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Authors: Stanley G. Payne
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Afonso Henriques, a grandson of Alfonso VI, was only one of a series of centrifugal political actions in that era. The people of his territories mostly spoke their own form of Romance, different from the vernacular of greater León, but the same was true of the people of Galicia. Moreover, the latter possessed a much older, more distinctive, and more complex and sophisticated culture and set of institutions than could be found in the southwest. About this time Galician became the principal vernacular form for "high culture" and poetry in most of the peninsula, and Galicia was more of a distinctly organized entity than were the somewhat amorphous territories of Afonso Henriques. Initially, the lands of the new monarchy were somewhat divided from the rest of León by mountains, but mountain barriers are common in the peninsula, and just as present in the case of Galicia. Later, as the kingdom of Portugal advanced southward, they would be completely absent in the newly reconquered territories. The crown of Portugal, like that of Aragon, looked to the papacy for legitimation of its independent status. The latter granted this in return for recognition of papal suzerainty, since Rome's diplomacy was as interested in maintaining the internal political disunity of the peninsula, to further papal influence, as it was conversely, and sometimes a bit contradictorily, to encourage a countervailing military unity against the Muslims. At the same time, the first king of Portugal, like his Aragonese counterpart, felt compelled to recognize a loose form of homage to his cousin Alfonso VII as Hispanic "emperor," limited though this acknowledgement was.
Of the multiple new marriage alliances among Hispanic rulers between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, the only ones to achieve any new enduring unions were the two that reunited Castile and León and that created the "composed monarchy" of the greater crown of Aragon, while conversely Navarre broke completely free of its temporary association with Aragon.
With each passing generation the independent kingdom of Portugal developed an increasing sense of unity and identity, forging effective institutions of its own, however much they may have formally resembled those of Castile. As a typical Hispanic frontier kingdom, Portugal had the opportunity to extend its frontiers southward, strengthening its crown and providing an independent sphere of action for its own elites, thus completing its own reconquest by the middle of the thirteenth century. This closed its peninsular frontier and further assisted the distinct process of ethno-formation that was under way, until a unique and fully structured separate kingdom had been formed no later than the fourteenth century. 2 Portugal had begun to assume its full historical form, though at that time no European territory constituted a modern nation.
After Portugal successfully asserted its independence from Castile in the succession crisis of 1383-85, the kingdom soon set forth on its course of overseas expansion. Although expansion beyond Hispanic home waters had been begun by the crown of Aragon at the end of the thirteenth century, the remarkable growth of overseas Aragonese territories took place within the classic Mediterranean world. The first extrapeninsular conquest of the Portuguese — Ceuta in 1415 — established a foothold in North Africa (something that Aragon and Castile had also briefly attempted), but this extension of typical Hispanic Reconquest policy was soon expanded into the program of Atlantic exploration and expansion, which became the unique enterprise of Portugal in world history.
The Portuguese would later speak of their Atlantic vocation, but this failed to transform domestic Portugal, which in the sixteenth century remained much more like Castile than was, for example, Catalonia. The Portugal of the expansion was a society of dual elites, the lesser elite of merchants, royal agents, and a portion of the aristocracy
Of the multiple new marriage alliances among Hispanic rulers between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, the only ones to achieve any new enduring unions were the two that reunited Castile and León and that created the "composed monarchy" of the greater crown of Aragon, while conversely Navarre broke completely free of its temporary association with Aragon.
With each passing generation the independent kingdom of Portugal developed an increasing sense of unity and identity, forging effective institutions of its own, however much they may have formally resembled those of Castile. As a typical Hispanic frontier kingdom, Portugal had the opportunity to extend its frontiers southward, strengthening its crown and providing an independent sphere of action for its own elites, thus completing its own reconquest by the middle of the thirteenth century. This closed its peninsular frontier and further assisted the distinct process of ethno-formation that was under way, until a unique and fully structured separate kingdom had been formed no later than the fourteenth century. 2 Portugal had begun to assume its full historical form, though at that time no European territory constituted a modern nation.
After Portugal successfully asserted its independence from Castile in the succession crisis of 1383-85, the kingdom soon set forth on its course of overseas expansion. Although expansion beyond Hispanic home waters had been begun by the crown of Aragon at the end of the thirteenth century, the remarkable growth of overseas Aragonese territories took place within the classic Mediterranean world. The first extrapeninsular conquest of the Portuguese — Ceuta in 1415 — established a foothold in North Africa (something that Aragon and Castile had also briefly attempted), but this extension of typical Hispanic Reconquest policy was soon expanded into the program of Atlantic exploration and expansion, which became the unique enterprise of Portugal in world history.
The Portuguese would later speak of their Atlantic vocation, but this failed to transform domestic Portugal, which in the sixteenth century remained much more like Castile than was, for example, Catalonia. The Portugal of the expansion was a society of dual elites, the lesser elite of merchants, royal agents, and a portion of the aristocracy
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