History Of Portugal (1415–1542)

The history of Portugal can be traced from circa 400,000 years ago, when the region of present-day Portugal was inhabited by ''Homo heidelbergensis''.

The Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, which lasted almost two centuries, led to the establishment of the provinces of Lusitania in the south and Gallaecia in the north of what is now Portugal. Following the fall of Rome, Germanic tribes controlled the territory between the 5th and 8th centuries, including the Kingdom of the Suebi centred in Braga and the Visigothic Kingdom in the south.

The 711–716 invasion by the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate conquered the Visigoth Kingdom and founded the Islamic State of Al-Andalus, gradually advancing through Iberia. In 1095, Portugal broke away from the Kingdom of Galicia. Afonso Henriques, son of the count Henry of Burgundy, proclaimed himself king of Portugal in 1139. The Algarve (the southernmost province of Portugal) was conquered from the Moors in 1249, and in 1255 Lisbon became the capital. Portugal's land boundaries have remained almost unchanged since then. During the reign of King John I, the Portuguese defeated the Castilians in a war over the throne (1385) and established a political alliance with England (by the Treaty of Windsor in 1386).

From the late Middle Ages, in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal ascended to the status of a world power during Europe's "Age of Discovery" as it built up a vast empire. Signs of military decline began with the Battle of Alcácer Quibir in Morocco in 1578; this defeat led to the death of King Sebastian and the imprisonment of much of the high nobility, which had to be ransomed at great cost. This eventually led to a small interruption in Portugal's 800-year-old independence by way of a 60-year dynastic union with Spain between 1580 and the beginning of the Portuguese Restoration War led by John IV in 1640. Spain's disastrous defeat in its attempt to conquer England in 1588 by means of the Invincible Armada was also a factor, as Portugal had to contribute ships for the invasion. Further setbacks included the destruction of much of its capital city in an earthquake in 1755, occupation during the Napoleonic Wars, and the loss of its largest colony, Brazil, in 1822. From the middle of the 19th century to the late 1950s, nearly two million Portuguese left Portugal to live in Brazil and the United States.

In 1910, a revolution deposed the monarchy. A military coup in 1926 installed a dictatorship that remained until another coup in 1974. The new government instituted sweeping democratic reforms and granted independence to all of Portugal's African colonies in 1975. Portugal is a founding member of NATO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries. It entered the European Economic Community (now the European Union) in 1986.

Etymology

The word ''Portugal'' derives from the combined Roman-Celtic place name Portus Cale; a settlement where present-day's conurbation of Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia (or simply, Gaia) stand, along the banks of river Douro in the north of what is now Portugal.

Porto stems from the Latin word for port or harbour, , with the second element ''Cale''s meaning and precise origin being less clear. The mainstream explanation points to an ethnonym derived from the Callaeci also known as the Gallaeci peoples, who occupied the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula. The names ''Cale'' and ''Callaici'' are the origin of today's ''Gaia'' and '' Galicia''. Another theory proposes that ''Cale'' or ''Calle'' is a derivation of the Celtic word for 'port', like the Irish or Scottish Gaelic . These explanations, would require the pre-Roman language of the area to have been a branch of Q-Celtic, which is not generally accepted because the region's pre-Roman language was Gallaecian. However, scholars like Jean Markale and Tranoy propose the Celtic branches all share the same origin, and placenames such as Cale, Gal, Gaia, Calais, Galatia, Galicia, Gaelic, Gael, Gaul (), Wales, Cornwall, Wallonia and others all stem from one linguistic root. Cala is sometimes considered not Celtic, but from Late Latin ''calatum'' > ''calad'' > ''cala'', compare Italian , French , itself from Occitan ''cala'' "cove, small harbour" from a Pre-Indo-European root ''*kal'' / ''*cala'' (see '' calanque'' and maybe Galici-a < '' Callaeci'' or ''Calaeci''). Another theory claims it derives from the word ''Caladunum'', in fact an unattested compound ''*Caladunum'', that may explain the toponym Calezun in Gascony.

A further explanation proposes ''Gatelo'' as having been the origin of present-day Braga, Santiago de Compostela, and consequently the wider regions of Northern Portugal and Galicia. A different theory has it that ''Cala'' was the name of a Celtic goddess (drawing a comparison with the Gaelic ''Cailleach'', a supernatural hag). Some French scholars believe the name may have come from , the port of the Gauls or Celts.

Around 200 BC, the Romans took the Iberian Peninsula from the Carthaginians during the Second Punic War. In the process they conquered Cale, renaming it ('Port of Cale') and incorporating it in the province of Gaellicia with its capital in Bracara Augusta (modern day Braga, Portugal). During the Middle Ages, the region around Portus Cale became known by the Suebi and Visigoths as ''Portucale''. The name ''Portucale'' changed into ''Portugale'' during the 7th and 8th centuries. By the 9th century, ''Portugale'' was used extensively to refer to the region between the rivers Douro and Minho, the Minho flowing along what would become the northern Portugal–Spain border. By the 11th and 12th centuries, ''Portugale'', ''Portugallia'', ''Portvgallo'' or ''Portvgalliae'' was already referred to as ''Portugal''.

