Alphonsine period to which these men belong runs from 1200 to 1245 and produced little of moment, but in 1248 the accession of King Alphonso III., who had lived thirteen years in France, inaugurated a time of active and rich production which is illustrated in the Cancioneiro da Ajuda, the oldest collection of Peninsular verse. The apogee of palace poetry dates from 1275 to 1280, when young King Diniz displayed his exceptional talents in a circle formed by the best troubadours of his father Alphonso III. and the veterans of his grandfather Alphonso II., whose song-book, Cantigas de S. Maria, contains the choicest religious verse of the age. Diniz, who had been educated by Amyeric of Cahors, proved himself the most fecund poetking of his day, though the pleiad of fidalgos forming his court, and the jograes who flocked there from all parts, were fewer in number, less productive, and lacked the originality, vigour and brilliance of the singers who versified round Alphonso III. The principal names of the Dionysian period (1284–1325) which is illustrated in the Cancioneiro da Vaticano are the king himself and his bastards D. Alphonso Sanches and D. Pedro, count of Barcellos. Of the two last, the former sings of love well and sincerely, while the latter is represented by love songs replete with false sentiment and by some rather gross songs of maldizer, a form which, if it rarely contains much poetical feeling or literary value, throws considerable light on the society of the time.
The verses of Diniz, essentially a love poet, are conventional in tone and form, but he can write pretty ballads and pastorals when he allows himself to be natural. The Portuguese troubadours belonged to all social classes, and even included a few priests, and though love was their favourite topic they used every kind of verse, and in satire they hold the palm. In other respects they are inferior to their Provengal masters. Speaking generally, the cancioneiros form monotonous reading owing to their poverty of ideas and conventionality of metrical forms and expression, but here and there men of talent who were poets by profession and better acquainted with Provençal literature endeavoured to lend their work variety by the use of difficult processes like the lexaprem and by introducing new forms like the pastorela and the descort. It is curious to note that no heroic songs are met with in the cancioneiros; they are all with one exception purely lyrical in form and tone. The death of King Diniz proved a severe blow to troubadour verse, and the reign of his successor Alphonso IV. witnessed a profound decadence of court poetry, while there is not a single poem by a Portuguese author in the last half of the 14th century, and only the names of a few authors have survived, among them the Galicians Vasco Pires de Camoens, an ancestor of Luiz de Camoens, and the typical lover Macias. The romanceiro, comprising romances of adventures, war and chivalry, together with religious and sea songs, forms a rich collection of ballad poetry which continued in process of elaboration throughout the whole of the middle ages, but unfortunately the oldest specimens have perished and scarcely any of those existing bear a date anterior to the 15th century.
Epic poetry in Portugal developed much later than lyric, but the signal victory of the united Christian hosts over the Moors at the battle of the Salado in 1340 gave occasion to an epic by Alphonso Giraldes of which some fragments remain.
The first frankly literary prose documents appear in the 14th century, and consist of chronicles, lives of saints and genealogical treatises. The more important are the Chronica breve do archivo nacional, the Chronicas de S. Cruz de Coimbra, the Chronica da conquista do Algarve and theEarly Prose. Livros dos Linhagens, aristocratic registers, portions of which, like the story of King Arthur, have considerable literary interest. All the above may be found in the Portugaliae monumenta historica, scriptores, while the Life of St Elizabeth of Portugal is included in the Monarchia lusitana; Romania has printed the following hagiographical texts belonging to the same century—the Vida de Eufrosina, the Vida de Maria Egypcia and the Vida de Sancto Amaro; the Vida de Santo Eloy has appeared in the Instituto and the Vida dos Santos Barlaão e Josafate has been issued by the Lisbon Academy of Sciences.
Romances of chivalry belonging to the various cycles must have penetrated into Portugal at an early date, and the Nabiliario of the Conde D. Pedro contains the genealogy of Arthur and the adventures of Lear and Merlin. There exists a mid-14th-century Historia do Santo Graal, and an unprinted Josep ​ ab Aramadia, while, though the MS. is lost, we have abundant evidence of the existence of a primitive Portuguese prose redaction of Amadis de Gaula anterior to the present Spanish text. Furthermore, the Livro de Esopo published by Dr Leite de Vasconcellos also belongs to the period, and there are other works in MS.
The 15th Century.—In the reign of John I. the court became an important literary centre, the king himself composed a Livro de Montario, so far unedited, and his sons are rightly described as Camoens as inclyta geração, altos Infantes.” King Edward (Duarte) collected a precious library composed of the ancient classics, some translated by his order, Prose. as well as medieval poems and histories, and he wrote a moral treatise Leal comselheiro, and hints on horsemanship, or Livro do ensinança de bem cavalgar toda sella. His brother D. Pedro also wrote a moral treatise Do virtuoso Bemfeitoria, and caused Vegetius's De re militari and Cicero's De officiis to be turned into Portuguese. This travelled prince brought back from Venice a MS. of Marco Polo, the gift of the Senate, and is still remembered by the people through the story Livro das viagens do Infante D. Pedro a quo! andou ds sete partidas do mundo, reprinted almost yearly, of which he is the hero. All the monarchs of the 15th century were highly educated men and patrons of letters; indeed, even that typical medieval knight Alphonso V. confesses, in his correspondence with Azurara, that the sword avails nothing without the pen. The age is noted for its chronicles, beginning with the anonymous life of the Portuguese Cid, the Holy Constable Nuno Alvares Pereira, told in charming infantile prose, the translated Chronica da fundição do moesteyro de Sam Vicente, and the Vida de D. Tello. Fernão Lopes (q.v.), the father of Portuguese history and author of chronicles of King Pedro, King Ferdinand and King John I., has been called by Southey the best chronicler of any age or nation. Gomes Eannes de Azurara completed Lopes’s chronicle of King John by describing the capture of Ceuta, and wrote a chronicle of D. Pedro de Menezes, governor of the town down to 1437, and a chronicle of D. Duarte de Menezes, captain of Alcacer, but his capital work is the chronicle of the conquest of Guinea (see Azurara).
Though not a great chronicler or an artist like Lopes, Ruy de Pina (q.v.) is free from the rhetorical defects of Azurara, and his chronicles of King Edward and King Alphonso V. are characterized by unusual frankness, and meritorious both as history and literature. All these three writers combined the posts of keeper of the archives and royal chronicler, and were, in fact, the king's men, though Lopes at least seems rather the historian of a people than the oracle of a monarch. Garcia de Resende (q.v.) appropriated Pina’s chronicle of King John II., and after adding a wealth of anecdote and gossip and casting the glamour of poetry over a somewhat dry record, he reissued it under his own name. The taste for romances of chivalry continued throughout the 15th century, but of all that were produced the only one that has come down to us is the Estorea do Imperador Vespasiano, an introduction to the Graal Cycle, based on the apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus.
