Chapter IV: Concerning the infallible teaching of the Roman (12)

"The monastery of Port Royal … was founded in the beginning of
the 13th century, in the reign of Philip Augustus; and a later
tradition claimed this magnificent monarch as the author of
its foundation and of its name. … But this is the story of a
time when, as it has been said, 'royal founders were in
fashion.' More truly, the name is considered to be derived
from the general designation of the fief or district in which
the valley lies, Porrois—which, again, is supposed to be a
corruption of Porra or Borra, meaning a marshy and woody
hollow. The valley of Port Royal presents to this day the same
natural features which attracted the eye of the devout
solitary in the seventeenth century. … It lies about eighteen
miles west of Paris, and seven or eight from Versailles, on
the road to Chevreuse. … The monastery was founded, not by
Philip Augustus, but by Matthieu, first Lord of Marli, a
younger son of the noble house of Montmorency. Having formed
the design of accompanying the crusade proclaimed by Innocent
III. to the Holy Land, he left at the disposal of his wife,
Mathilde de Garlande, and his kinsman, the Bishop of Paris, a
sum of money to devote to some pious work in his absence. They
agreed to apply it to the erection of a monastery for nuns in
this secluded valley, that had already acquired a reputation
for sanctity in connection with the old chapel dedicated to
St. Lawrence, which attracted large numbers of worshippers.
The foundations of the church and monastery were laid in 1204.
They were designed by the same architect who built the
Cathedral of Amiens, and ere long the graceful and beautiful
structures were seen rising in the wilderness. The nuns
belonged to the Cistercian order. Their dress was white
woollen, with a black veil; but afterwards they adopted as
their distinctive badge a large scarlet cross on their white
scapulary, as the symbol of the 'Institute of the Holy
Sacrament.' The abbey underwent the usual history of such
institutions. Distinguished at first by the strictness of its
discipline and the piety of its inmates, it became gradually
corrupted with increasing wealth, till, in the end of the
sixteenth century, it had grown notorious for gross and
scandalous abuses. … But at length its revival arose out of
one of the most obvious abuses connected with it. The
patronage of the institution, like that of others, had been
distributed without any regard to the fitness of the
occupants, even to girls of immature age. In this manner the
abbey of Port Royal accidentally fell to the lot of one who
was destined by her ardent piety to breathe a new life into
it, and by her indomitable and lofty genius to give it an
undying reputation. Jacqueline Marie Arnauld—better known by
her official name, La Mère Angélique—was appointed abbess of
Port Royal when she was only eight years of age. She was
descended from a distinguished family belonging originally to
the old noblesse of Provence, but which had migrated to
Auvergne and settled there. Of vigorous healthiness, both
mental and physical, the Arnaulds had already acquired a
merited position and name in the annals of France. In the
beginning of the sixteenth century it found its way to Paris
in the person of Antoine Arnauld, Seigneur de la Mothe, the
grandfather of the heroine of Port Royal. … Antoine Arnauld
married the youthful daughter of M. Marion, the
Avocat-general. … The couple had twenty children, and felt, as
may be imagined, the pressure of providing for so many. Out of
this pressure came the remarkable lot of two of the daughters.
The benefices of the Church were a fruitful field of
provision, and the avocat-general, the maternal grandfather of
the children, had large ecclesiastical influence. The result
was the appointment not only of one daughter to the abbey of
Port Royal, but also of a younger sister, Agnes, only six
years of age, to the abbey of St Cyr, about six miles distant
from Port Royal. … At the age of eleven, in the year 1602,
Angélique was installed Abbess of Port Royal. Her sister took
the veil at the age of seven. … The remarkable story of
Angélique's conversion by the preaching of a Capucin friar in
1608, her strange contest with her parents which followed, the
strengthening impulses in different directions which her
religious life received, first from the famous St Francis de
Sales, and finally, and especially, from the no less
remarkable Abbé de St Cyran, all belong to the history of Port
Royal."

