Sancho II (; 8 September 1209 – 4 January 1248), nicknamed the Cowled or the Capuched ( pt, o Capelo), alternatively, the Pious ( pt, o Piedoso), was King of Portugal from 1223 to 1248. He was succeeded on the Portuguese throne by his brother, King

Afonso III Afonso III (; rare English alternatives: ''Alphonzo'' or ''Alphonse''), or ''Affonso'' (Archaic Portuguese), ''Alfonso'' or ''Alphonso'' (Portuguese-Galician) or ''Alphonsus'' (Latin), the Boulonnais ( Port. ''o Bolonhês''), King of Portugal ( ...

, in 1248. Sancho was born in

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ) is a city and a municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2011 census was 143,397, in an area of . The fourth-largest urban area in Portugal after Lisbon, Porto, and Braga, it is the largest cit ...

, the eldest son of Afonso II of Portugal by his wife,

Urraca of Castile Urraca (also spelled ''Hurraca'', ''Urracha'' and ''Hurracka'' in medieval Latin) is a female first name. In Spanish, the name means magpie, derived perhaps from Latin ''furax'', meaning "thievish", in reference to the magpie's tendency to collect ...

Military career and reign

By the time of his accession to the throne, in 1223,

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

was embroiled in a difficult diplomatic conflict with the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. His father, Afonso II, had been

excommunicated Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The purpose ...

Pope Honorius III Pope Honorius III (c. 1150 – 18 March 1227), born Cencio Savelli, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 18 July 1216 to his death. A canon at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, he came to hold a number of impor ...

, for his attempts at reducing the Church's power within the country. A treaty of 10 articles was signed between the Pope and Sancho II, but the king paid little attention to its fulfillment. His priority was the ''

Reconquista The ' (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid ...

'', the reconquest of the southern Iberian Peninsula from the

Moors The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a distinct or ...

. From 1236 onwards, Sancho II conquered several cities in the

Algarve The Algarve (, , ; from ) is the southernmost NUTS II region of continental Portugal. It has an area of with 467,495 permanent inhabitants and incorporates 16 municipalities ( ''concelhos'' or ''municípios'' in Portuguese). The region has it ...

and Alentejo, securing the Portuguese position in the region.

Dispossession from throne

Sancho II proved a capable commander but, with regard to equally important administrative issues, he was less competent. With his total attention focused on military campaigns, the ground was open for internal disputes. The nobility was displeased by the king's conduct and started to conspire against him. Moreover, the middle class of merchants quarrelled frequently with the clergy, without any intervention from the king. As a result, the

bishop of Porto The Portuguese Roman Catholic Diocese of Porto ( la, Dioecesis Portugallensis) (Oporto) is a suffragan of the archdiocese of Braga. Its see at Porto is in the Norte region, and the second largest city in Portugal. History The diocese was pro ...

made a formal complaint to the pope about this state of affairs. Since the Church was the dominant power of the 13th century,

Pope Innocent IV Pope Innocent IV ( la, Innocentius IV; – 7 December 1254), born Sinibaldo Fieschi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 25 June 1243 to his death in 1254. Fieschi was born in Genoa and studied at the universitie ...

felt free to issue bull ''

Grandi non immerito ''Grandi non immerito'' was a papal bull issued by Pope Innocent IV on 24 July 1245, that effectively removed Sancho II of Portugal from the throne, replacing him with his brother and heir Afonso, Count of Boulogne, in the capacity of regent. ...

'', ordering the Portuguese to choose a new king to replace the so-called heretic. In 1246, recalcitrant nobles invited Sancho's brother Afonso, Count of Boulogne, to take the throne. Afonso immediately abdicated from his French possessions and marched into Portugal.

Exile and death

After a civil war lasting from late 1245 to mid 1247 and a Castilian intervention by the Castilian heir, Prince Alfonso, he fled in exile to

Toledo, Spain Toledo ( , ) is a city and municipality of Spain, capital of the province of Toledo and the ''de jure'' seat of the government and parliament of the autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha. Toledo was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESC ...

when Alfonso retreated his forces to support his father in the

siege of Seville The siege of Seville (July 1247 – November 1248) was a 16-month successful investment during the ''Reconquista'' of Seville by forces of Ferdinand III of Castile. Although perhaps eclipsed in geopolitical importance by the rapid capture of ...

. He died in the former city on 4 January 1248 and was buried in its

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominatio ...

Marriage

Sancho married, circa 1240, a Castilian lady, Mécia Lopes de Haro, widow of Alvaro Peres de Castro, and daughter of

Lope Díaz II de Haro Lope Díaz II de Haro "''Cabeza Brava''" (b. 1170 – d. 15 November 1236) was a Spanish noble of the House of Haro, the sixth Lord of Biscay, and founder of the municipality of Plentzia. He was the eldest son of Diego López II de Haro and his ...

and Urraca Alfonso de León, an illegitimate daughter of

Alfonso IX of León Alfonso IX (15 August 117123 or 24 September 1230) was King of León and Galicia from the death of his father Ferdinand II in 1188 until his own death. He took steps towards modernizing and democratizing his dominion and founded the Universit ...

, but they had no legitimate sons.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sancho 02 Of Portugal Portuguese infantes House of Burgundy-Portugal Medieval child rulers 1209 births 1248 deaths People of the Reconquista People from Coimbra 13th-century Portuguese monarchs