The Constable D. Pedro of Portugal, son of the prince of that name already referred to, has left some verses marked by elevation of thought and deep feeling, the Satyra de felice e infelice vida, and the death of his sister inspired his Tragedia de Io reina Isabel; but he is best remembered by his Coplas del contempt del mundo in the Cancioneiro Verse. Geral. Though he actually drafted the first in his native tongue, all these poems are in Castilian, and D. Pedro is one of the first representatives of those Spanish influences which set aside the Provengal manner and in its place adopted a taste for allegory and a reverence for classical antiquity, both imported from Italy. It was to the constable that the marquis de Santillana addressed his historic letter dealing with the origins of Peninsular verse. The court poetry of the reigns of King Alphonso V. and King John II., so far as it survives, is contained in the lyrical collection known as the Cancioneiro Gefal, compiled by Garcia de Resende and printed in 1516. Nearly three hundred authors are there represented by pieces in Portuguese and Castilian, and they include D. João Manuel, D. João de Menezes, João Rodrigues de Sá e Menezes, Diogo Brandao, Duarte de Brito and Fernão da Silveira. The literary progenitors of the cancioneiro were the Spanish poets Juan de Mena, Jorge Manrique, Garci-Sanchez de Badajos and Rodriguez del Padron, and its main subjects are love, satire and epigram. The epic achievements of the Portuguese in that century, the discoveries and the wars in Africa, hardly find an echo, even in the verses of those who had taken part in them. Instead, an atmosphere of artificiality surrounds these productions, and the verses that reveal genuine poetical feeling are very few. They include a lament of Garcia de Resende on the death of Ignez de Castro which probably inspired the inimitable stanzas dedicated to the same subject in The Lusiads, the Fingimento de Amores by Diogo Brandão, the Coplas of D. Pedro already referred to, and a number of minor pieces. However, some names appeared in the Concioneiro Gerale which were to be among the foremost in Portuguese literature, e.g. Bernardim Ribeiro, Christovam Falcao, Gil Vicente, and Sá de Miranda, who represent the transition between the Spanish school of the 15th and the Italian school of the 16th century, the members of which are called Os Quinhentistas. Ribeiro and Falcao, the introducers of the bucolic style, put new life into the old forms, and by their eclogues in redondilhas, breathing the deepest and most genuine feeling in verses of perfect harmony, they gave models which subsequent writers worked by but could never equal.
The Drama.—The history of the modern drama begins with religious plays, followed at a later period by moralities, and thence, by an easy transition, by the farce. This transition from the presentment of traditional types to the modern play can be traced in the works of Gil Vicente, the father of the Portuguese theatre. His first efforts belonged to the religious drama, and some of the more notable had edification for their object, e.g. the Barca do Inferno, but even in this class he soon introduces the comic element by way of relief, and in course of time he arrives at pure comedy and develops the study of character. For a detailed description and criticism of his work, see Vicente.
In the various towns where he stayed and produced his plays, writers for the stage sprang up, and these formed the Eschola Velha or school of Gil Vicente. To name the best known, Evora, the city of culture, produced Affonso Alvarez, author of religious pieces, Antonio Ribeiro, nicknamed “the Chiado,” an unfrocked friar with Gil Vicente and the Eschola Velha. a strong satirical vein who wrote farces in the Bazochian style, and his brother Jeronimo Ribeiro. In Santarem appeared Antonio Prestes, a magistrate who drew from his judicial experience but evinced more knowledge of folk-lore than dramatic talent, while Camoens himself was so far influenced by Gil Vicente, whose plays he had perhaps seen performed in Lisbon, that in spite of his Coimbra training he never exchanged the old forms for those of the classical comedy. His Amphitryons is a free imitation of the Latin, yet thoroughly national in spirit and cast in the popular redondilha; the dialogue is spirited, the situations comic. King Seleucus derives from Plutarch and has a prose prologue of real interest for the history of the stage, while Filodemo is a clever tragi-comedy in verse with prose dialogues interspersed. Another poet of the same school is Balthazar Dias, the blind poet, whose simple religious autos are still performed in the villages, and are continually reprinted, the best liked being the Auto of St Alexis, and the Auto of St Catherine. He is purely medieval in subject and spirit, his lyrics are perfect in form and expression, his diction thoroughly popular. One of the last dramatists of the 16th century belonging to the old school was Simão Machado, who wrote the Comedy of Diu and the Enchantments of Alfea, two long plays almost entirely in Spanish, and full of digressions only made tolerable by the beauty of their lyrics.
Except Camoens, all these men, though disciples of Gil Vicente, are decidedly inferior to him in dramatic invention, fecundity and power of expression, and they were generally of humble social position. Moreover the favour of the court was withdrawn on the death of Gil Vicente, and this meant much, for ​ there existed no educated middle class to support a national theatre. At the same time the old dramatists had to face the opposition of the classical school, which appealed to the cultured, and the hostility of the Inquisition, which early declared war on the popular plays on account of their grossness, and afterwards through the index prohibited altogether even the religious autos, as it had condemned the Italian comedies. The way was thus clear for the jesuits, who, with their Latin tragi-comedies or dramatized allegories written to commemorate saints or for scholastic festivals, succeeded for a time in supplanting both the popular pieces of the old school and the plays modelled on the masterpieces of Greece and Rome. The old dramatists came to write for the lower classes only, and though the school lingered on, its productions were performed solely by travelling companies at country fairs. Though we know that much has perished, the four Indexes of the 16th century give some idea of the rich repertory of the popular theatre, and of the efforts necessary to destroy it; moreover, the Spanish Index of 1559, by forbidding autos of Gil Vicente and other Portuguese authors, is interesting evidence of the extent to which they were appreciated in the neighbouring country.
The Renaissance.—The movement commonly called the Renaissance reached Portugal both indirectly through Spain and directly from Italy, with which last country it maintained close literary relations throughout the 15th century. King Alphonso V. had been the pupil of Matthew of Pisa and summoned Iustus Balduinus to his court to write the national history in Latin, while later King John II. corresponded with Politian, and early in his reign the first printing-press got to work. In the next century many famous humanists took up their abode in Portugal. Nicholas Cleynarts taught the Infant Henry, afterwards cardinal and king, and lectured on the classics at Braga and Evora, Vasaeus directed a school of Latin at Braga, and George Buchanan accompanied other foreign professors to Coimbra when King John III. reformed the university. Many distinguished Portuguese teachers returned from abroad to assist the king at the same time, among them Ayres Barbosa from Salamanca, André de Gouveia of the Parisian college of St Barbe, whom Montaigne dubbed “the greatest principal of France,” Achilles Estaco and Diogo de Teive.
At home Portugal produced André de Resende (q.v.), author of the Historia da antiguidade da cidade de Evora and De antiquitalibus Lusitaniae, and Francisco de Hollanda, painter, architect, and author of, inter alia, the Quatro dialogos da pintura antiga. Moreover, women took a share in the intellectual movement of the time, and the sisters Luisa and Angela Sigéa, Ioanna Vaz and Paula Vicente, daughter of Gil Vicente, constituted an informal female academy under the presidency of the Infanta D. Maria, daughter of King Manoel. Luisa Sigéa was both an orientalist and a Latin poetess, while Publia Hortensia de Castro, after a course of humanities, philosophy and theology, defended theses at Evora in her eighteenth year.