_J. Tulloch,
Pascal,
chapter 4._

"The numbers at the Port Royal had increased to eighty, and
the situation was so unhealthy that there were many deaths. In
1626 they moved to Paris, and the abbey in the fields remained
for many years deserted. M. Zamet, a pious but not a great
man, for a while had the spiritual charge of the Port Royal,
but in 1634 the abbé of St. Cyran became its director. To his
influence is due the position it took in the coming conflict
of Jansenism, and the effects of his teachings can be seen in
the sisters, and in most of the illustrious recluses who
attached themselves to the monastery. St. Cyran had been an
early associate of Jansenius, whose writings became such a
fire-brand in the Church. As young men they devoted the most
of five years to an intense study of St. Augustine. It is said
Jansenius read all of his works ten times, and thirty times
his treatises against the Pelagians. The two students resolved
to attempt a reformation in the belief of the Church, which
they thought was falling away from many of the tenets of the
father.
{2566}
Jansenius was presently made bishop of Ypres by the Spanish as
a reward for a political tract, but he pursued his studies in
his new bishopric. … In 1640, the Augustinus appeared, in
which the bishop of Ypres sought, by a full reproduction of
the doctrines of St. Augustine, to bring the Church back from
the errors of the Pelagians to the pure and severe tenets of
the great father. The doctrine of grace, the very corner–stone
of the Christian faith, was that which Jansenius labored to
revive. Saint Augustine had taught that, before the fall of
our first parents, man, being in astute of innocence, could of
his own free will do works acceptable to God; but after that
his nature was so corrupted, that no good thing could proceed
from it, save only as divine grace worked upon him. This grace
God gave as He saw fit, working under his eternal decrees, and
man, except as predestined and elected to its sovereign help,
could accomplish no righteous act, and must incur God's just
wrath. But the Pelagians and semi-Pelagians had departed from
this doctrine, and attributed a capacity to please God, to
man's free will and the deeds proceeding from it—a belief
which could but foster his carnal pride and hasten his
damnation. The Jesuits were always desirous to teach religion
so that it could most easily be accepted, and they had
inclined to semi-Pelagian doctrines, rather than to the
difficult truths of St. Augustine. Yet no one questioned his
authority. The dispute was as to the exact interpretation of
his writings. Jansenius claimed to have nothing in his great
book save the very word of Augustine, or its legitimate
result. The Jesuits replied that his writings contained
neither the doctrine of Augustine nor the truth of God. They
appealed to the Pope for the condemnation of these heresies.
Jansenius had died before the publication of his book, but his
followers, who were soon named after him, endeavored to defend
his works from censure. … It was not until 1653 that the
influence of the Jesuits succeeded in obtaining the
condemnation of the offending book. In that year, Innocent X.
issued a bull, by which he condemned as heretical five
propositions contained in the Augustinus. … The members of the
Port Royal adopted the Jansenist cause. Saint Cyran had been a
fellow worker with Jansenius, and he welcomed the Augustinus
as a book to revive and purify the faith of the Church. … The
rigid predestinarianism of Jansen had a natural attraction for
the stern zeal of the Port Royal. The religion of the convent
and of those connected with it bordered on asceticism. They
lived in the constant awe of God, seeking little communion
with the world, and offering to it little compromise. … An
intense and rigorous religious life adopts an intense and
rigorous belief. The Jansenists resembled the English and
American Puritans. They shared their Calvinistic tenets and
their strict morality. A Jansenist, said the Jesuits, is a
Calvinist saying mass. No accusation was more resented by
those of the Jansenist party. They sought no alliance with the
Protestants. Saint Cyran and Arnauld wrote prolifically
against the Calvinists. They were certainly separated from the
latter by their strong devotion to two usages of the Catholic
Church which were especially objectionable to Protestants—the
mass and the confessional. … In 1647, Mother Angelique with
some of the sisters returned to Port Royal in the Fields. The
convent at Paris continued in close relations with it, but the
abbey in the fields was to exhibit the most important phases
of devotional life. Before the return of the sisters, this
desolate spot had begun to be the refuge for many eminent men,
whose careers became identified with the fate of the abbey.
'We saw arrive,' writes one of them, 'from diverse provinces,
men of different professions, who, like mariners that had
suffered shipwreck, came to seck the Port.' M. le Maitre, a
nephew of Mother Angelique, a lawyer of much prominence, a
counsellor of state, a favorite of the chancellor and renowned
for his eloquent harangues, abandoned present prosperity and
future eminence, and in 1638 built a little house, near the
monastery, and became the first of those who might be called
the hermits of the Port Royal. Not taking orders, nor becoming
a member of any religious body, he sought a life of lonely
devotion in this barren place. … Others gradually followed,
until there grew up a community, small in numbers, but strong
in influence, united in study, in penance, in constant praise
and worship. Though held together by no formal vows, few of
those who put hand to the plough turned back from the work.
They left their beloved retreat only when expelled by force,
and with infinite regret. The monastery itself had become
dilapidated. It was surrounded by stagnant waters, and the
woods near by were full of snakes. But the recluses found
religious joy amid this desolation. … As their numbers
increased they did much, however, to improve the desolate
retreat they had chosen. … Some of the recluses cultivated the
ground. Others even made shoes, and the Jesuits dubbed them
the cobblers. They found occupation not only in such labors
and in solitary meditation, but in the more useful work of
giving the young an education that was sound in learning and
grounded in piety. The schools of the Port Royal had a
troubled existence of about fifteen years. Though they rarely
had over fifty pupils, yet in this brief period they left
their mark. Racine, Tillemont, and many others of fruitful
scholarship and piety were among the pupils who were watched
and trained by the grave anchorites with a tender and
fostering care. … The judicious teachers of the Port Royal
taught reading in French, and in many ways did much to improve
the methods of French instruction and scholarship. The
children were thoroughly trained also in Greek and Latin, in
logic and mathematics. Their teachers published admirable
manuals for practical study in many branches. 'They sought,'
says one, 'to render study more agreeable than play or games.'
The jealousy of the Jesuits, who were well aware of the
advantages of controlling the education of the young, at last
obtained the order for the final dispersion of these little
schools, and in 1660 they were closed for ever. Besides these
manuals for teaching, the literature of the Port Royal
comprised many controversial works, chief among them the
forty-two volumes of Arnauld. It furnished also a translation
of the Bible by Saci, which, though far from possessing the
merits of the English version of King James, is one of the
best of the many French translations. But the works of Blaise
Pascal were the great productions of the Port Royal, as he
himself was its chief glory. The famous Provincial Letters
originated from the controversy over Jansenism, though they
soon turned from doctrinal questions to an attack on the
morality of the Jesuits that permanently injured the influence
of that body."

_J. B. Perkins,
France under Mazarin,
chapter 20 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN:
_M. A. Schimmelpenninck,
Select Memoirs of Port Royal._

{2567}

PORT ROYAL: A. D. 1702-1715.
Renewed persecution.
Suppression and destruction of the Monastery.
The odious Bull Unigenitus, and its tyrannical enforcement.

