The war fought in 1383-1385 was at bottom a war between the conservative land-owning medieval aristocracy (very similar to and allied with their Galician and Castilian counterparts) centred in the former County of Portugal in Minho (except the bourgeois city of Porto, a Lisbon ally, among a few other cities and personages of the north), and the rich merchants of the pluralistic society of Lisbon. The nobles had reclaimed the country from the Muslims and founded the northern counties—as their alliance with the Castilian nobility was reestablished, the increasing dominance of Lisbon threatened their supremacy. For the merchants of Lisbon, a commercial city, the feudal practices and land wars of the Castilians were a threat to their business interests. It was the bourgeoisie who, with their English connections and substantial capital, would win the struggle. The Master of Avis was acclaimed King John I of Portugal, his forces having survived the Siege of Lisbon in 1384 and won the Battle of Aljubarrota in 1385 against the forces of Castile and the northern Portuguese nobles, under the leadership of his constable Nuno Álvares Pereira. The new Portuguese aristocracy rose from the merchant class of Lisbon, and it is only from this date that the centre of power in north Portugal actually moved to Lisbon, it becoming a sort of city-state, whose interests almost entirely determined the course of the country’s independence.

The new bourgeois nobles built their palaces and stately homes in the Santos neighbourhood; other important buildings included the University, which had returned to Lisbon in the Alfama; the Carmo Church (Igreja do Carmo); the Alfândega (Customs Building); and some of the first residential buildings built in medieval Europe with several floors (up to five). The town had the narrow, winding streets characteristic of medina quarters, mostly unpaved, its houses alternating with gardens and orchards. As the city continued to grow, the widespread abandonment of highly productive Moorish irrigation techniques meant that it had to import wheat from Castile, France, the Rhineland and even Morocco. With this expansion into the countryside, the adjacent territory became suburbs like those of other European commercial cities. Lisbon, along with Antwerp, served the same function of an organised trade centre on the Atlantic coast as Venice, Genoa, Barcelona or Ragusa on the Mediterranean; or Hamburg, Lubeck and the other cities on the Baltic Sea. Wanting to improve public hygiene, the city council in 1417 prohibited garbage piles near the Carmo Monastery and other areas, and in 1426 another law was enacted prohibiting the dumping of trash in the streets, under penalty of paying a fine.

Portuguese foreign policy promoted the interests of Lisbon: trade and cooperation agreements were signed with the commercial city-states of Venice (accord of 1392), Genoa (1398), Pisa and Florence, whose merchants had already formed communities in the city, and many of whom were naturalised and married into the Portuguese nobility. Ceuta on the north African coast was captured by the Portuguese during the Battle of Ceuta in 1415, giving Lisbon’s merchants a base from which to attack Saracen pirates and better local control of the Mediterranean trade that passed through the Strait of Gibraltar, as well as the importation of Moroccan wheat at the best prices. Moreover, at this time Ceuta received caravans bearing gold and ivory, a trade Lisbon wanted to dominate, and it was feared that its Castilian rivals in Seville or the Aragonese of Barcelona might seize the outpost. A renewed alliance with England, one of its most important trade partners, was pursued.

Afonso I granted Lisbon a Foral in 1179, and tried to restore the city’s commercial connections by inaugurating a major new fair or market. Consequently, the Portuguese merchants, Christian and Jewish, not only reestablished some of the old trade links of al-Us̲h̲būna with Seville and Cádiz, and in the Mediterranean with Constantinople, but also opened up new trade routes to the ports of northern Europe that the Muslims rarely visited because of religious differences. Lisbon became a conduit for maritime trade between the North Sea and the Mediterranean, and thanks to advances in navigation, the volume of ocean shipping increased. Portuguese merchants opened trade houses in Seville, Southampton, Bruges, and in the cities of the Hansa, which later joined to form the Hanseatic League. Meanwhile, the Portuguese Jews continued to trade with their relatives in North Africa. They exchanged Portuguese olive oil, salt, wine, cork, honey and wax as well as wool and fine linen textiles, tin, iron, dyes, amber, guns, furs and artisanal works of the north for the spices, silks and herbal remedies of the Mediterranean countries, in addition to the gold, ivory, rice, alum, almonds and sugar bought from the Arabs and Moors. Shipyards were founded to build more commercial and military vessels for the naval fleet (armada) essential to protect this trade from Saracen pirates. Increasing demand for goods by the growing populations of Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries stimulated innovations in the construction of boats, the sturdy but clumsy barge (barca) becoming obsolete when a gradual synthesis of Christian, Viking and Arabic sea-going knowledge led to the development of the caravel (first mentioned in the early 13th century), the first truly seaworthy Atlantic sailing ship. Professions in the maritime industry, such as those of ships-carpenters and sailors, were allowed certain privileges and protections, including the creation in 1242 of a maritime judicial office in Lisbon called the Alcaide do Mar (Alcaide of the Sea).