The Italian school was founded by Sá de Miranda (q.v.), a man of noble character who, on his return in 1526 from a six years' stay in Italy, where he had fore gathered with the leading writers of the day, initiated a reform of Portuguese literature which amounted to a revolution. He introduced and practised the forms of the sonnet, canzon, ode, epistle in oilava rlma and in tercets, and the epigram, and raised the whole tone of poetry. At the same time he gave fresh life to the national redondilha metre (medida velha) by his Carlas or Saliras which with his Eclogues, some in Portuguese, others in Castilian, are his most successful compositions. His chief disciple, Antonio Ferreira (q.v.), a convinced classicist, went further, and dropping the use of Castilian, wrote sonnets much superior in form and style, though they lack the rustic atmosphere of those of his master, while his odes and epistles are too obviously reminiscent of Horace. D. Manoel de Portugal, Pero de Andrade Caminha, Diogo Bernardes, Frei Agostinho da Cruz and André Falcao de Resende continued the erudite school, which, after considerable opposition, definitely triumphed in the person of Luiz de Camoens. The Lima of Bernardes contains some beautiful eclogues as well as carlas in the bucolic style, while the odes, sonnets, and eclogues of Frei Agostinho are full of mystic charm. Camoens (q.v.) is, as Schlegel remarked, an entire literature in himself, and some critics rate him even higher as a lyric than as an epic poet. He unites and fuses the best elements of the Italian and the popular muse, using the forms of the one to express the spirit and traditions of the other, and when he employs the medida velha, it becomes in his hands a vehicle for thought, whereas before it had usually served merely to express emotions.
His Luslads, cast in the Virgilian mould, celebrates the combination of faith and patriotism which led to the discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese, and though the voyage of Vasco da Gama occasioned its composition and formed the skeleton round which it grew, its true subject is the peito illustre lusitano. Immediately on its appearance The Lusiads took rank as the national poem par excellence, and its success moved many writers to follow in the same path; of these the most successful was Jeronymo Corte Real (q.v.). All these poems, like the Elegiada of Luis Pereira Brandao on the disaster of Al Kasr, the Pflmelro céreo de Diu of the chronicler Francisco de Andrade, and even the Affonso Africano of Quevedo, for all its futile allegory, contain striking episodes and vigorous and well-coloured descriptive passages, but they cannot compare with The Lusiads in artistic value.
The return of Śa de Miranda from Italy operated to transform the drama as well as lyric poetry. He found the stage occupied mainly by religious plays in which there appeared no trace of the Greek or Roman theatre, and, admiring what he had seen in Italy, he and his followers protested against the name auto, restored that of comedy, and substituted prose for verse. They generally chose the plays of Terence as models, yet their life is conventional and their types are not Portuguese but Roman-Italian. The revived classical comedy was thus so bound down by respect for authority as to have little chance of development, While its language consisted of a latinized prose from which the emotions were almost absent. Though it secured the favour of the humanists and the nobility, and banished the old popular plays from both court and university soon after Gil Vicente’s death, its victory was short lived. Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcellos, who produced in the Eufroslna the first prose play, really belongs to the Spanish school, yet, though he wrote under the influence of the Celeslina, which had a great vogue in Portugal, and of Roman models, his types, language and general characteristics are deeply national. However, even if they had stage qualities, the very length of this and his other plays, the Ulislpo and the Aulegraphia, would prevent their performance, but in fact they are novels in dialogue containing a treasury of popular lore and wise and witty sayings with a moral object. So decisive was the success of Jorge Ferreira’s new invention, notwithstanding its anonymity, that it decided sa de Miranda to attempt the prose comedy. He modelled himself on the Roman theatre as reflected by the plays of Ariosto, and he avowedly wrote the Eslrangelros to combat the school of Gil Vicente, while in it, as in Os Vilhalpamlos, the action takes place in Italy. Antonio Ferreira, the chief dramatist of the classical school, knew both Greek and Latin as well as Miranda, but far surpassed him in style. He attempted both comedy and tragedy, and his success in the latter branch is due to the fact that he was not content to seek inspiration from Seneca, as were most of the tragedians of the 16th century, but went straight to the fountain heads, Sophocles and Euripides. His Brislo is but a youthful essay, but his second piece, O Cioso, is almost a comedy of character, though both are Italian even in the names of the personages. Ferreira’s real claim to distinction, however, rests on Ignez de Castro (see Ferreira).
The principal form taken by prose writing in the 16th century was historical, and a pleiad of distinguished writers arose to narrate the discoveries and conquests in Asia, Africa and the ocean. Many of them saw the achievements they relate and were inspired by patriotism to record them, so that their writings ​ lack that serene atmosphere of critical appreciation which is looked for if history is to take its place as a science. In the four decades of his Asia, João de Barros, the Livy of his country, tells in simple vigorous language the “deeds achieved by the Portuguese in the discovery and conquest of the seas and lands of the Orient.” His first decade undoubtedly influenced Camoens, and together the two men fixed the Portuguese written tongue, the one by his prose, the other by his verse. The decades, which were continued by Diogo do Couto, a more critical writer and a clear and correct stylist, must be considered the noblest historical monument of the century (see Barros). Couto is also responsible for some acute observations on the causes of Portuguese decadence in the East, entitled Soldado praetico.
The word encyclopaedist fits Damião de Goes a diplomatist, traveller, humanist and bosom friend of Erasmus. One of the most critical spirits of the age, his chronicle of King Manoel, the Fortunate Monarch, which he introduced by one of Prince John, afterwards King John II., is worthy of the subject and the reign in which Portugal attained the apogee of its greatness. Goes (q.v.) wrote a number of other historical and descriptive works in Portuguese and Latin, some of which were printed during his residence in the Low Countries and contributed to his deserved fame. After twenty years of investigation at Goa, Fernao Lopes de Castanheda issued his Historia do descobrimenlo e conqnista da India pelos Portugnezes (Lisbon, 1552* 1554 and 1561), a book that ranks besides those of Barros and Couto. Antonio Galvao, who, after governing the Moluccas with rare success and integrity, had been offered the native throne of Ternate, went home in 1540, and died a pauper in a hospital, his famous treatise only appearing posthumously. The Tratado dos diversos . . . caminhos por onde a pimenta e especiaria veyo da India . . . e assim de todos os descubrimentos . . . que sac feitos ern a era de 1560 has been universally recognized as of unique historical value. Like the preceding writers, Gaspar Correia or Correa lived long years in India and embodied his intimate knowledge of its manners and customs in the picturesque prose of the Lendas da India, which embraces the events of the years 1497 to 1550. Among other historical works dealing with the East are the Commentarios de A jonso dbllbuqucrque, an account of the life of the great captain and administrator, by his natural son, and the Tratado das cousas da China e de Ormuz, by Frei Gaspar da Cruz.
Coming back to strictly Portuguese history, we have the uncritical Chronica de D. João III. by Francisco de Andrade, and the Chronica de D. Sebastião by Frei Bernardo da Cruz, who was with the king at Al Kasr al Kebir, while Miguel Leitao de Andrade, who was taken prisoner in that battle, related his experiences and preserved many popular traditions and- customs in his Miscellanea. Bishop Osorio (q.v.), a scholar of European reputation, wrote chiefly in Latin, and his capital work, a chronicle of King Manoel, is in that tongue.