"The Jesuits had been for some time at a low ebb, in the
beginning of the 18th century, the Cardinal de Noailles,
Archbishop of Paris, then ruling the King through Madame de
Maintenon, and himself submitting to the direction of Bossuet.
The imprudence of the Jansenists, their indefatigable spirit
of dispute, restored to their enemies the opportunity to
retrieve their position. In 1702, forty Sorbonne doctors
resuscitated the celebrated question of fact concerning the
five propositions of Jansenius, and maintained that, in the
presence of the decisions of the Church on points of fact and
not of dogma, a respectful silence sufficed without internal
acquiescence. Some other propositions of a Jansenistic
tendency accompanied this leading question. Bossuet hastened
to interfere to stifle the matter, and to induce the doctors
to retract. … Thirty-nine doctors retracted out of forty. The
King forbade the publication thenceforth of anything
concerning these matters, but, in his own name, and that of
Philip V. [of Spain, his grandson], entreated Pope Clement XI.
to renew the constitutions of his predecessors against
Jansenism. … Clement XI. responded to the King's wishes by a
Bull which fell in the midst of the assembly of the clergy in
1705. Cardinal de Noailles, who presided, made reservations
against the infallibility of the Church in affairs of fact.
The assembly, animated with a Gallican spirit, accepted the
Bull, but established that the constitutions of the Popes bind
the whole Church only when they have been accepted by the
bodies of the pastors,' and that this acceptance on the part
of the bishops is made 'by way of judgment.' The court of Rome
was greatly offended that the bishops should claim to 'judge'
after it, and this gave rise to long negotiations: the King
induced the bishops to offer to the Pope extenuating
explanations. The Jesuits, however, regained the ascendency at
Versailles, and prepared against Cardinal de Noailles a
formidable engine of war." The Cardinal had given his
approval, some years before, to a work—"Moral Reflections on
the New Testament"—published by Father Quesnel, who
afterwards became a prominent Jansenist. The Jesuits now
procured the condemnation of this work, by the congregation of
the Index, and a decree from the Pope prohibiting it. "This
was a rude assault on Cardinal de Noailles. The decree,
however, was not received in France, through a question of
form, or rather, perhaps, because the King was then
dissatisfied with the Pope, on account of the concessions of
Clement XI. to the House of Austria. The Jansenists gained
nothing thereby. At this very moment, a terrible blow was
about to fall on the dearest and most legitimate object of
their veneration." The nuns of Port-Royal of the Fields having
refused to subscribe to the papal constitution of 1705, the
Pope had subjected them to the Abbess of Port-Royal of Paris,
"who did not share their Augustinian faith (1708). They
resisted. Meanwhile, Father La Chaise [the King's confessor]
died, and Le Tellier succeeded him. The affair was carried to
the most extreme violence. Cardinal de Noailles, a man of pure
soul and feeble character, was persuaded, in order to prove
that he was not a Jansenist, to cruelty, despite himself,
towards the rebellious nuns. They were torn from their
monastery and dispersed through different convents (November,
1709). The illustrious abbey of Port-Royal, hallowed, even in
the eyes of unbelievers, by the name of so many great men, by
the memory of so much virtue, was utterly demolished, by the
order of the lieutenant of police, D'Argenson. Two years
after, as if it were designed to exile even the shades that
haunted the valley, the dead of Port-Royal were exhumed, and
their remains transferred to a village cemetery (at Magny).
Noailles, while he entered into this persecution, took the
same course, nevertheless, as the nuns of Port-Royal, by
refusing to retract the approbation which he had given to the
'Moral Reflections.' Le Tellier caused him to be denounced to
the King. … The King prohibited Quesnel's book by a decree in
council (November 11, 1711), and demanded of the Pope a new
condemnation of this book, in a form that could be received in
France. The reply of Clement XI. was delayed until September
8, 1713; this was the celebrated Unigenitus Bull, the work of
Le Tellier far more than of the Pope, and which, instead of
the general terms of the Bull of 1708, expressly condemned 101
propositions extracted from the 'Moral Reflections.' … The
Bull dared condemn the very words of St. Augustine and of St.
Paul himself; there were propositions, on other matters than
grace, the condemnation of which was and should have been
scandalous, and seemed veritably the triumph of Jesuitism over
Christianity; for example, those concerning the necessity of
the love of God. It had dared to condemn this: 'There is no
God, there is no religion, where there is not charity.' This
was giving the pontifical sanction to the Jesuitical theories
most contrary to the general spirit of Christian theology. It
was the same with the maxims relative to the Holy Scriptures.
The Pope had anathematized the following propositions: 'The
reading of the Holy Scriptures is for all. Christians should
keep the Sabbath-day holy by reading the Scriptures; it is
dangerous to deprive them of these.' And also this: 'The fear
of unjust excommunication should not prevent us from doing our
duty.' This was overturning all political Gallicanism." The
acceptance of the Bull was strongly but vainly resisted. The
King and the King's malignant confessor spared no exercise of
their unbridled power to compel submission to it. "It was
endeavored to stifle by terror public opinion contrary to the
Bull: exiles, imprisonments, were multiplied from day to day."
And still, when Louis XIV. died, on the 1st day of September,
1715, the struggle was not at an end.

_H. Martin,
History of France: Age of Louis XIV.,
volume 2, chapter 6._

{2568}

"It is now time that I should say something of the infamous
bull Unigenitus, which by the unsurpassed audacity and
scheming of Father Le Tellier and his friends was forced upon
the Pope and the world. I need not enter into a very lengthy
account of the celebrated Papal decree which has made so many
martyrs, depopulated our schools, introduced ignorance,
fanaticism, and misrule, rewarded vice, thrown the whole
community into the greatest confusion, caused disorder
everywhere, and established the most arbitrary and the most
barbarous inquisition; evils which have doubled within the
last thirty years. I will content myself with a word or two,
and will not blacken further the pages of my Memoirs. … It is
enough to say that the new bull condemned in set terms the
doctrines of St. Paul, … and also those of St. Augustin, and
of other fathers; doctrines which have always been adopted by
the Popes, by the Councils, and by the Church itself. The
bull, as soon as published, met with a violent opposition in
Rome from the cardinals there, who went by sixes, by eights,
and by tens, to complain of it to the Pope. … He protested …
that the publication had been made without his knowledge, and
put off the cardinals with compliments, excuses, and tears,
which last he could always command. The constitution had the
same fate in France as in Rome. The cry against it was
universal."