An indirect effect of this economic dynamism was that Lisbon’s trade contributed to the ruin of the south German merchants, who engaged in the same commerce by using a more costly land route between the ports of Italy and those of the Netherlands and the Hansa that was only viable when Muslim pirates and their ships controlled southern Spain and the Strait of Gibraltar. As the Holy Roman Empire lost influence over its kingdoms, duchies and city-state constituents, the German merchants, hitherto the masters of European trade, were forced to seek new markets in the East.

With the new prosperity and increased security of Lisbon after the final conquest of the al-Gharb or al-Garve (Arabic: al-Gharb, “the west”), in 1256 Afonso III took note of its obvious advantages and chose the largest and most powerful city in the kingdom for his capital, moving his court, the national archives and the treasury from Coimbra to Lisbon. Denis, the first Portuguese king to rule during all his reign at Lisbon, created the University in 1290, which was transferred to Coimbra in 1308 because of increasing conflicts between the students and Lisbon residents. At this time the area where the Praça do Comércio (Commerce Square) is today was reclaimed from the sea by draining the already muddy terrain (the river flowed freely until the time of the conquest, but had become clogged due to sediment deposits). New streets were laid out, such as Rua Nova, while the Rossio square became the city centre, stealing that distinction from the Castle hill. Other construction projects initiated by King Denis included a wall to protect the Cais da Ribeira from pirate raids, and reconstruction of the Alcáçova or Moorish Palace (later destroyed in the 1755 earthquake) and the Sé.

Just as there were Portuguese communities in the cities of northern Europe, there were colonies of merchants from the rest of Europe in Lisbon, then one of the most important cities in international trade. Not counting the Jewish population (already established as a Portuguese minority), the Genoese were the most numerous expatriate community, followed by those of the Venetians and other Italians, and the Dutch and English. These merchants brought new cartographic and navigational techniques to Portugal, as well as an understanding of financial and banking practices and of the mercantilism system, not to mention the knowledge gained through their contacts with Byzantine and Muslim middlemen of the origins of imported Asian luxury goods such as silks and spices.

Political tensions with Castile were counterbalanced by an alliance made in 1308 by King Denis between Portugal and England, the main trading partner of Lisbon (and also of Porto), which has continued uninterruptedly until the present. This alliance later fought on one of the two sides of the so-called Caroline War; the second phase of the Hundred Years’ War, on the other were Castile and France. During Ferdinand’s reign, Portugal started a war with Castile, and Lisbon boats armed with cannons were recruited to participate in an unsuccessful Genoese attack on Seville. In response to this provocation, the Spaniards laid siege to Lisbon, taking it in 1373, but departed when they were paid a ransom. It was following this calamity that the Great Fernandine Walls (Grandes Muralhas Fernandinas de Lisboa) of Lisbon were built.

On the lower end of the social scale in Lisbon were all types of labourers and street merchants, as well as fishermen and farmers of vegetable gardens. In this era the streets were occupied by tradesmen who had organised artisans’ guilds directed by masters of their respective trades. These included: Rua do Ouro (Goldsmiths’ Street), Rua da Prata (Silversmiths’ Street), Rua dos Fanqueiros (Drapers’ Street), Rua dos Sapateiros (Cobblers’ Street), Rua dos Retroseiros (Mercers’ Street) and Rua dos Correeiros (Saddlers’ Street). Such corporations were formed for social protection and to educate apprentices, and were employed to enforce a system of price controls for the benefit of their members. The aristocracy, attracted to Lisbon by the court, established its presence in the city with the building of large palaces, and served in the bureaucratic offices of governmental administration. But the most powerful segment of society in Lisbon, even after the city gained its status as the nation’s capital, was the bourgeoisie, the merchant class that was the economic powerhouse of this rising commercial centre, now among the most important in Europe. They were the magnates of commerce who controlled the city and its oligarchic council. It was to serve their needs that business professionals organised in the city: bankers to raise capital and coordinate the financial risks; lawyers to protect the rights of citizens and handle their legal cases; naval architects and marine engineers to build boats, and scientists to design their navigational instruments. With their political influence, they could extract from the monarchy concessions that favored their mercantile interests, and were a great impetus for exploration to find new markets. A mutual benefit association, the Companhia das Naus, was founded in 1380 as a kind of insurance company which required the payment of compulsory quotas from all ship owners in exchange for the sharing of losses after shipwrecks. As an umbrella organisation covering more than five hundred large vessels owned by the magnates of the city, it was the forerunner of Portuguese overseas expansion. With rising profits, the wealthiest merchants acquired titles of nobility, even as the poorer nobles engaged in trade.