The books of travel of this century are unusually important because their authors were often the first Europeans to visit or at least to study the countries they refer to. They include, to quote the more noteworthy, the Descobrimento de Frolida, the Itinerario of Antonio Tenreiro, the Verdadeira informacao das terras do Preste João by Francisco Alvares, and the Ethiopia oriental by Frei João dos Santos, both dealing with Abyssinia, the Itinerario da terra santa by Frei Pantaleao de Aveiro, and that much-translated classic, the Historia da vida do padre Francisco Xavier by Padre João de Lucena. Fernao Cardim in his Narrativa epislolar records a journey through Brazil, and Pedro Teixeira relates his experiences in Persia. But the work that holds the palm in its class is the Peregrinagao which Fernão Mendes Pinto (q.v.), the famous adventurer, composed in his old age for his children's reading. While Mendes Pinto and his book are typically Portuguese of that age, the Historia tragicamaritima, sometimes designated the prose epic of saudade, is equally characteristic of the race of seamen which produced it. This collection of twelve stories of notable wrecks which befell Portuguese ships between 1552 and 1604 contains that of the galleon “St John” on the Natal coast, an event which inspired Corte-Real's epic poem as well as some poignant stanzas in The Lnsiads, and the tales form a model of simple spontaneous popular writing.
The romance took many forms, and in two of them at least works appeared which exercised very considerable influence abroad. The Menina e moca of Bernardim Ribeiro, a tender pastoral story inspired by sandade for his lady-love, probably moved Montemor or Montemayor (q.v.) to write his Diana, and may some fifty years later have suggested the Lnsitania transforrnada to F ernao Alvares do Oriente, who, however, like Ribeiro, owes some debt to Sannazaro's Arcadia. To name the Palmeirim d'Inglaterra of Moraes (q.v.) is to mention a famous book from which, we are told, Burke quoted in the House of Commons, while Cervantes had long previously declared that it ought to be guarded as carefully as the works of Homer. Like most successful romances of chivalry, it had a numerous progeny, but its sequels, D. Dnardos by Diogo Fernandes, and D. Clarisel de Bretanha by Goncalves Lobato, are quite inferior. The historian Barros tried his youthful pen in a romance of chivalry, the Chronica do I rnperador Clarirnundo, while in another branch, and a popular one in Portugal, the Arthurian cycle, the dramatist Ferreira de Vasconcellos wrote Sagramor or Memorial das proesas da segnnda Tavola Redonda. A book of quite a different order is the Contos de proveito e exemplo by Fernandes Trancoso, containing a series of twenty-nine tales derived from tradition or imitated from Boccaccio and others, which enjoyed deserved favour for more than a century.
Samuel Usque, a Lisbon Jew, deserves a place to himself for his Consolagam as tribulaooes de Israel, where he exposes the persecutions endured by his countrymen in every age down to his time; the book takes the dialogue form, and its diction is elegant and pure. The important part taken by Portuguese prelates and theologians at the Council of Trent stimulated religious writing, most of it in Latin, but Frei Bartholomeu dos Martyres, archbishop of Braga, wrote a Cathecisrno da dontrina Christa, Frei Luiz de Granada a Comperulio de Dontrina Christa and S ermoes, all in Portuguese, and other notable pulpit orators include Diogo de Paiva de Andrade, Padre Luiz Alvares, Dom Antonio Pinheiro and Frei Miguel dos Santos, who preached at the obsequies of King Sebastian.
Among the moralists of the time three at least deserve the title of masters of prose style, Heitor Pinto for his Imagens da vida Christa, Bishop Arraez for his Dialagos, and Frei Thomé de Jesus for his noble devotional treatise T rabalhos de Jesus, while the maxims of Joanna da Gama, entitled Ditos da Freira, though lacking depth, form a curious psychological document. The ranks of scientists include the cosmographer Pedro N unes (Nonius), a famous mathematician, and the botanist Garcia da Orta, whose Colloquios dos simples e drogas was the first book to be printed in the East (1565), while the form of Aristotelian scholastic philosophy known as Philosophia conimbricensis had a succession of learned exponents. As, however, their vehicle was Latin, a mere mention must suffice, and for the same reason only the title of a notable book by Francisco Sanches can be given, the De nobili et prima nniversali seienlia quad nihil scitur.
In 1536 Fernao de Oliveira published the first Portuguese grammar, and three years later the historian Barros brought out his Cartinha para aprender a ler, and in 1540. his Gramrnatiea. Magalhaes Gandavo printed some rules on orthography in 1574. Nunes de Leao also produced a treatise on orthography in 1576 and a work on the origins of the language in 1605, and Jeronymo Cardoso gave his countrymen a Latin and Portuguese dictionary.
The 17th Century.—The gigantic efforts put forth in every department of activity during the 16th century led to the inevitable reaction. Energy was worn out, patriotic ardour declined into blind nationalist Vanity, and rhetoric. conquered style. From a literary as from a political point of View the 17th century found Portugal in a lamentable state of decadence which dated from ​ the preceding age. In 1536 the Inquisition began its work, while between 1552 and 1555 the control of higher education passed into the hands of the Jesuits. Following the Inquisition and the Jesuits came two other obstacles to the cultivation of letters, the censorship of books and the Indexes, and, as if these plagues were not enough, the Spanish domination followed. Next the taint of Gongorism appeared, and the extent to which it affected the literature of Portugal may be seen in the five volumes of the Fenix renascida, where the very titles of the poems suffice to show the utilities which occupied the attention of some of the best talents. The prevailing European fashion of literary academies was not long in reaching Portugal, and 1647 saw the foundation of the Academia dos Generosos which included in its ranks the men most illustrious by learning and social position, and in 1663 the Academia dos Singulares came into being; but with all their pedantry, extravagances and bad taste, it must be confessed that these and similar corporations tended to promote the pursuit of good literature. In bucolics there arose a worthy disciple of Ribeiro in Francisco Rodrigues Lobo (q.v.), author of the lengthy pastoral romances Corte na aldêa and Primavera, the songs in which, with his eclogues, earned him the name of the Portuguese Theocritus. The foremost literary figure of the time was the encyclopaedic Francisco Manoel de Mello (q.v.), who, though himself a Spanish classic, strove hard and successfully to free himself from subservience to Spanish forms and style. Most of the remaining lyricists of the period were steeped in Gongorism or, writing in Spanish, have no place here. It suffices to mention Soror Violente do Céo, an exalted mystic called “the tenth muse,” Bernarda Ferreira de Lacerda, author of the Soledades de Bussaco, the Laura do Anfrizo of Manoel Tagarro, the Sylvia de Lizardo of Frei Bernardo de Brito, and the poems of Frei Agostinho das Chagas, who, however, is better represented by his Cartas espirituaes. Satirical verse had two notable cultivators in D. Thomas de Noronha and Antonio Serrao de Castro, the first a natural and facile writer, the second the author of Os Ratos da Inquisiçao, a facetious poem composed during his incarceration in the dungeons of the Inquisition, while Diogo de Sousa Camacho showed abundant wit at the expense of the slaves of Gongorism and Marinism.