_Duke of Saint Simon,
Memoirs (abridged translation by St. John),
volume 3, chapter 6._

"Jansenism … laid hold upon all ecclesiastical bodies with
very few exceptions, it predominated altogether in theological
literature; all public schools that were not immediately under
the Jesuits, or, as in Spain, under the Inquisition, held
Jansenist opinions, at least so far as the majority of their
theologians were concerned. In Rome itself this teaching was
strongly represented amongst the cardinals." Fenelon declared
"that nobody knew—now that the controversy and the
condemnations had gone on for sixty years—in what the
erroneous doctrine exactly consisted; for the Roman court
stuck fast to the principle of giving no definition of what
ought to be believed, so that the same doctrine which it
apparently rejected in one form, was unhesitatingly accepted
at Rome itself when expressed in other though synonymous
terms. … The same thing which under one name was condemned,
was under another, as the teaching of the Thomists or
Augustinians, declared to be perfectly orthodox. … Just
because nobody could tell in what sense such propositions as
those taken from the works of Jansenius or Quesnel were to be
rejected, did they become valuable; for the whole question was
turned into one of blind obedience and submission, without
previous investigation. The Jesuit D'Aubenton, who as
Tellier's agent in Rome had undertaken to procure that the
passages selected from Quesnel's book should be condemned,
repeatedly informed his employer that at Rome everything
turned upon the papal infallibility; to get this passed whilst
the king was ready to impose, by force of arms, upon the
bishops and clergy the unquestioning acceptance of the papal
constitution, was the only object."

_J. I. von Döllinger,
Studies in European History,
chapter 12._

ALSO IN:
_W. H. Jarvis,
History of the Church of France,
volume 2, chapters 5-7._

_F. Rocquain,
The Revolutionary Spirit preceding the French Revolution,
chapter 1._

----------PORT ROYAL: End--------

----------PORT ROYAL, Nova Scotia: Start--------

PORT ROYAL, Nova Scotia: A. D. 1603-1613.
Settled by the French, and destroyed by the English.

See CANADA: A. D. 1603-1605; 1606-1608; and 1610-1613.

PORT ROYAL, Nova Scotia: A. D. 1690.
Taken by an expedition from Massachusetts.

See CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690.

PORT ROYAL, Nova Scotia: A. D. 1691.
Recovered by the French.

See CANADA: A. D. 1692-1697.

PORT ROYAL, Nova Scotia: A. D. 1710.
Final conquest by the English and
change of name to Annapolis Royal.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1710.

----------PORT ROYAL, Nova Scotia: End--------

PORT ROYAL EXPEDITION, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER: SOUTH CAROLINA-GEORGIA).

PORTCHESTER, Origin of.

See PORTUS MAGNUS.

PORTE, The Sublime.

See SUBLIME PORTE;
also PHARAOH.

PORTEOUS RIOT, The.

See EDINBURGH: A. D. 1736.

PORTER, Admiral David D.:
Capture of New Orleans.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (APRIL: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

Second attempt against Vicksburg.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (DECEMBER: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

PORTICO, The Athenian, Suppression of.

See ATHENS: A. D. 529.

PORTLAND MINISTRY, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1806-1812.

PORTO NOVO, Battle of (1781).

See INDIA: A. D. 1780-1783.

PORTO RICO: Discovery by Columbus (1493).

See AMERICA: A. D. 1493-1496.

PORTO VENERE, Naval Battle of (1494).

See ITALY: A. D. 1494-1496.

PORTOBELLO: A. D. 1668.

Capture by the Buccaneers.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1639-1700.

PORTOBELLO: A. D. 1740.
Capture by Admiral Vernon.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1739-1741.

PORTOLONGO, or Sapienza, Battle of (1354).

See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1348-1355.

----------PORTUGAL: Start--------

PORTUGAL:
Early history.
Mistaken identification with ancient Lusitania.
Roman, Gothic, Moorish and Spanish conquests.
The county of Henry of Burgundy.