Minorities in the city included Sephardic Jews and Muslims (not only the Moors but also Arabs and Islamised Arabic-speaking Latinos). There was a large Jewish quarter occupying the parishes of St. Mary Magdalene, St. Julian and St. Nicholas along the Rua Nova dos Mercadores, where the Great Synagogue was located. The Jews (perhaps 10% of the population, or even more) were great traders, who took full advantage of connections to their coreligionists throughout Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Those who did not engage in trade were largely scholars or professionals such as doctors, lawyers, cartographers and other specialists in the sciences or arts. The Jewish community’s business activities were fundamental to the vitality of the city’s economy. The Jews of Lisbon included such distinguished families as the Abravanels, descendants of Samuel Abravanel, a converso who had served as royal treasurer in Andalusia and comptroller in Castile. He apparently fled to Portugal with his family where they reverted to Judaism and later served in high governmental positions. No matter how eminent a social position individual Jews of Lisbon might attain, however, they were always the first victims of popular revolts. Their living quarters were segregated from those of the rest of the population and they were forbidden to go out at night; as well as being forced to wear distinctive clothes and to pay extra taxes.

The Moorish quarter was the corresponding ghetto for Muslims, containing the Great Mosque situated on the Rua do Capelão (Chaplains Street). However, they were not as prosperous nor as educated as the Jews, since the Muslim elites had fled to North Africa, while the Jews, who were literate speakers of Portuguese, had no other homeland. Most Muslims were workers in low-skilled, low-wage jobs and many were slaves of Christians. They had to display identifying symbols on their robes and pay extra taxes, and suffered the violence of the crowds. The deprecatory term saloio (countryman) came from a special levy, the salaio, that the Muslims who cultivated gardens within the city limits had to pay. Likewise, the term alfacinha (little head of lettuce) came from the cultivation by the Moors of lettuce plants, then little consumed in the north.

The city’s prosperity was interrupted in 1290 by the first major earthquake in its recorded history, with many buildings collapsing and thousands of people dying. Earthquakes were recorded in 1318, 1321, 1334, and 1337; the temblor of 1344 leveled part of the Cathedral and the Moorish palace, or Alcáçova, and later quakes occurred in 1346, 1356 (destroying another portion of the Cathedral), 1366, 1395 and 1404, all probably resulting from displacements in the same geological fault. Famine in 1333 and the first appearance of the Black Death in 1348 killed half the population; new outbreaks of lower mortality occurred in each succeeding decade. The aftermath of these disasters, in Lisbon as well as in the rest of Europe, led to a series of religious, social, and economic upheavals, destroying the vibrant European civilization of the Middle Ages and the spirit of universal Christianity symbolised by the soaring Gothic architecture of its cathedrals. Yet it also paved the way for the emergence of a new civilization with the coming of the age of discovery and the rise of a revitalised spirit of scientific inquiry.