The gallery of epic poets is a large one, but most of their productions are little more than rhymed chronicles and have almost passed into oblivion. The Ulyssea of Gabriel Pereira de Castro describes the foundation of Lisbon by Ulysses, but, notwithstanding its plagiarism of The Lusiads and faults of taste, these ten cantos Epic Poetry. contain some masterly descriptive passages, and the ottava rima shows a harmony and flexibility to which even Camoens rarely attained; but this praise cannot be extended to the tiresome Ulyssipo of Sousa de Macedo. The Malaca couquistada of Francisco de Sá de Menezes, having Alphonso d’Albuquerque for its hero, is prosaic in form, if correct in design. Rodriguez Lobo’s twenty cantos in honour of the Holy Constable do him no credit, but the Viriato tragico by that travelled soldier Garcia de Mascarenhas has some vigorous descriptions, and critics reckon it the best epic of the second class.
In point of style the historians of the period are laboured and rhetorical; they were mostly credulous friars who wrote in their cells, and no longer, as in the 16th century, travellers and men of action who described what they had seen.History.
Frei Bernardo de Brito began his ponderous Monarchia Lusitana with the creation of man and ended it where he should have begun, with the coming of Count Henry to the Peninsula. His contribution is a mass of legends destitute of foundation or critical sense, but both here and in the Chronica de Cister he writes a good prose. Of the four continuers of Brito’s work, three are no better than their master, but Frei Antonio Brandao, who dealt with the period from King Alphonso Henriques to King John II., proved himself a man of high intelligence and a learned, conscientious historian.
Frei Luiz de Sousa, a typical monastic chronicler, although he had begun life as a soldier, worked up the materials collected by others, and after much labor limae produced the panegyrical Vida de D. Frei Bartholemeu dos martyres, the Historia de S. Domingos, and the Annaes d’el rei D. João III. His style is lucid and vivid, but he lacks the critical sense, and the speeches he puts into the mouths of his characters are imaginary. Manuel de Faria y Sousa (q.v.), a voluminous writer on Portuguese history and the arch-commentator of Camoens, wrote, by an irony of fate, in Spanish, and Mello’s classic account of the Catalonian War is also in that language, while, by a still greater irony, Jacinto Freire de Andrade thought to picture and exalt the Cato-like Viceroy of India by his grandiloquent Vida de D. João de Castro.
Other historical books of the period are the valuable Discursos of Severim de Faria, the Portugal restaurado of D. Luis de Menezes, conde de Ericeira, the ecclesiastical histories of Archbishop Rodrigo da Cunha, the Agiologio lusitano of Jorge Cardoso and the Chronica da Companhia de Jesus by Padre Balthazar Telles. The last also wrote an Historia da Ethiopia, and, though the travel literature of this century compares badly with that of the preceding, mention may be made of the Itinerario da India por terra até a ilha de Chipre of Frei Gaspar de S. Bernardino, and the Relação do novo caminho através da Arabia e Syria of Padre Manoel Godinho.
In the 17th century the religious orders and especially the Jesuits absorbed even more of the activities and counted for more in the public affairs of Portugal than in the preceding age. The pulpit discharged some of the functions of the modern press, and men who combined the gifts of oratory and writing filled it and distinguished themselves, Oratory. their order and their country. The Jesuit Antonio Vieira (q.v.), missionary, diplomat and voluminous writer, repeated the triumphs he had gained in Bahia and Lisbon in Rome, which proclaimed him the prince of Catholic orators. His 200 sermons are a mine of learning and experience, and they stand out from all others by their imaginative power, originality of view, variety of treatment and audacity of expression. His letters are in a simple conversational style, but they lack the popular locutions, humour and individuality of those of Mello. Vieira was a man of action, while the oratorian Manoel Bernardes lived as a recluse, hence his sermons and devotional works, especially Luz e Calor and the Nova Floresta, breathe a calm and sweetness alien to the other, while they are even richer treasures of pure Portuguese. Perhaps the truest and most feeling human documents of the century are the five epistles written by Marianna Alcoforado (q.v.) known to history as the Letters of a Portuguese Nun. Padre Ferreira de Almeida’s translation of the Bible has considerable linguistic importance, and philological studies had an able exponent in Amaro de Roboredo.
The popular theatre lived on in the Comedias de Cordel, mostly anonymous and never printed its existence would hardly be known were it not for the pieces which were placed on the Index. The popular autos that have survived are mainly religious, and show the abuse of metaphor and the conceits which derive from Gongora. All The Drama. through this century Portuguese dramatists, who aspired to be heard, wrote, like Jacintho Cordeiro and Mattos Fragoso, in Castilian, though a brilliant exception appeared in the person of Francisco Manoel de Mello (q.v.), whose witty Auto do fidalgo aprendiz in redondilhas is eminently national in language, subject and treatment. Until the Restoration of 1640 the stage remained spellbound by the Spaniards, and when a court once more came to Lisbon it preferred Italian opera, French plays, and zarzuelas to dramatic performances in the vernacular, with the result that both Portuguese authors and actors of repute disappeared.
The 18th Century.—The first part of the 18th century differs little from the preceding age except that both affectation and bad taste tended to increase, but gradually signs appeared of a literary revolution, which preceded the political and developed into the Romantic movement. Men of liberal ideas went abroad, chiefly to France, to escape the stupid tyranny that ruled in Church and state, and to their exhortation and example ​ are largely due the reforms which were by degrees inaugurated in every branch of letters. Their names were among others Alexandre de Gusmão, the Cavalheiro de Oliveira, Ribeiro Sanches, Corrêa da Serra, Brotero and Nascimento. They had a forerunner in Luiz Antonio Verney, who poured sarcasm on the prevailing methods of education, and exposed to good effect the extraordinary literary and scientific decadence of Portugal in an epoch-making work, the Verdadeiro methodo de estudar.
From time to time literary societies, variously called academies or arcadias, arose to co-operate in the work of reform. In 1720 King John V., an imitator of Louis XIV., established the academy of history. The fifteen volumes of its Memorias, published from 1721 to 1756, show the excellent work done by its members, among whom were Caetano de Sousa, author of the colossal Historia da Casa Real portugueza, Barbosa Machado, compiler of the invaluable Bibliotheca Lusitana, and Soares da Silva, chronicler of the reign of King John I.
The Royal Academy of Sciences founded in 1780 by the:nd duke of Lafões, uncle of Queen Maria I., still exists, though its output and influence are small. Its chief contributions to knowledge were the Diccionario da lingua portugueza, still unfinished, and the Memorias (1788–1795), and it included in its ranks nearly all the learned men of the last part of the 18th century. Among them were the ecclesiastical historian Frei Manoel do Cenaculo, bishop of Beja, the polygraph Ribeiro dos Santos, Caetano do Amaral, a patient investigator of the origins of Portugal, João Pedro Riberio, the founder of modern historical studies, D. Francisco Alexandre Lobo, bishop of Vizeu, whose essays on Camoens and other authors show sound critical sense and a correct style, Cardinal Saraiva, an expert on ancient and modern history and the voyages of his countrymen, and Frei Fortunato de S. Boaventura, a historical and literary critic.