"The early history of the country, which took the name of
Portugal from the county which formed the nucleus of the
future kingdom, is identical with that of the rest of the
Iberian peninsula, but deserves some slight notice because of
an old misconception, immortalized in the title of the famous
epic of Camoens, and not yet entirely eradicated even from
modern ideas. Portugal, like the rest of the peninsula, was
originally inhabited by men of the prehistoric ages. … There
seems to be no doubt that the Celts, the first Aryan
immigrants, were preceded by a non-Aryan race, which is called
by different writers the Iberian or Euskaldunac nation, but
this earlier race speedily amalgamated with the Celts, and out
of the two together were formed the five tribes inhabiting the
Iberian peninsula, which Strabo names as the Cantabrians, the
Vasconians, the Asturians, the Gallicians and the Lusitanians.
It is Strabo, also, who mentions the existence of Greek
colonies at the mouth of the Tagus, Douro, and Minho, and it
is curious to note that the old name of Lisbon, Olisipo, was
from the earliest times identified with that of the hero of
the Odyssey, and was interpreted to mean the city of Ulysses.
…
{2569}
The Carthaginians, though they had colonies all over the
peninsula, established their rule mainly over the south and
east of it, having their capital at Carthagena or Nova
Carthago, and seem to have neglected the more barbarous
northern and western provinces. It was for this reason that
the Romans found far more difficulty in subduing these latter
provinces. … In 189 B. C. Lucius Æmilius Paullus defeated the
Lusitanians, and in 185 B. C. Gaius Calpurnius forced his way
across the Tagus. There is no need here to discuss the gradual
conquest by the Romans of that part of the peninsula which
includes the modern kingdom of Portugal, but it is necessary
to speak of the gallant shepherd Viriathus, who sustained a
stubborn war against the Romans from 149 B. C. until he was
assassinated in 139 B. C., because he has been generally
claimed as the first national hero of Portugal. This claim has
been based upon the assumed identification of the modern
Portugal with the ancient Lusitania [see LUSITANIA, an
identification which has spread its roots deep in Portuguese
literature, and has until recently been generally accepted. …
The Celtic tribe of Lusitanians dwelt, according to Strabo, in
the districts north of the Tagus, while the Lusitania of the
Latin historians of the Republic undoubtedly lay to the south
of that river, though it was not used as the name of a
province until the time of Augustus, when the old division of
the peninsula into Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior was
superseded by the division into Betica, Tarraconensis, and
Lusitania. Neither in this division, nor in the division of
the peninsula into the five provinces of Tarraconensis,
Carthaginensis, Betica, Lusitania, and Gallicia, under
Hadrian, was the province called Lusitania coterminous with
the modern kingdom of Portugal. Under each division the name
was given to a district south of the Tagus. … It is important
to grasp the result of this misconception, for it emphasizes
the fact that the history of Portugal for many centuries is
merged in that of the rest of the Iberian peninsula, and
explains why it is unnecessary to study the wars of the
Lusitanians with the Roman Republic, as is often done in
histories of Portugal. Like the rest of the peninsula Portugal
was thoroughly Latinized in the days of the Roman Empire;
Roman 'coloniæ', and 'municipia' were established in places
suited for trade, such as Lisbon and Oporto. … Peaceful
existence under the sway of Rome continued until the beginning
of the 5th century, when the Goths first forced their way
across the Pyrenees. …

See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 410-419.

The Visigothic Empire left but slight traces in Portugal." The
Mohammedan conquest by the Arab-Moors, which began early in
the 8th century, extended to Portugal, and for a general
account of the struggle in the peninsula between Christians
and Moslems during several succeeding centuries the reader is
referred to SPAIN: A. D. 711-713, and after. "In 997 Bermudo
II., king of Gallicia, won back the first portion of modern
Portugal from the Moors by seizing Oporto and occupying the
province now known as the Entre Minho e Douro. … In 1055
Ferdinand 'the Great,' king of Leon, Castile, and Gallicia,
invaded the Beira; in 1057 he took Lamego and Viseu; and in
1064 Coimbra, where he died in the following year. He arranged
for the government of his conquests in the only way possible
under the feudal system, by forming them into a county,
extending to the Mondego, with Coimbra as its capital. The
first count of Coimbra was Sesnando, a recreant Arab vizir,
who had advised Ferdinand to invade his district and had
assisted in its easy conquest. … But though Sesnando's county
of Coimbra was the great frontier county of Gallicia, and the
most important conquest of Ferdinand 'the Great,' it was not
thence that the kingdom which was to develop out of his
dominions was to take its name. Among the counties of Gallicia
was one called the 'comitatus Portucalensis,' because it
contained within its boundaries the famous city at the mouth
of the Douro, known in Roman and Greek times as the Portus
Cale, and in modern days as Oporto, or 'The Port.' This county
of Oporto or Portugal was the one destined to give its name to
the future kingdom, and was held at the time of Ferdinand's
death by Nuno Mendes, the founder of one of the most famous
families in Portuguese history. Ferdinand 'the Great' was
succeeded in his three kingdoms of Castile, Leon, and
Gallicia, by his three sons, Sancho, Alfonso, and Garcia, the
last of whom received the two counties of Coimbra and Oporto
as fiefs of Gallicia, and maintained Nuno Mendes and Sesnando
as his feudatories." Wars between the three sons ensued, as
the result of which "the second of them, Alfonso of Leon,
eventually united all his father's kingdoms in 1073, as
Alfonso VI." This Alfonso was now called upon to encounter a
new impulse of Mohammedan aggression, under a new dynasty,
that of the Almoravides

See ALMORAVIDES.

"The new dynasty collected great Moslem armies, and in 1086
Yusuf Ibn Teshfin routed Alfonso utterly at the battle of
Zalaca, and reconquered the peninsula up to the Ebro. …
Alfonso tried to compensate for this defeat and his loss of
territory in the east of his dominions by conquests in the
west, and in 1093 he advanced to the Tagus and took Santarem
and Lisbon, and made Sueiro Mendes, count of the new district.
But these conquests he did not hold for long. … In 1093 Seyr,
the general of the Almoravide caliph Yusuf, took Evora from
the Emir of Badajoz; in 1094 he took Badajoz itself, and
killed the emir; and retaking Lisbon and Santarem forced his
way up to the Mondego. To resist this revival of the
Mohammedan power, Alfonso summoned the chivalry of Christendom
to his aid. Among the knights who joined his army eager to win
their spurs, and win dominions for themselves, were Count
Raymond of Toulouse and Count Henry of Burgundy. To the
former, Alfonso gave his legitimate daughter, Urraca, and
Gallicia; to the latter, his illegitimate daughter Theresa,
and the counties of Oporto and Coimbra, with the title of
Count of Portugal. The history of Portugal now becomes
distinct from that of the rest of the peninsula, and it is
from the year 1095 that the history of Portugal commences. The
son of Henry of Burgundy was the great monarch Affonso
Henriques, the hero of his country and the founder of a great
dynasty."

