Denis I of Portugal
(Lisbon 1261 - Odevilas 1325)
Denis of Portugal, nicknamed the Farmer, Father of the Homeland and even the Liberal, was the second son of King Alfonso III and his infante wife Beatrice of Castile (1242-1303), becoming the sixth King of Portugal in 1279 (and the fifth King of the Algarve) instead of his older brother Robert, who had been declared the illegitimate son of Mahaut of Dammartin.
His Reign
As heir to the throne, Denis I was trained at an early age by his father to manage Portugal. When he ascended to the throne, Portugal was again in conflict with the Catholic Church. Denis tried to resolve the problem by signing a treaty with Pope Nicholas III, promising to protect Rome's interests in Portugal, particularly by granting asylum to the Order of the Temple, persecuted in France, under the name of the Order of Christ (see inset below).
With the Reconquista at an end, Denis I was mainly an administrative, pacific king, despite minor conflicts with Castile, from which he gained possession of the villages of Serpa and Moura, the land beyond Guadiana and the rectification of the borders of Ribacoa. He signed a border treaty with Ferdinand IV of Castile on 12 September 1297. This treaty is still in force today. Once this problem had been dealt with, no other wars broke out during his reign, thereby justifying the memory that he left behind of a king that was strangely peace-loving for his era.
As such, the government's priorities were mainly to organise the country and pursue his father's policies. Denis published the crux of Portugal's civil and criminal law, and focused on protecting the least fortunate classes against the misuse of power.
During his reign, he travelled around the country, visiting the towns and resolving any problems. With the help of his wife, Queen Elizabeth of Aragon, known as Saint Elizabeth (1271-1336), Denis tried to improve the lot of the poor and founded various charity institutions.
Preoccupied with the country's infrastructure, Denis ordered the copper, silver, tin and iron mines to be worked, and exported the products to other European countries. He signed the first trade agreement with England in 1308 and founded the Portuguese merchant navy.
Denis introduced Portugal's first land reform, redistributed the land by dividing up the feudal and church lands, encouraged agriculture and founded various rural communities, markets and fairs. During his reign, Portugal produced more cereal than required and exported the surplus. One of his greatest achievements was planting a pine forest to protect the arable land from the advancing coastal sand.
Denis created a merchant navy for trading with Catalonia, Brittany, England and Scandinavia. By establishing Genoese merchants in Lisbon, he promoted skilled sailors and had navigators come from neighbouring countries. The Azores were apparently first discovered during his reign.
Denis I put Portugal on an equal footing with the other kingdoms in the Iberian peninsula.
Culture was another of his centres of interest. Denis was keen on literature and even penned a few books himself on such topics as administration, hunting and poetry. In 1290, he founded the University of Lisbon, which he moved to Coimbra in 1307. His decree, the Magna Charta Priveligiorum, founded the University of Coimbral and defended the use and teaching of Latin instead of Portuguese.
However, the last few years of his reign were marked by infighting between his two sons: Alfonso, the legitimate heir, and Alfonso Sanches, the Count of Albuquerque and illegitimate son.
Family Tree
Through his marriage in 1282 with Elizabeth of Aragon, or Saint Elizabeth, (1271-1336):
- Constance (3 January 1290 - 18 November 1313), who married Ferdinand IV, the King of Castile
- Alfonso IV of Portugal (1291-1357), his successor
With Maria Pires:
- John Alfonso (1288-1336), Lord of Lousã and Arouse
With Marinha Gomes:
- Maria Alfonso, who married João of Lacerda, a Castilian noble
With Aldonça Rodrigues Telha:
- Alfonso Sancho (1289-1329), Count of Albuquerque and rival of Alfonso IV
From the Order of the Temple to the Order of Christ
Abolition of the Order of the Temple
On 30 December 1308, while the case of the Knights Templar had already been a burning issue in France over the past year, the pope ordered King Denis of Portugal to arrest the Knights Templar under his jurisdiction. A commission of enquiry was created in the country and was chaired by the Bishop of Lisbon and attended by the superior of the Franciscan Order and a jurist, Joao de Luis. 28 knights were then questioned, as well as six other witnesses. To prevent the Temple's possessions from falling into other hands, the king ordered the possessions to be confiscated in January 1310, until such time as the Church had officially reached a verdict concerning the accused order. The enquiry conducted in Portugal, though without resorting to torture, could not find any blame concerning the Temple or its members, and a provincial council held shortly after to decide on any follow-ups came to the same conclusion.
Creation of the Order of Christ
King Denis was worried about the rumours that the pope was apparently thinking of awarding all the Temple's possessions to the Hospitallers. The Hospitallers already owned several possessions on the south bank of the Tagus, and giving them the Templar holdings on the north bank of the same river would provide them with such a build-up in what was a strategic area that they would undoubtedly be capable of undermining the royal authority. After various negotiations, the king obtained the ruling in 1319 whereby the Temple's possessions would go to a new, specifically Portuguese order.
The bull of foundation Ad ea ex quibus granted by Pope John XXII on 14 March 1319 first proclaimed the creation of a new order called the "Order of the Knights of Christ" (Ordem de Cavalaria de N. S. Jesus Cristo) and established the fortress of Castro Marim as the knights' house in the south-easternmost part of the country, at the mouth of the Guadiana. Then it imposed the rule of Calatrava on the new brotherhood and appointed Dom Gil Martins as Grand Master, the previous Grand Master of the Order of Aviz. It transferred all the possessions and rights of the Knights Templar to the new militia, but placed it under the eminent authority of the Cistercian abbot of Alcobaça Monastery, in the diocese of Lisbon. The abbot was therefore entitled to visit and correct all the houses belonging to the Order of Christ. Each master of the order had to pledge his loyalty to the abbot, ultimately representing the Supreme Pontiff. Finally, should the master's position be left vacant, the bull stipulated that the new master should be someone both military and religious, and specifically professed by the new order. Unfortunately, the following century, this protective framework could not hold up against the greediness of the Portuguese sovereigns, attracted to the order's considerable wealth.
The Order of Christ - a Resurgence of the Order of the Temple
Historians believe that the Order of Christ was the main refuge for the Knights Templar that escaped the spate of arrests on 13 October 1307 in France; the new Portuguese order became the (only?) resurgence of the Order of the Temple. Most of the Knights Templar arrived in Portugal by sea, since part of the Templar fleet, that had left La Rochelle to avoid being commandeered, dropped anchor in the port of Serra d'El-Rei, a port stronghold built by Gualdim Pais, which has since disappeared. As a result, the Order of Christ inherited the Templars' knowledge in terms of construction and maritime navigation. It was used a century later by the infante Henry the Navigator, the governor of the Order of Christ, to develop his famous caravel, whose sails proudly flew the Templar cross, and later still by Christopher Columbus, who was also a Grand Master of the Order of Christ.
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