In 1756 Cruz e Silva (q.v.), with the aid of friends, established the Arcadia Ulysiponense, “to form a school of good sayings and good examples in eloquence and poetry.” The most considered poets of the day joined the Arcadia and Lyrlv individually wrote much excellent verse, but they all lacked creative power. The principal Greek and Latin authors were the models they chose, and Garção, the most prominent Arcadian, composed the Cantata de Dido, a gem of ancient art, as well as some charming sonnets to friends and elegant odes and epistles. The bucolic verse of Quita, a hairdresser, has a tenderness and simplicity which challenge comparison with Bernardim Ribeiro, and the Marilia of Gonzaga contains a celebrated collection of bucolic-erotic verse. Their conventionality sets the lyrics of Cruz e Silva on a lower plane, but in the Hyssope he improves on the Lutrin of Boileau. After a chequered existence, internal dissensions caused the dissolution of the Arcadia in 1774. It had only gained a partial success because the despotic rule of Pombal, like the Inquisition before him, hindered freedom of fancy and discussion, and drove the Arcadians to waste themselves on flattering the powerful. In 1790 a New Arcadia came into being. Its two most distinguished members were the rival poets Bocage (q.v.) and Agostinho de Macedo (q.v.). The only other poet of the New Arcadia who ranks high is Curvo Semedo; but the Dissidents, a name bestowed on those who stood outside the Arcadias, included two distinguished men now to be cited, the second of whom became the herald of a poetical revolution. No Portuguese satirist possessed such a complete equipment for his office as Nicolao Tolentino, and though a dependent position depressed his muse, he painted the customs and follies of the time with almost photographic accuracy, and distributed his attacks or begged for favours in sparkling verse. The task of purifying and enriching the language and restoring the cult of the Quinhentistas was perseveringly carried out by Francisco Manoel de Nascimento (q.v.) in numerous compositions in prose and verse, both original and translated. Shortly before his death in Paris he became a convert to the Romantic movement, and he prepared the way for its definite triumph in the person of Almeida Garrett, who belonged to the Filintistas, or followers of Nascimento, in opposition to the Elmariislas, or disciples of Bocage.
Early in the 18th century the spirit of revolt against despotism led to an attempt at the restoration of the drama by authors sprung from the people, who wrote for spectators as coarse as they were ignorant of letters. Its centres were the theatres of the Bairro Alto and Mouraria, and the numerous pieces staged there belong to low comedy. The Operas portuguezas of Antonio José da Silva (q.v.), produced between 1733 and 1741, owe their name to the fact that arias, minuets and modinlzas were interspersed with the prose dialogue, and if neither the plots, style, nor language are remarkable, they have a real comic force and a certain originality. Silva is the legitimate representative in the 18th century of the popular theatre inaugurated by Gil Vicente, and though born in Brazil, whence he brought the modinha, he is essentially a national writer. Like Silva’s operas, the comedies of Nicolao Luiz contain a faithful picture of contemporary society and enjoyed considerable popularity. Luiz divided his attention between heroic comedies and comedies de capa y espada, but of the fifty-one ascribed to him, all in verse, only one bears his name, the rest appeared anonymously. His method was to choose some Spanish or Italian play, cut out the parts he disliked, and substitute scenes with dialogues in his own way, but he has neither ideals, taste nor education; and, except in Os Maridos Peraltas, his characters are lifeless and their conventional passions are expressed in inflated language. Notwithstanding their demerits, however, his comedies held the stage from 1760 until the end of the century.
Meanwhile the Arcadia also took up the task of raising the tone of the stage, but though the ancients and the classic writers of the 16th century were its ideals, it drew immediate inspiration from the contemporary French theatre. All its efforts failed, however, because its members lacked dramatic talents and, being out of touch with the people, could not create a national drama.
Garção (q.v.) led the way with the Theatro Novo, a bright little comedy in blank verse, and followed it up with another, Assemblêa ou partida; but he did not persevere. Figueiredo felt he had a mission to restore the drama, and wrote thirteen volumes of plays in prose and verse, but, though he chose national subjects, and could invent plots and draw characters, he could not make them live. Finally, the bucolic poet Quita produced the tragedies Segunda Castro, Hermione and two others, but these imitations from the French, for all the taste they show, were stillborn, and in the absence of court patronage, which was exclusively bestowed on the Lisbon opera, then the best equipped in Europe, Portugal remained without a drama of its own.
Sacred eloquence is represented by Fr. Alexandre Palhares, a student of Vieira, whose outspoken attack on vice in high places in a. sermon preached before Queen Maria led to his exile from court. The art of letter-writing had cultivators in Abbade Costa, Ribeiro Sanches, physician of Catherine II. of Russia, Alexandre de Gusmao, and the celebrated Cavalheiro de Oliveira, also author of Memorias politicas e literarias, published at the Hague, whither he had ded to escape the Inquisition. Philological studies were pursued with ardour and many valuable publications have to be recorded, among them Bluteau's Vocabulario Portuguez, the Reflexões sobre a lingoa portugueza and an Arte poetica by Francisco José Freire, the Exercicios and Espirito da lingoa e eloquencia of Pereira de Figueiredo, translator of the Vulgate, and Viterbo’s Elucidario, a dictionary of old terms and phrases which has not been superseded. Finally the best literary critic and one of the most correct prose writers of the period is Francisco Dias Gomes.
The 19th Century and After.—The 19th century witnessed a general revival of letters, beginning with the Romantic movement, of which the chief exponents were Garrett (q.v.) and Herculano (q.v.), both of whom had to leave Portugal on account of their political liberalism, and it was inaugurated in the ​ field of poetry. Garrett read the masterpieces of contemporary foreign literature during his exiles in England and France, and, The Romantic Movement: Poetry. imbued with the national spirit, he produced in 1825 the poem Camões, wherein he broke with the established rules of composition in verse and destroyed the authority of the Arcadian rhymers. His poetry like that of his fellow emigré, the austere Herculano, is eminently sincere and natural, but while his short lyrics are personal in subject and his longer poems historical, the verse of Herculano is generally subjective and the motives religious or patriotic. The movement not only lost much of its virility and genuineness, but became ultra-Romantic with A. F. de Castilho (q.v.), whose most conspicuous followers were João de Lemos and the poets of the collection entitled O Trovador; Soares de Passos, a singer for the sad; the melodious Thomas Ribeiro, who drew his inspiration from Zorilla and voiced the opposition to a political union with Spain in the patriotic poem D. Jayme. Mendes Leal, a king in the heroic style, Gomes de Amorim and Bulhão Pato, belong more or less to the same school. On the other hand José Simões Dias broke with the Romantic tradition in which he had been educated, and successfully sought inspiration from popular sources, as his Peninsulares proves.