_H. M. Stephens,
The Story of Portugal,
chapter 1._

{2570}

PORTUGAL: A. D. 1095-1325.
The county made independent and raised to the rank of a kingdom.
Completion of conquests from the Moors.
Limits of the kingdom established.

Count Henry of Burgundy waged war for seven years with his
Moorish neighbors; then went crusading to Palestine for two
years. On his return in 1105 he made common cause with his
brother-in-law and brother-adventurer, Count Raymond of
Gallicia, against the suspected intention of King Alfonso to
declare his bastard, half-Moorish son, Sancho, the heir to his
dominions. "This peaceful arrangement had no result, owing to
the death of Count Raymond in 1107, followed by that of young
Sancho at the battle of Uclés with the Moors, in 1108, and
finally by the death of Alfonso VI. himself in 1109. The
king's death brought about the catastrophe. He left all his
dominions to his legitimate daughter, Urraca, with the result
that there was five years of fierce fighting between Henry of
Burgundy, Alfonso Raimundes, the son of Count Raymond, Alfonso
I. of Aragon, and Queen Urraca. … While they fought with each
other the Mohammedans advanced. … On May 1, 1114, Count Henry
died, … leaving his wife Theresa as regent during the minority
of his son Affonso Henriques, who was but three years old.
Theresa, who made the ancient city of Guimaraens her capital,
devoted all her energies to building up her son's dominions
into an independent state; and under her rule, while the
Christian states of Spain were torn by internecine war, the
Portuguese began to recognize Portugal as their country, and
to cease from calling themselves Gallicians. This distinction
between Portugal and Gallicia was the first step towards the
formation of a national spirit, which grew into a desire for
national independence." The regency of Theresa, during which
she was engaged in many contests, with her half-sister Urraca
and others, ended in 1128. In the later years of it she
provoked great discontent by her infatuation with a lover to
whom she was passionately devoted. In the end, her son headed
a revolt which expelled her from Portugal. The son, Affonso
Henriques, assumed the reins of government at the age of
seventeen years. In 1130 he began a series of wars with
Alfonso VII. of Castile, the aim of which was to establish the
independence of Portugal. These wars were ended in 1140 by an
agreement, "in consonance with the ideas of the times, to
refer the great question of Portuguese Independence to a
chivalrous contest. In a great tournament, known as the
Tourney of Valdevez, the Portuguese knights were entirely
successful over those of Castile, and in consequence of their
victory Affonso Henriques assumed the title of King of
Portugal. This is the turning-point of Portuguese history, and
it is a curious fact that the independence of Portugal from
Gallicia was achieved by victory in a tournament and not in
war. Up to 1136, Affonso Henriques had styled himself Infante,
in imitation of the title borne by his mother; from 1136 to
1140 he styled himself Principe, and in 1140 he first took the
title of King." A little before this time, on the 25th of
July, 1139, Affonso had defeated the Moors in a famous and
much magnified battle—namely that of Orik or Ourique—"which,
until modern investigators examined the facts, has been
considered to have laid the foundations of the independence of
Portugal. Chroniclers, two centuries after the battle,
solemnly asserted that five kings were defeated on this
occasion, that 200,000 Mohammedans were slain, and that after
the victory the Portuguese soldiers raised Affonso on their
shields and hailed him as king. This story is absolutely
without authority from contemporary chronicles, and is quite
as much a fiction as the Cortes of Lamego, which has been
invented as sitting in 1143 and passing the constitutional
laws on which Vertot and other writers have expended so much
eloquence. … It was not until the modern school of historians
arose in Portugal, which examined documents and did not take
the statements of their predecessors on trust, that it was
clearly pointed out that Affonso Henriques won his crown by
his long struggle with his Christian cousin, and not by his
exploits against the Moors."

_H. M. Stephens,
The Story of Portugal,
chapters 2-3._

"The long reign of Affonso I., an almost uninterrupted period
of war, is the most brilliant epoch in the history of the
Portuguese conquests. Lisbon, which had already under its
Moorish masters become the chief city of the west, was taken
in 1147, and became at once the capital of the new kingdom.
The Tagus itself was soon passed. Large portions of the modern
Estremadura and Alemtejo were permanently annexed. The distant
provinces of Algarve and Andalucia were overrun; and even
Seville trembled at the successes of the Portuguese. It was in
vain that Moorish vessels sailed from Africa to chastise the
presumption of their Christian foes; their ships were routed
off Lisbon by the vessels of Affonso; their armies were
crushed by a victory at Santarem [1184], the last, and perhaps
the most glorious of the many triumphs of the King. … Every
conquest saw the apportionment of lands to be held by military
tenure among the conquerors; and the Church, which was here
essentially a militant one, received not only an endowment for
its religion but a reward for its sword. The Orders of St.
Michael and of Avis [St. Benedict of Avis] which were founded
had a religious as well as a military aspect. Their members
were to be distinguished by their piety not less than by their
courage, and were to emulate the older brotherhoods of
Jerusalem and of Castile. … Sancho I. [who succeeded his
father Affonso in 1185], though not adverse to military fame,
endeavoured to repair his country's wounds; and his reign, the
complement of that of Affonso, was one of development rather
than of conquest. … The surname of El Povoador, the Founder,
is the indication of his greatest work. New towns and villages
arose, new wealth and strength were given to the rising
country. Affonso II. [1211] continued what Sancho had begun;
and the enactment of laws, humane and wise, are a testimony of
progress, and an honourable distinction to his reign." But
Affonso II. provoked the hostility of an arrogant and too
powerful clergy, and drew upon himself a sentence of
excommunication from Rome. "The divisions and the weakness
which were caused by the contest between the royal and
ecclesiastical authority brought misery upon the kingdom. The
reign of Sancho II. [who succeeded to the throne in 1223] was
more fatally influenced by them even than that of his father.
… The now familiar terrors of excommunication and interdict
were followed [1245] by a sentence of deposition from Innocent
IV.; and Sancho, weak in character, and powerless before a
hostile priesthood and a disaffected people, retired to end
his days in a cloister of Castile. The successor to Sancho was
Affonso III.
{2571}
He had intrigued for his brother's crown; he had received the
support of the priesthood, and he had promised them their
reward in the extension of their privileges"; but his
administration of the government was wise and popular. He died
in 1279. "The first period of the history of Portugal is now
closed. Up to this time, each reign, disturbed and enfeebled
though it may have been, had added something to the extent of
the country. But now the last conquest from the Moors had been
won. On the south, the impassable barrier of the ocean; on the
east, the dominions of Castile, confined the kingdom. … The
crusading days were over. … The reign of Denis, who ruled from
1279 to 1325, is at once the parallel to that of Affonso I. in
its duration and importance, the contrast to it in being a
period of internal progress instead of foreign conquest. …
That Denis should have been able to accomplish as much as he
did, was the wonder even of his own age. … Successive reigns
still found the country progressing."