The 14th-century Middle French name for the country, , which added an intrusive /n/ sound through the process of excrescence, spread to Middle English."Portugal, n. and adj." OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2020, www.oed.com/view/Entry/148257. Accessed 30 July 2020. Middle English variant spellings included , ,} and . The spelling is found in Chaucer's Epilogue to the Nun's Priest's Tale. These variants survive in the '' Torrent of Portyngale'', a Middle English romance composed around 1400, and " Old Robin of Portingale", an English Child ballad. and variants were also used in Scots and survive in the Cornish name for the country, '' Portyngal''.

Early history

The early history of Portugal is shared with the rest of the Iberian Peninsula located in southwestern Europe. The name of Portugal derives from the joined Romano-Celtic name Portus Cale. The region was settled by Pre-Celts and Celts, giving origin to peoples like the Gallaeci, Lusitanians, Celtici and Cynetes (also known as Conii). Some coastal areas were visited by Phoenicians-Carthaginians and Ancient Greeks. It was incorporated in the Roman Republic dominions as Lusitania and part of Gallaecia, after 45 BC until 298 AD.

Prehistory

The region of present-day Portugal was inhabited by humans since circa 400,000 years ago, when Homo heidelbergensis entered the area. The oldest human fossil found in Portugal is the 400,000-year-old '' Aroeira 3'' ''H. Heidelbergensis'' skull discovered in the Cave of Aroeira in 2014. Later Neanderthals roamed the northern Iberian peninsula and a tooth has been found at Nova da Columbeira cave in Estremadura. Homo sapiens sapiens arrived in Portugal around 35,000 years ago, spreading and roaming the border-less region of the northern Iberian peninsula.David Birmingham (2003), p. 11 These were subsistence societies and although they did not establish prosperous settlements, they did form organized societies. Neolithic Portugal experimented with domestication of herding animals, the raising of some cereal crops and fluvial or marine fishing.

Pre-Celtic tribes inhabited Portugal leaving a cultural footprint. The Cynetes developed a written language, leaving many stelae, which are mainly found in the south of Portugal. Early in the first millennium BC, waves of Celts invaded Portugal from Central Europe and inter-married with the local populations, forming different tribes. Another theory suggests that Celts inhabited western Iberia / Portugal well before any large Celtic migrations from Central Europe. A number of linguists expert in ancient Celtic have presented compelling evidence that the Tartessian language, once spoken in parts of SW Spain and SW Portugal, is at least proto-Celtic in structure.

The Celtic presence in Portugal is traceable, in broad outline, through archaeological and linguistic evidence. They dominated much of northern and central Portugal; but in the south, they were unable to establish their stronghold, which retained its non-Indo-European character until the Roman conquest. In southern Portugal, some small, semi-permanent commercial coastal settlements were also founded by Phoenician-Carthaginians.

Modern archaeology and research shows a Portuguese root to the Celts in Portugal and elsewhere. During that period and until the Roman invasions, the Castro culture (a variation of the Urnfield culture also known as ''Urnenfelderkultur'') was prolific in Portugal and modern Galicia. This culture, together with the surviving elements of the Atlantic megalithic culture and the contributions that come from the more Western Mediterranean cultures, ended up in what has been called the Cultura Castreja or Castro Culture. This designation refers to the characteristic Celtic populations called 'dùn', 'dùin' or 'don' in Gaelic and that the Romans called castrae in their chronicles.

Based on the Roman chronicles about the Callaeci peoples, along with the Lebor Gabála Érenn narrations and the interpretation of the archaeological remains throughout the northern half of Portugal and Galicia, it is possible to infer that there was a matriarchal society, with a military and religious aristocracy probably of the feudal type.
The figures of maximum authority were the chieftain (chefe tribal), of military type and with authority in his Castro or clan, and the druid, mainly referring to medical and religious functions that could be common to several castros. The Celtic cosmogony remained homogeneous due to the ability of the druids to meet in councils with the druids of other areas, which ensured the transmission of knowledge and the most significant events.

The first documentary references to Castro society are provided by chroniclers of Roman military campaigns such as Strabo, Herodotus and Pliny the Elder among others, about the social organization, and describing the inhabitants of these territories, the Gallaeci of Northern Portugal as: "A group of barbarians who spend the day fighting and the night eating, drinking and dancing under the moon."

There were other similar tribes, and chief among them were the Lusitanians; the core area of these people lay in inland central Portugal, while numerous other related tribes existed such as the Celtici of Alentejo, and the Cynetes or Conii of the Algarve. Among the tribes or sub-divisions were the Bracari, Coelerni, Equaesi, Grovii, Interamici, Leuni, Luanqui, Limici, Narbasi, Nemetati, Paesuri, Quaquerni, Seurbi, Tamagani, Tapoli, Turduli, Turduli Veteres, Turduli Oppidani, Turodi, and Zoelae. A few small, semi-permanent, commercial coastal settlements (such as Tavira) were also founded in the Algarve region by Phoenicians–Carthaginians.