In 1865 there arose a serious and lengthy strife in the Portuguese Parnassus, which came to be known as the Coimbra question, from its origin in the university city. Its immediate cause was the preface which Castilho contributed to the poem Moçidade of Pinheiro Chagas, and it proclaimed the alliance of poetry with philosophy. The Colmbra Question. The younger men of letters regarded Castilho as the self-elected pontiff of a mutual-praise school, who, ignorant of the literary movement abroad, claimed to direct them in the old paths, and would not tolerate criticism. The revolt against his primacy took the form of a fierce war of pamphlets, and led ultimately to the dethronement of the blind bard. The leaders in the movement were Anthero de Quental (q.v.) and Dr Theophilo Braga, the first a student of German philosophy and poetry, the second a disciple of Comte and author of an epic of humanity, Visão dos tempos, whose immense work in the spheres of poetry, criticism and literary history, marred by contradictions, but abounding in life, cannot be judged at present. In the issue literature gained considerably, and especially poetry, which entered on a period of active and rich production, still unchecked, in the persons of João de Deus (q.v.) and the Coimbrans and their disciples. The Campo de flores contains some of the most splendid short poems ever written in Portuguese, and an Italian critic has ventured to call João de Deus, to whom God and women were twin sources of inspiration, the greatest love poet of the 19th century. Simplicity, spontaneity and harmony distinguished his earlier verses, which are also his best, and their author belongs to no school but stands alone. A preponderance of reflection and foreign influences distinguish the poets now to be mentioned. Anthero de Quental, the chief of the Coimbrans, enshrined his metaphysical neo-Buddhistic ideas overshadowed by extreme pessimism, and marked the stages of his mental evolution, in a sequence of finely-wrought sonnets. These place him in the sacred circle near to Heine and Leopardi, and, though strongly individualistic, it is curious to note in them the influence of Germanism on the mind of a southerner and a descendant of the Catholic navigators of the 16th century. Odes modernas, written in youth, show “Santo Anthero,” as his friends called him, in revolutionary, free-thinking and combative mood, and are ordinary enough, but the prose of his essays, e.g. Considerations on the Philosophy of Portuguese Literary History, has that peculiar refinement, clearness and conciseness which stamped the later work of this sensitive thinker. A subtle irony pervades the Rimas of João Penha, who links the Coimbrans with Guerra Junqueiro and the younger poets. Partly philosophical, partly naturalistic, Junqueiro began with the ironical composition, Recent Verse. A Morte de D. João; in Patria he evoked in a series of dramatic scenes and lashed with satire the kings of the Braganza dynasty, and in Os Simples he interprets in sonorous stanzas the life of country-folk by the light of his powerful imagination and pantheistic tendencies. The Claridades de Sul of Gomes Leal, a militant anti-Christian, at times recall Baudelaire, and flashes of genius run through Anti-Christo, which is alive with the instinct of revolt. The Só of the invalidish Antonio Nobre is intensely Portuguese in subjects, atmosphere and rhythmic sweetness, and had a deep influence. Cesario Verde sought to interpret universal nature and human sorrow, and the Parnassian Gonçalves Crespo may be termed a deeper, richer Coppée. His Miniaturas and Nocturnos have been re-edited by his widow, D. Maria Amalia Vaz de Carvalho, a highly gifted critic and essayist whose personality and cercle call to mind the 18th-century poetess, the Marqueza de Alorna. The French symbolists found an enthusiastic adept in Eugenio de Castro. Antonio Feijo and José de Sousa Monteiro have written verse remarkable by its form, while perhaps the most considered of the later poets are Antonio Corrêa de Oliveira and Lopes Vieira. Many other genuine bards might be mentioned, because the Portuguese race can boast of an unceasing flow of lyric poetry.
Garrett took in hand the reform of the stage, moved by a desire to exile the translations on which the playhouses had long subsisted. He chose his subjects from the national history, and began with the Auto de Gil Vicente, in which he resuscitated the founder of the theatre, and followed this up with other prose plays, among which the Alfageme The Drama. de Santarem takes the palm; finally he crowned his labours by Frei Luiz de Sousa, a tragedy of fatality and pathos and one of the really notable pieces of the century. The historical bent thus given to the drama was continued by the versatile Mendes Leal, by Gomes da Amorim and by Pinheiro Chagas, who all however succumbed more or less to the atmosphere and machinery of ultra-Romanticism, while the plays of Antonio Ennes deal with questions of the day in a spirit of combative liberalism. In the social drama, Ernesto Biester, and in comedy Fernando Caldeira, also no mean lyric poet, are two of the principal names, and the latter’s pieces, A Mantilha da Renda and A Madrugada, have a delicacy and vivacity which justifies their success. The comedies of Gervasio Lobato are marked by an easy dialogue and a sparkling wit, and some of the most popular of them were written in collaboration with D. João de Camara, the leading dramatist of the day, one of whose pieces, Os Velhos, has been translated and staged abroad. To Henrique Lopes de Mendonça, scholar, critic and poet, we owe some strong historical plays as well as the piece Zé Palonso, written with Lobato, which made a big hit. The playwrights also include Julio Dantas, and Dr Marcellino Mesquita, author of Leonor Telles and other historical dramas, as well as of a powerful piece, Dôr Suprema.
Herculano led the way in the historical romance by his Lendas e narrativas and O Monasticon, two somewhat laboured productions, whose progenitor was Walter Scott; they still find readers for their impeccable style. Their most popular successors have been A Moçidade de D. João V. and A ultima corrida de touros reaes em Salvaterra by Rebello The Novel. da Silva, and Um Anno na Corte by the statesman, Andrade Corvo, the first and the last superior books. The novel shares with poetry the predominant place in the modern literature of Portugal, and Camillo Castello Branco (q.v.), Gomes Coelho and Eça de Queiroz are names which would stand very high in any country. The first, a wonderful impressionist though not perhaps a great novelist, describes to perfection the domestic and social life of Portugal in the early part of the 19th century. His remarkable works include Amor de Perdição, Amor de Salvação, Retrato de Ricardina, and the series entitled Novellas do Minho; moreover some of his essays in history and literary criticism, such as Bohemia do Espirito, rank only next to his romances. Gomes Coelho, better known as Julio Diniz, records his experiences of English society in Oporto in A Familia ingleza, and for his romantic idealism he has been dubbed British; Portuguese critics have accused him of imitating Dickens. ​His stories, particularly As Pupillas do Snr. Reitor, depict country life and scenery with loving sympathy, and hold the reader by the charm of the characters, but Diniz is a rather subjective monotonous writer who lacks the power to analyse, and he is no psychologist. Eça de Queiroz (q.v.) founded the Naturalist school in Portugal by a powerful book written in 1871, but only published in 1875, under the title The Crime of Father Amaro; and two of his great romances, Cousin Basil and Os Maias, were written during his occupancy of consular posts in England. The Relic conveys the impressions of a journey in Palestine and in parts suggests his indebtedness to Flaubert, but its mysticism is entirely new and individual; while the versatility of his talent further appears in The Correspondence of Fradique Mendes, where acute observation is combined with brilliant satire or rich humour. The later portion of The City and the Mountains, for the truth and beauty of its descriptive passages, is highly praised, and many pages are already quoted as classic examples of Portuguese prose. Among other novelists are Oliveira Marreca, Pinheiro Chagas, Arnaldo Gama, Luis de Magalhaes and Teixeira de Queiroz, the last of whom is almost as distinctly national a. writer as Castello Branco himself.