_C. F. Johnstone,
Historical Abstracts,
chapter 4._

ALSO IN:
_E. McMurdo,
History of Portugal,
volume 1, books 1-4,
and volume 2, book 1._

PORTUGAL: A. D. 1383-1385.
The founding of the new dynasty, of the House of Avis.

"The legitimate descent of the kings of Portugal from Count
Henry, of the house of Burgundy, terminated with Ferdinand
(the son of Peter I.) … in 1383. After wasting the resources
of his people in the vain support of his claims to the crown
of Castile, exposing Lisbon to a siege, and the whole country
to devastation, this monarch gave his youthful daughter in
marriage to the natural enemy of Portugal, John I., at that
time the reigning king of Castile. … It was agreed between the
contracting parties that the male issue of this connection
should succeed to the Portuguese sceptre, and, that failing,
that it should devolve into the hands of the Castilian
monarch. Fortunately, however, the career of this Spanish
tyrant was short, and no issue was left of Beatrix, for whom
the crown of Portugal could be claimed; and therefore all the
just pretensions of the Spaniard ceased. The marriage had
scarcely been concluded, when Ferdinand died. It had been
provided by the laws of the constitution, that in a case of
emergency, such as now occurred, the election of a new
sovereign should immediately take place. The legal heir to the
crown, Don Juan [the late king's brother], the son of Pedro
and Ignes de Castro, whose marriage had been solemnly
recognised by an assembly of the states, was a prisoner at
this time in the hands of his rival, the king of Castile. The
necessity of having a head to the government appointed without
delay, opened the road to the throne for John, surnamed the
Bastard, the natural son of Don Pedro, by Donna Theresa
Lorenzo, a Galician lady. Availing himself of the natural
aversion by which the Portuguese were influenced against the
Castilians, he seized the regency from the hands of the
queen-dowager, … successfully defended Lisbon, and forced the
Spaniards to retire into Spain after their memorable defeat on
the plain of Aljubarota. … This battle … completely
established the independence of the Portuguese monarchy. John
was, in consequence, unanimously elected King by the Cortes,
assembled at Coimbra in 1385. … In aid of his natural talents
John I. had received an excellent education from his father,
and during his reign exhibited proofs of being a profound
politician, as well as a skilful general. … He became the
founder of a new dynasty of kings, called the house of 'Avis,'
from his having been grand master of that noble order. The
enterprises, however, of the great Prince Henry, a son of
John I., form a distinguishing feature of this reign."

_W. M. Kinsey,
Portugal Illustrated,
pages 34-35._

PORTUGAL: A. D. 1415-1460.
The taking of Ceuta.
The exploring expeditions of Prince Henry the Navigator
down the African coast.