Famed for its opulence, al-Us̲h̲būna’s capture would bring the kingdom great prestige. Afonso I and his Christian forces first attempted to conquer the city in 1137 but failed to breach the city walls. In 1140 crusaders passing through Portugal launched another unsuccessful attack. According to the Anglo-Norman chronicler, in June and July 1147, a more numerous force of crusaders, consisting of 164 boatloads of English, Norman, and Rhineland crusaders, left from Dartmouth in England bound for the Holy Land. Bad weather forced the ships to stop on the Portuguese coast at Porto where they were persuaded to join in a new assault on the city. While the Portuguese forces attacked by land, the crusaders, lured by promises of booty to be taken and prisoners to be ransomed, set up their siege engines, among them catapults and towers, and attacked both by sea and land, preventing the arrival of reinforcements from the south. In their first encounters the Muslims killed many Christians; this affected the Crusader’s morale, and occasioned several bloody conflicts between the various Christian contingents.
Legend has it that after many previous attempts, the Portuguese knight Martim Moniz led an attack on the castle doors and when he saw the Moors closing them, blocked the doorway with his own body, allowing his companions to enter, and was crushed. With the success of the crusaders’ assault on the city’s walls with siege engines, the Moors capitulated on 22 October. According to an account by the priest Raol addressed to Osbert of Bawdsley (Osbernus), Germans from Cologne and the Flemish cohort violated their oaths to the king of Portugal after entering the city and plundered it. These crusaders behaved in a wanton manner, looting Muslims and Mozarabs indiscriminately, debauching virgins and even cutting the throat of the elderly Mozarab bishop. Afterwards, an epidemic of the plague killed thousands among the Mozarabic and the Muslim populations.

Afonso I officially took possession of the city on 1 November, when the Great Mosque in the Moorish Aljama was dedicated to St. Mary in a religious ceremony converting it to a Cathedral. He appointed Gilberto of Hastings, an English crusader, the first Catholic bishop of the city, and granted lands and titles to many of the most prominent crusaders in the region.

After conquering the city, Afonso I received the news that the relics of Saint Vincent of Saragossa were buried in the Algarve. He made his way to the South, to reclaim the martyr’s body but, when he arrived there, the village had been totally destroyed and there was no sign of the site of the burial. It was then that a flock of crows was seen flying over a site where the body of the Saint was finally found. The body was taken by ship to Lisbon in 1176, and legend has it that two crows always accompanied the boat carrying the remains of Saint Vincent the Martyr . From this remarkable story, the crow was chosen as a symbol of Lisbon, as the guardian of the city.Although these birds became a symbol of the capital, they can no longer be found among the city’s species of bird.

Three years later, in 1150, Afonso I built a cathedral on the site of the Great Mosque, now the Sé. The original Christian edifice built on the site had been converted into a mosque by the Moors, but when Afonso took the city, the building was already decrepit. He had the structure rebuilt and enlarged under the name of the first cathedral of Lisbon, Santa María, and all the privileges of Mérida, the ancient ecclesiastical capital of the former Roman province of Lusitania, passed to the new diocese.

Prince Henry, based in the city of Tomar, was the major proponent of this initiative,. As headquarters of the Order of Christ (formerly the Knights Templar), and with a large community of Jewish merchants, the city was also very connected to Lisbon by its trade in grains and nuts (one of Lisbon’s main exports). The ready access to large amounts of capital and knowledge of the Orient that the Templars and the Jews had were key to achieving the objectives of the Lisbon merchants. Although Prince Henry was the driving force of this project, it was not actually of his own design, but rather had been conceived by the merchants of Lisbon. Those who supported the monarchy financially by the payment of taxes and customs tariffs, making it virtually independent of the resources of the territorial nobles, bent it to their own mercantilist purposes. Prince Henry was, however, the organiser of the state’s policy of dirigisme (state-directed investment): the substantial risk involved and the capital needed to finance the opening of new trade routes required the cooperation of all merchants throughout the realm (just as today many large capital projects are undertaken with international cooperation). Henry organised and supervised preparations by the Portuguese merchant fleet to reach the sources of gold, ivory and slaves, efforts that the merchants themselves had managed inefficiently. Using funds made available by the Order of Christ, mariners’ schools were founded to centralise the resources and practical knowledge of the merchants of Lisbon. Several expeditions were launched under contract to some of the most influential of the bourgeoisie in Lisbon, and the Gulf of Guinea was finally reached around 1460, the year Prince Henry died.