Years of persevering toil in archives and editions of old chronicles prepared Herculano for his magnum opus, the Historia de Portugal. The Historia da Origem e Estabelecimento do Inquisição em Portugal followed and confirmed the position of its author as the leading modern historian of the Peninsula, and he further initiated and edited History. the important series Portugaliae Monumenta historica. The Visconde de Santarem, and Indice Biker in geography and diplomatics, produced standard works; Luz Soriano compiled painstaking histories of the reign of King Joseph and of the Peninsular War; Silvestre Ribeiro printed a learned account of the scientific, literary and artistic establishments of Portugal, and Lieut.-Colonel Christovam Ayres was the author of a history of the Portuguese army. Rebello da Silva and the voluminous and brilliant publicists, Latino Coelho and Pinheiro Chagas, wrote at second hand and rank higher as stylists than as historians. Gama Barros and Costa Lobo followed closely in the footsteps of Herculano, the first by a Historia da Administração publica em Portugal nos Seculos XII. a XV., positively packed with learning, the second by a Historia da Sociedade em Portugal no Seculo XV. Though he had no time for original research, Oliveira Martins (q.v.) possessed psychological imagination, a rare capacity for general ideas and the gift of picturesque narration; and in his philosophic Historia de Portugal, his sensational Portugal contemporaneo, Os Filhos de D. João and Vida de Nun’ Alvarez, he painted an admirable series of portraits and, following his master Michelet, made the past live again. Furthermore the interesting volumes of his Bibliotheca das Sciencias Sociaes show extensive knowledge, freshness of views and critical independence and they have greatly contributed to the education of his countrymen.
Ramalho Ortigão, the art critic, will be remembered principally for the Farpas, a series of satirical and humorous sketches of Portuguese society which he wrote in collaboration with Queiroz. Julio Cesar Machado and Fialho de Almeida made their mark by many humorous publications, and, in the domain of pure literary criticism, mention must be Criticism. made of Antonio Pedro Lopes de Mendonça, Rebello da Silva, Dr Joaquim de Vasconcellos, Mme Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, Silva Pinto, the favourite disciple of Castello Branco, and of Luciano Cordeiro, founder of the Lisbon Geographical Society, whose able monograph, Soror Marianna, vindicated the authenticity of the Letters of a Portuguese Nun and showed Marianna Alcoforado to be their authoress. Excellent critical work was also done by Moniz Barreto, whose early death was a serious loss to letters.
In scientific literature hardly a single department lacks a name of repute even outside Portugal. The press has accompanied the general progress, and ever since Herculano founded and wrote in the Panorama, the leading writers have almost without exception made both name and livelihood by writing for the papers, but as pure journalists none has excelled Antonio Rodriguez Sampaio, Antonio Augusto Teixeira de Vasconcellos and Emygdio Navarro.
The leading Portuguese orators of the 19th century, with the exception of Malhao, were not churchmen, as in the past, but politicians. The early days of parliamentary rule produced Manoel Fernandes Thomás and Manoel Borges Carneiro, but the most brilliant period was that of the first twenty-five years of constitutional government after 1834, Oratory. and the historic names are those of Garrett, Manoel da Silva Passos, and the great tribune and apostle of liberty, Iosé Estevao Coelho de Magalhaes. The ill-fated Vieira de Castro excited the greatest admiration by his impassioned speeches in the Chamber of Deputies during the ’sixties; the nearest modern counterpart to these distinguished men is the orator Antonio Candido Ribeiro da Costa.
Bibliography.—The corner-stones are the Bibliotheca Lusitana of Barbosa Machado and the Diccionario bibliographico portuguez, by Innocencio da Silva, with Brito Aranha's supplement; while the Bibliotheca Hispana Nova of Nicolao Antonio (1783–1788) may also be referred to. Subsidiary to these are the Manual bibliographico portuguez of Dr Pinto de Mattos, the admirable Catalogo razonado de los Autores Portugueses que escribieron en Castellano, compiled by Garcia Peres (1890), and such publications as Figaniere's Catalogo dos Manuscriptos portuguezes no Museu Britannico (1853). The only full general history of the literature comes from the prolific pen of Dr Theophilo Braga (second and revised edition in 32 vols.). The volumes positively bulge with information and contain much acute criticism, but their value is diminished by frequent and needless digressions and by the fantastic theorizing of their author, a militant Positivist. Of one-volume books on the same subject, Dr Braga's Curso da Historia da Litteratura portugueza and his Theoria da Historia da Litteratura portugueza (3rd ed., 1881) may be recommended, though the plainer Historia da Litteratura portugueza, by Dr Mendes dos Remedios (3rd ed., 1908) has the considerable advantage for foreign students of including a large number of selected passages from the authors named. See also the Chrestomathia arehaioa of J. J. Nunes (1905). Among foreign studies the palm must be given to the “Geschichte der portugiesischen Litteratur " by the eminent scholar, Mme Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, in the Grundriss der rom. Philologie of Gröber (1893–1894). Among general critical studies are Costa e Silva's Ensaio biographic-critico and the maigerly work of Menendez y Pelayo, Historia de las ideas estaticas en España.
Coming to special periods, the student may consult, for the cancioneiros, Mme Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, op. cit., and her great edition of the Cancioneiro do Ajuda (1904); also H. R. Lang, Das Liederbuch der Konigs Denis von Portugal (1894). Lopes de Mendonça treats of the literature of the 16th and 17th centuries in articles in the Annaes das sciencias e letras; and the Memorias de litteratura portugueza printed by the Lisbon Academy of Sciences (1792–1814) contain essays on the drama and the Arcadia, but the 19th century has naturally received most attention. For that period, see Lopes de Mendonça, Memoiras da litteratura contemporanea (1855); Romero Ortiz, La Literatura portugueza en el siglo XIX. (1869), containing much undigested information; and Maxime Formont, Le Mouvement poétique contemporain en Portugal, an able sketch; but the soundest review is due to Moniz Barreto, whose “Litteratura portugueza contemporanea” came out in the Revista de Portugal for July 1889. Students of the modern novel in Portugal should refer to the essays of J. Pereira de Sampaio (“Bruno”) A Geração Nova (1886).
Portugal still lacks a collection equivalent to Rivadeneyra's Biblioteca de autores españoles, contenting itself with the Parnasso lusitano (6 vols., 1826) and a Corpus illustrium poetarum lusitanorum qui latine scripserunt (1745–1748), and though much has been accomplished to make the classics more available, even yet no correct, not to say critical, texts of many notable writers exist. The Cancioneiro de Ajuda by Mme Vasconcellos, is the perfection of editing, and there are diplomatic editions of other cancioneiros, e.g. Il Canzoniere portoghese della Bibliotheca Vaticano, by E. Monaci (1875), of which Dr Braga hurriedly prepared a critical edition; Il Canzoniere portoghese Colocei-Brancuti by E. Molteni (1880), and the Canoioneiro Geral (1846). The Romanceiro portuguez of V. E. Hardung is incomplete. (E. Pr.)
* ↑ Throughout this article the abbreviation D. is used for the Portuguese title Dom and for its feminine form Dona (see Dominus).
* ↑ Known as the lei mental, because it was supposed to fulfil the intention which John I. had in mind when the grants were made.
* ↑ Decadas, XII. i. 10.
* ↑ See R. S. Whiteway, Rise of the Portuguese Power, &c. (London, 1898), pp. 67–72.
* ↑ In the north, which had been relatively immune from wars agriculture was more prosperous and the peasants more tenacious of their land; hence the continuance of peasant proprietorship and the rarity of African types between the Douro and the Minho.
* ↑ Philip I., II. and III. of Portugal.