"King John [the First] had married an English wife, Philippa
Plantagenet—a grand-daughter of our King Edward III.,
thoroughly English, too, on her mother's side, and not without
a dash of Scottish blood, for her great-great-grandmother was
a Comyn of Broghan. King John of Portugal was married to his
English wife for twenty-eight years, they had five noble sons
and a daughter (who was Duchess of Burgundy and mother of
Charles the Bold); and English habits and usages were adopted
at the Portuguese Court. We first meet with Prince Henry and
his brothers, Edward and Peter, at the bed-side of their
English mother. The king had determined to attack Ceuta, the
most important seaport on the Moorish coast; and the three
young princes were to receive knighthood if they bore
themselves manfully, and if the place was taken. Edward, the
eldest, was twenty-four, Peter twenty-three, and Henry just
twenty-one. He was born on March 4th, 1394. There were two
other brothers, John and Ferdinand, but they were still too
young to bear arms. Their mother had caused three swords to be
made with which they were to be girt as knights; and the great
fleet was being assembled at Lisbon. But the Queen was taken
ill, and soon there was no hope. Husband and sons gathered
round her death-bed. When very near her end she asked: 'How is
the wind?' she was told that it was northerly. 'Then,' she
said, 'You will all sail for Ceuta on the feast of St. James.'
A few minutes afterwards she died, and husband and sons sailed
for Ceuta on St. James's day, the 25th of July, 1415,
according to her word. … Ceuta was taken after a desperate
fight. It was a memorable event, for the town never again
passed into the hands of the Moors unto this day. … From the
time of this Ceuta expedition Prince Henry set his mind
steadfastly on the discovery of Guinea and on the promotion of
commercial enterprise. During his stay at Ceuta he collected
much information respecting the African coast. … His first
objects were to know what was beyond the farthest cape
hitherto reached on the coast of Africa, to open commercial
relations with the people, and to extend the Christian faith.
Prince Henry had the capacity for taking trouble. He undertook
the task, and he never turned aside from it until he died. To
be close to his work he came to live on the promontory of
Sagres, near Cape St. Vincent, and not far from the seaport of
Lagos. He was twenty-four years old when he came to live at
this secluded spot, in December, 1418; and he died there in
his sixty-seventh year. … He established a school at Sagres
for the cultivation of map-drawing and the science of
navigation. At great expense he procured the services of
Mestre Jacome from Majorca, a man very learned in the art of
navigation, as it was then understood, and he erected an
observatory. …
{2572}
My readers will remember that during the time of the Crusades
a great order of knighthood was established, called the
Templars, which became very rich and powerful, and held vast
estates in most of the countries of Europe. At last the kings
became jealous of their prosperity and, in the days of our
Edward II. and of the French Philip IV., their wealth was
confiscated, and the order of Knights Templars was abolished
in all countries except Portugal. But King Dionysius of
Portugal refused either to rob the knights or to abolish the
order. In the year 1319 he reformed the order, and changed the
name, calling it the Order of Christ, and he encircled the
white cross of the Templars with a red cross as the future
badge of the knights. They retained their great estates.
Prince Henry was appointed, by his father, Grand Master of the
Order of Christ in the year 1419. He could imagine no nobler
nor more worthy employment for the large revenues of the Order
than the extension of geographical discovery. Thus were the
funds for his costly expeditions supplied by the Order of
Chivalry of which he was Grand Master. When Prince Henry first
began to send forth expeditions along the coast of Africa, the
farthest point to the southward that had been sighted was Cape
Bojador. The discovery of the extreme southern point of
Africa, and of a way thence to India, was looked upon then
exactly as the discovery of the North Pole is now. Fools asked
what was the use of it. Half-hearted men said it was
impossible. Officials said it was impractical. Nevertheless,
Prince Henry said that it could be done, and that, moreover it
should be done. … In 1434 he considered that the time had come
to round Cape Bojador. He selected for the command of the
expedition an esquire of his household named Gil Eannes, who
was accompanied by John Diaz, an experienced seaman of a
seafaring family at Lagos, many of whose members became
explorers. Prince Henry told them that the current which they
feared so much was strongest at a distance of about three to
five miles from the land. He ordered them, therefore, to stand
out boldly to sea. 'It was a place before terrible to all
men,' but the Prince told them that they must win fame and
honour by following his instructions. They did so, rounded the
Cape, and landed on the other side. There they set up a wooden
cross as a sign of their discovery. … The Prince now equipped
a larger vessel than had yet been sent out, called a varinel,
propelled by oars as well as sails. Many were the eager
volunteers among the courtiers at Sagres. Prince Henry's
cup-bearer, named Alfonso Gonsalves Baldaya, was selected to
command the expedition, and Gil Eannes—he who first doubled
Cape Bojador—went with it in a smaller vessel. … They sailed
in the year 1436, and, having rounded Cape Bojador without any
hesitation, they proceeded southward along the coast for 120
miles, until they reached an estuary called by them Rio
d'Ouro. … During the five following years Prince Henry was
much engaged in State affairs. The disastrous expedition to
Tangiers took place, and the imprisonment of his young brother
Ferdinand by the Moors, whose noble resignation under cruel
insults and sufferings until he died at Fez, won for him the
title of the 'Constant Prince.' But in 1441 Prince Henry was
able to resume the despatch of vessels of discovery. In that
year he gave the command of a small ship to his master of the
wardrobe, Antam Gonsalves. … He [Gonsalves] was followed in
the same year by Nuno Tristram. … Tristram discovered a
headland which, from its whiteness, he named Cape Blanco. …
The next discovery was that of the island of Arguin, south of
Cape Blanco, which was first visited in 1443 by Nuño Tristram
in command of a caravel. … The next voyage of discovery was
one of great importance, because it passed the country of the
Moors, and, for the first time, entered the land of the
Negroes. Dinis Diaz, who was selected for this enterprise by
the Prince, sailed in 1446 with the resolution of beating all
his predecessors. He passed the mouth of the river Senegal,
and was surprised at finding that the people on the north bank
were Moors, while to the south they were all blacks; of a
tribe called Jaloffs. Diaz went as far as a point which he
called Cabo Verde. In the following years several expeditions,
under Lanzarote and others, went to Arguin and the Senegal;
until, in 1455, an important voyage under Prince Henry's
patronage was undertaken by a young Venetian named Alvise
(Luigi) Cadamosto. … They sailed on March 22, 1455, and went
first to Porto Santo and Madeira. From the Canary Islands they
made sail for Cape Blanco, boldly stretching across the
intervening sea and being for some time quite out of sight of
land. Cadamosto had a good deal of intercourse with the
Negroes to the south of the Senegal, and eventually reached
the mouth of the Gambia whence he set out on his homeward
voyage. The actual extent of the discoveries made during the
life of Prince Henry was from Cape Bojador to beyond the mouth
of the Gambia. But this was only a small part of the great
service he performed, not only for his own country, but for
the whole civilised world. He organised discovery, trained up
a generation of able explorers, so that from his time progress
was continuous and unceasing. … Prince Henry, who was to be
known to all future generations as 'the Navigator,' died at
the age of sixty-six at Sagres, on Thursday, the 13th of
November, 1460."

_C. R. Markham,
The Sea Fathers,
chapter 1._

ALSO IN:
_R. H. Major,
Life of Prince Henry of Portugal, the Navigator._

PORTUGAL: A. D. 1463-1498.
The Pope's gift of title to African discoveries.
Slow southward progress of exploration.
The rounding of the Cape of Good Hope.
Vasco da Gama's voyage.