After Henry’s death, by which time the sea route was already open, the expansion of the African trade led to the rise of a private sector in the Portuguese economy. In 1469, Afonso V granted the Lisbon merchant Fernão Gomes the monopoly of this trade, in exchange for exploring 100 leagues southward on the West African coastline each year for five years, and payment of an annual rent of 200,000 reais. With his profits from the African trade, Gomes assisted Afonso in the conquests of Asilah, Alcácer Ceguer, and Tangier in Morocco, where he was knighted

Meanwhile, there were new attempts by the remaining feudal nobles of northern Portugal to retake control of the kingdom, frustrated as they were by the growing prosperity of Lisbon’s merchants in contrast to their own loss of income. Their purpose was to seek further conquest in North Africa, which offered the prospect of more and relatively easy victories. Such a campaign would be favorable to the interests of the feudal nobles, who stood to gain lands and tenants in Morocco by waging war, but was anathema to the merchant nobles and Jews in Lisbon who would be paying the extra taxes needed to finance such expeditions. The merchants favored investing the resources of the kingdom and its military forces in the discovery of new African and Asian markets, not in augmenting the power of the hostile and pro-Castilian Portuguese nobility. The ongoing disputes that John II engaged in against these nobles, with the backing of the merchants, demonstrate the underlying reality of the conflict between Lisbon and the former County of Portugal, birthplace of the nation: its resolution would set the future course of the country. Following the exposure of several conspiracies and various other incidents of their treachery, the northern nobles again sought the aid of their Castilian counterparts, but Lisbon and its merchants eventually prevailed: the ringleaders of one plot were executed, including the Duke of Braganza in 1483 and the Duke of Viseu in 1484. A great confiscation of estates followed and enriched the Crown, which now became the sole political power of the realm, aside from the Catholic Church. John II famously restored the policies of active Atlantic exploration, reviving the work of his great-uncle, Henry the Navigator. The Portuguese explorations were his main priority in government, pushing ever further south on the west coast of Africa with the purpose of discovering the maritime route to India and breaking into the spice trade. The colonial ventures in north Africa were abandoned to pursue trade in the new lands discovered further south.

As the islands of Madeira and the Azores were colonised, the Crown encouraged production of commercial products for export to Lisbon, primarily cane sugar and wine, which soon appeared in the markets of the capital. In the recently discovered land of Guinea, cheap products like metal pots and cloth distributed from Lisbon-controlled depots were exchanged for gold, ivory and slaves. The natives of the region relocated their economic activities closer to the coast for this European trade, but their settlements were left unmolested because such campaigns of conquest were deemed too costly. Sham weddings between officials of the trading posts and the daughters of local chieftains were made to facilitate commerce, albeit with an aim for profit, not colonisation. The result was a new impetus to trade in Lisbon: wheat was shipped from Ceuta, as well as musk, indigo, other clothing dyes, and cotton from Morocco. Significant amounts of gold were obtained from Guinea and the Gold Coast; other sources of this precious metal were sorely lacking in Europe of the late 15th century. Berber slaves from the Canaries and later, black Africans, were trafficked in the often brutal slave trade.

The best markets and most valuable products were to be found, however, in India and the East. The war between the Ottoman Empire and Venice resulted in greatly increased prices for black pepper, other spices, and silks brought by the Venetians to Italy from the Ottoman-controlled Egypt, which received Arabian boats sailing from India at its ports on the Red Sea (and thence to Lisbon and the rest of Europe). To circumvent the “Turkish problem”, a voyage of discovery to be captained by Vasco da Gama was organised, again on the initiative of the Lisbon merchants, but this time with royal funding; his boats arrived in India in 1498.

Before the end of the 16th century, the Portuguese merchant fleets had reached China (where they founded the commercial colony of Macau), as well as the island archipelagos of present-day Indonesia and Japan. They established the ports of call of the Eastern trade route and made commercial agreements with the chiefs and kings in Angola and Mozambique. A large colonial empire was consolidated by Afonso de Albuquerque, his armed forces securing those ports on the Indian Ocean in locations convenient for ships outbound from Lisbon against competition from the Turks and Arabs. Local territories were generally not seized, excepting the ports that carried on a profitable trade with the natives. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Pedro Álvares Cabral had arrived at Brazil in 1500.

As the Portuguese merchant fleets established the ports of call of the Eastern trade route and made commercial agreements with their rulers, Lisbon gained access to the sources of products it exclusively sold to the rest of Europe for many years: in addition to African products including pepper, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, herbs, and cotton fabrics, as well as diamonds from Malabar in India transported on the Carreira da Índia (“India Run”), it sold Moluccan spices, Ming porcelain and silk from China, slaves from Mozambique, brazilwood and Brazilian sugar. Lisbon also traded in fish (mainly salted cod from the Grand Banks), dried fruit, and wine. Other Portuguese cities, like Porto and Lagos, contributed to foreign trade only marginally, the country’s commerce being practically limited to the exports and imports of Lisbon. The city still controlled much of the commerce of Antwerp through its depot there, which exported fine fabrics to the rest of Europe. The German and Italian merchants, seeing their trade routes, by land in the case of the first, and by the Mediterranean sea in the second, mostly abandoned, founded large trading houses in Lisbon for re-exporting goods to Europe and the Middle East.