Ancient history

File:Anta Cerqueira em Couto Esteves.JPG, Dolmen of Cerqueira, Sever do Vouga
Museu da Cultura Castreja (14926282396).jpg, Archaeological artifact from the work developed in the area of Citânia de Briteiros
23.4.14 Briteiros 109 (14012600704).jpg, Cross or ''cruzado'' in Citânia de Briteiros
File:Megalithic spirals at Almendres Cromlech.jpg, Megalithic spirals, cromlech near Évora
Museu da Cultura Castreja (14762739747).jpg, Another artifact from Citânia de Briteiros
Pedra Formosa Briteiros.jpg, A ''pedra formosa'' Celtic triskelion motifs

Numerous pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula inhabited the territory when a Roman invasion occurred in the 3rd century BC. The Romanization of Hispania took several centuries. The Roman provinces that covered present-day Portugal were Lusitania in the south and Gallaecia in the north.

Numerous Roman sites are scattered around present-day Portugal. Some of the urban remains are quite large, such as Conímbriga and Miróbriga. Several works of engineering, such as baths, temples, bridges, roads, circuses, theatres, and layman's homes are preserved throughout the country. Coins, sarcophagi, and ceramics are also numerous.

Following the fall of Rome, the Kingdom of the Suebi and the Visigothic Kingdom controlled the territory between the 5th and 8th centuries.

Romanization

Romanization began with the arrival of the Roman army in the Iberian Peninsula in 218 BC during the Second Punic War against Carthage. The Romans sought to conquer Lusitania, a territory that included all of modern Portugal south of the Douro river and Spanish Extremadura, with its capital at Emerita Augusta (now Mérida).

Mining was the primary factor that made the Romans interested in conquering the region: one of Rome's strategic objectives was to cut off Carthaginian access to the Iberian copper, tin, gold, and silver mines. The Romans intensely exploited the Aljustrel (Vipasca) and Santo Domingo mines in the Iberian Pyrite Belt which extends to Seville.

While the south of what is now Portugal was relatively easily occupied by the Romans, the conquest of the north was achieved only with difficulty due to resistance from Serra da Estrela by Celts and Lusitanians led by Viriatus, who managed to resist Roman expansion for years. Viriatus, a shepherd from Serra da Estrela who was expert in guerrilla tactics, waged relentless war against the Romans, defeating several successive Roman generals, until he was assassinated in 140 BC by traitors bought by the Romans. Viriatus has long been hailed as the first truly heroic figure in proto-Portuguese history. Nonetheless, he was responsible for raids into the more settled Romanized parts of Southern Portugal and Lusitania that involved the victimization of the inhabitants.

The conquest of the Iberian Peninsula was complete two centuries after the Roman arrival, when they defeated the remaining Cantabri, Astures and Gallaeci in the Cantabrian Wars in the time of Emperor Augustus (19 BC). In 74 AD, Vespasian granted Latin Rights to most municipalities of Lusitania. In 212 AD, the Constitutio Antoniniana gave Roman citizenship to all free subjects of the empire and, at the end of the century, the emperor Diocletian founded the province of Gallaecia, which included modern-day northern Portugal, with its capital at Bracara Augusta (now Braga). As well as mining, the Romans also developed agriculture, on some of the best agricultural land in the empire. In what is now Alentejo, vines and cereals were cultivated, and fishing was intensively pursued in the coastal belt of the Algarve, Póvoa de Varzim, Matosinhos, Troia and the coast of Lisbon, for the manufacture of garum that was exported by Roman trade routes to the entire empire. Business transactions were facilitated by coinage and the construction of an extensive road network, bridges and aqueducts, such as Trajan's bridge in Aquae Flaviae (now Chaves).

Roman rule brought geographical mobility to the inhabitants of Portugal and increased their interaction with the rest of the world as well as internally. Soldiers often served in different regions and eventually settled far from their birthplace, while the development of mining attracted migration into the mining areas. The Romans founded numerous cities, such as Olisipo (Lisbon), Bracara Augusta (Braga), Aeminium (Coimbra) and Pax Julia (Beja), and left important cultural legacies in what is now Portugal. Vulgar Latin (the basis of the Portuguese language) became the dominant language of the region, and Christianity spread throughout Lusitania from the third century.

Germanic invasions

The Suebi

In 409, with the decline of the Roman Empire, the Iberian Peninsula was occupied by Germanic tribes that the Romans referred to as barbarians. In 411, with a federation contract with Emperor Honorius, many of these people settled in Hispania. An important group was made up of the Suebi and Vandals in Gallaecia, who founded the Kingdom of the Suebi with its capital in Braga. They came to dominate Aeminium (Coimbra) as well, and there were Visigoths to the south. The Suebi and the Visigoths were the Germanic tribes who had the most lasting presence in the territories corresponding to modern Portugal. As elsewhere in Western Europe, there was a decline in urban life during the Dark Ages.

Roman institutions declined in the wake of the Germanic invasions with the exception of ecclesiastical