Port anD the Douro uP to Date 3went on to ransack Lisbon, capturing the city for Afonso Henriques in 1147. The new
kingdom of Portugal received official recognition from Pope Alexander III in 1179 with
the final conquest of Faro in the Algarve taking place under Afonso III in 1249, over two
centuries before the Moors were finally driven out of Andalusia in neighbouring Spain.
Thus Portugal took its present shape: a long, narrow country roughly 600 kilometres
long by 200 wide, dissected by two great rivers, the Douro and Tagus (Tejo), rising on
the central Iberian meseta. Portugal’s borders have since survived virtually intact, making
them among the oldest on the continent of Europe.
Portugal anD englanD:
traDe anD treaty
By the mid-thirteenth century, a good understanding had developed between the Portuguese
and English monarchs and various, albeit unsuccessful, attempts were made to formalise
this friendship by marriage. Against a background of relative peace, trade began to prosper
with English merchants selling wool and manufactured cloth in exchange for olive oil, fruit
and wine. The status of Oporto under the control of its bishop was called into question
by Afonso III (1248–1279) and the crown established a competing royal borough at Gaia
(Cale) on the south bank of the Douro. It was decreed that a third of all ships descending the
river and half of those arriving from abroad should unload at Gaia. The Bishop of Oporto
rejected this and appealed to the Pope but was unable to prevent Afonso from establishing
the separate conselho (municipal council) of Vila Nova de Gaia in 1255.
Civil strife began following Afonso’s death in 1279 and this was followed by war with
neighbouring Castile in 1295. Portugal joined forces with Aragon to divide León from
Castile. The result was greatly to the benefit of the Portuguese who were granted a strip
of territory between the Rivers Côa and Águeda, both tributaries of the River Douro, in
the Treaty of Alcanices of 1297. Now part of the Douro Superior, the tiny River Águeda
still forms the frontier with Spain.
A period of peace and prosperity followed the Treaty of Alcanices. Under King Diniz
(1279–1325), Portuguese became the nation’s official language and the royal court became
a centre of culture, Diniz himself being a gifted poet. As substantial English mercantile
communities grew up in the Portuguese ports of Lisbon, Oporto, Gaia and Viana, the
traders of both nations saw the advantage of securing concessions for each other. Letters
from Portugal’s Diniz to Edwards I and II of England illustrate the intervention of the crown
in an effort to obtain safe conduct and protection for Portuguese merchants in England in
return for reciprocal rights. A series of commercial treaties were signed, beginning in 1294
and concluding in 1353 when the merchants of Lisbon and Oporto, led by Afonso Martins
Alho (‘garlic’), negotiated a treaty with England’s Edward III that guaranteed the safety of
the traders of both nations, allowing free access to each other’s markets.
It took an invasion of Portugal by Castile to formalise the alliance between England
and Portugal. With the Hundred Years’ War raging between England and France and the