As Lisbon became the prime market for luxury goods to satisfy the tastes of the elite classes all across Europe: Venice and Genoa were ruined. The Lisbons controlled for several decades all trade from Japan to Ceuta. In the 16th century Lisbon was one of the richest cities in the world, and the city gained a mythic stature. England and the Netherlands were obliged to imitate the Portuguese mercantile model to halt the loss of foreign exchange. Meanwhile, merchants migrated from all over Europe to establish their businesses in Lisbon, and even some Indian, Chinese, and Japanese traders found their way to the city. Large numbers of African and a few Brazilian Indian slaves were imported at this time as well. During the reign of King Manuel I, festivals were celebrated on the streets of Lisbon with parades of lions, elephants, camels and other animals not seen in Europe since the time of the Roman circus. In 1515, Afonso de Albuquerque presented an Indian rhinoceros to King Manuel, who had it let loose in a ring with an elephant to test the reputed mutual animosity of the two species. The rhinoceros was then forwarded as a gift to Pope Leo X. In Europe the prestige of Lisbon and its land discoveries had grown so great that when Thomas More wrote his book Utopia, about the political system of an ideal and imaginary island nation, he tried to further its plausibility by saying that the Portuguese had discovered it.

To organise private trade and manage the collection of taxes, the great Portuguese trading houses of the capital were founded in the late 15th-century: the Casa da Mina ( House of Mina), the Casa dos Escravos (House of Slaves), the Casa da Guiné (House of Guinea), the Casa da Flandres (House of Flanders), and the famous Casa da Índia (House of India). Their huge revenues were used to finance construction of the Jerónimos Monastery and the Torre de Belém (Belém Tower), prominent examples of the Manueline architectural style (evocative of the overseas discoveries and trade), the Forte de São Lourenço do Bugio with its garrison and heavy artillery on an island in the Tagus, the Terreiro do Paço (Palace Square), the new and imposing Paço da Ribeira or Ribeira Palace (destroyed in the earthquake of 1755), and the “Arsenal do Exercito” (Military Arsenal), all raised next to the Mar da Palha; and even the Hospital Real de Todos-os-Santos (Royal Hospital of All Saints). Numerous palaces and mansions were built by the merchants with their profits. As the city expanded and reached nearly 200,000 inhabitants, the Bairro Alto urbanisation (known initially as Vila Nova de Andrade) was developed by the wealthy Galicians Bartolomeu de Andrade and his wife, and quickly became the richest neighbourhood in town.

The 16th century in Lisbon was the cultural golden age for Portuguese science and arts and letters: among the scientists who called the city home were the humanist Damião de Góis (friend of Erasmus and Martin Luther), the mathematician Pedro Nunes, the physician and botanist Garcia da Orta and Duarte Pacheco Pereira; and the writers Luís de Camões, Bernardim Ribeiro, Gil Vicente and others. Isaac Abravanel, one of the greatest Hebrew philosophers, was appointed the King’s Treasurer. All social classes benefited from the city’s prosperity, although the urban nobility serving in royal administration and the bourgeoisie benefited the most, but even the common people enjoyed luxuries unattainable to their English, French or German contemporaries. Heavy manual labour was done by African slaves and by Galicians. The first African slaves were sold in Praça do Pelourinho (Pelourinho Square); they were separated from their families, worked all day without pay, and were subject to brutal treatment. The Galicians, although uprooted from their homes, certainly found their lot improved, considering their miserable condition in rural Spain, and their language being very similar to Portuguese facilitated their integration into Portuguese society..

The Jewish population, as always, included some of the poor, as well as scholars, merchants, and financiers who were among the most educated and wealthy citizens in the city. A commentary on the Pentateuch, written in Hebrew by Moses ben Nahman, and published by Eliezer Toledano in 1489, was the first book printed in Lisbon. In 1496, the Spaniards expelled the Jews from Spanish territory, motivated by a fundamentalist spirit that demanded an exclusively Christian kingdom. Many of the Jews fled to Lisbon, and may have temporarily doubled its population. Although acknowledging the central importance of the Jews to the city’s prosperity, Manuel I decreed in 1497 that all Jews must convert to Christianity, only those who refused being forced to leave, but not before the expropriation of their property. His desire to wed Princess Isabel of Castile, daughter of the Catholic Monarchs, who required that he first expel all the Jews of Portugal, is generally given as his reason for the forced conversions. For many years these New Christians had practiced Judaism in secret or openly despite the riots and the violence perpetrated against them (many Jewish children were torn from their parents and given to Christian families who treated them as slaves). For now, they were tolerated till the start of the Inquisition in Portugal decades later. Without the disadvantage of being considered Jewish, they were able to rise in the social hierarchy, even to the higher ranks of the court. Again the elite descendants of the ancient families of the old aristocracy of Asturias and Galicia created barriers to the social ascent of Jews, who were often better-educated and more proficient than their antagonists.The anti-semitic movement among the Old Christians infected the common people, and in 1506, spurred by the perceived blasphemy of some injudicious remarks uttered by a converso over the occurrence of a supposed miraculous event at the Church of São Domingos, and then further inflamed by the invective of three Dominican friars, culminated in a massacre of New Christians, in which between 3,000 and 4,000 people were killed. The king was at Evora when these events occurred, but angered when he received the news, he ordered an investigation which resulted in two of the instigating friars being excommunicated and burned alive, and the Dominicans were expelled from their convent.

As a result of the dissension aroused by this catastrophe, King Manuel was persuaded by the territorial nobles to introduce the Inquisition (which did not become formally active until 1536) during the reign of his son and successor, King John III, and legal restrictions were imposed on all descendants of New Christians (similar to those the Old Christians had imposed  Besides the Inquisition, other social problems arose; in 1569 the great Plague of Lisbon killed 50,000 people.

The inquisition put to death many of the New Christians, and expropriated the property and wealth of many others. The riches of even some Old Christian merchants were expropriated after false anonymous complaints were made that the inquisitors accepted as valid, since the property of the condemned reverted to themselves. On the other hand, few merchants would not have had some New Christian ancestry, as marriages between the children of Christian and Jewish partners in the major firms were commonplace. The Inquisition thus became an instrument of social control in the hands of the Old Christians against almost all the Lisbon merchants, and finally restored their long lost supremacy.

In this climate of intolerance and persecution, the expansion of the economy enabled by the genius of the traders was undone by the large landowners (whose collectible rents were much less than the receipts of the merchants), and the prosperity of Lisbon was destroyed. The former climate of liberalism conducive to trade disappeared and was replaced by Catholic fanaticism and a rigid conservatism. The noble elites persecuted those who were alleged to be not of “pure blood” and truly Old Christian. Many of the merchants fled to England or the Netherlands, bringing their naval and cartographic knowledge with them as they settled in those places. Lisbon was taken by the feudal mentality of the great nobles, and the Portuguese merchants, with no security or social support and unable to obtain credit during the persecutions of the Inquisition, could not compete with the English and Dutch merchants (many of them of Portuguese origin) who subsequently took over the markets of India, the East Indies and China.

The young king Sebastian I was burning with zeal to go to Morocco and stop the advances of the Turkish-supported armies, an enterprise which held the promise of more land and revenues in North Africa for the nobles (they perhaps believing this would allow them to maintain their economic supremacy over the merchants), but the mercantile bourgeoisie also supported the effort as it would benefit Portuguese commerce in North Africa. Sebastian used much of Portugal’s imperial wealth to equip a large fleet and gather an army. He and the flower of the Portuguese nobility were killed in the military disaster of the Battle of Alcácer Quibir in 1578, his death triggering a succession crisis, where the main claimants to the throne were Philip II of Spain and António, Prior of Crato. The remaining Portuguese nobles and the high clergy were gathered once again to the arms of their like-minded counterparts, the Castilians, and supported Philip, a maternal grandson of Manuel I of Portugal. Philip sent an army of 40,000 men under the command of the Duke of Alba to invade Portugal. They defeated António’s troops at the Battle of Alcântara and Philip was crowned Philip I of Portugal in 1581. Thus he at least partly fulfilled the ambition of his father, the Habsburg King Carlos I of Spain (also Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire), who was famously quoted by Friar Nicolau de Oliveira: “Se eu fora Rei de Lisboa eu o fora em pouco tempo de todo o mundo” (“If I were King of Lisbon, I would soon rule over all the world.”) The union of Portugal with Spain lasted sixty years (1580–1640).

Following the defeat of the Carthaginians in eastern Hispania, the pacification of the West was led by Consul Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus. Brutus obtained the alliance of Olissipo by integrating it into the Empire in 138 BC. when the Romans sought to conquer the Lusitanians and other peoples of the northwest Iberian Peninsula. He also fortified the city, building defensive city walls against Lusitanian raids and rebellions. The townspeople fought beside the Roman legions against the Celtic tribes; in return the city became a Municipium Cives Romanorum and was given the name Olisipo Felicitas Julia by either Julius Caesar or Octavian. Local authorities were granted self-rule over a territory that extended 50 kilometres (31 mi), and was integrated within the Roman province of Lusitania, whose capital was Emerita Augusta. The city was granted the Latin Rights (ius Latii), giving its citizens the privileges of Roman citizenship and exempting them from paying taxes. The city population was around 30,000 at the time. Among the majority of Latin speakers lived a large minority of Greek traders and slaves.

Earthquakes were documented in 60 BC, several from 47 to 44 BC, several in 33 AD and a strong quake in 382 AD, but the exact amount of damage to the city is unknown. The town was located between the Castle Hill and the Baixa, but most riparian areas were at the time still submerged by the Tagus. Olissipo in Roman times was an important commercial centre, providing a link between the northern countries and the Mediterranean Sea. Its main products were garum, a fish sauce considered a luxury, salt and the Lusitanian horses renowned in antiquity.

After the disintegration of the Roman empire and the subsequent feudalisation of society, the first waves of invaders, including Alans, Germanic tribes, Huns, and others, swept into the peninsula. Initially accepted as settlers in lands depopulated by the terrible epidemics (probably measles and smallpox) that killed much of the population, their incursions soon gave way to military expeditions with the sole object of plunder and conquest.

In the early 5h century the Vandals took Olissipo, followed by the Alans. In 419 Olissipo was plundered and burnt by the Visigothic king Walia, who founded the Visigothic kingdom in Spain. Remismund conquered Lisbon in 468 with the help of a Hispano-Roman called Lusídio, and finally in 469 it was integrated into the Suevi kingdom whose capital city was Braga. After the invasion, the Visigoths set up their court in Toledo and following several wars during the 6th century, conquered the Suevi, thus unifying the Iberian Peninsula, including the city they called Ulixbona. During this tumultuous time, Lisbon lost its political links with Constantinople, but not its commercial connections. Merchant Greeks, Syrians, Jews, and others from the East formed communities that exchanged local products with the Byzantine Empire, Asia and India.

The Roman Galleries Underneath Lisbon, Rua da Prata

Olisippo or Ulyssippo

Municipium Cives Romanorum Felicitas Julia Olisipo was the ancient name of modern day Lisbon while part of the Roman Empire.

During the Punic wars, after the defeat of Hannibal the Romans decided to deprive Carthage of its most valuable possession, Hispania. After the defeat of the Carthaginians by Scipio Africanus in eastern Hispania, the pacification of western Hispania was led by Consul Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus. He obtained the alliance of Olisipo (which sent men to fight alongside the Roman legions against the northwestern Celtic tribes) by integrating it into the Empire in 138 BC.

Between 31 BC and 27 BC the city became a Municipium. Local authorities were granted self-rule over a territory that extended 50 kilometres (31 mi). Exempt from taxes, its citizens (belonging to the Galeria tribe) were given the privileges of Roman citizenship (Civium Romanorum), and the city was integrated within the Roman province of Lusitania (whose capital was Emerita Augusta). Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus also fortified the city, building city walls as a defence against Lusitanian raids and rebellions.

Among the majority of Latin speakers lived a large minority of Greek traders and slaves. Lisbon’s name was written Ulyssippo in Latin by the geographer Pomponius Mela. The city population is estimated to have been around 30,000 at the time.

Earthquakes were documented in 60 BC, several between 47 and 44 BC, several in 33 AD, and a strong quake in 382 AD, but the exact amount of damage to the city is unknown.

Urban development of the banks of the Tagus river (the Ribeira) was given a definitive impulse in the early 16th century, when King Manuel I built a new royal residence – the Ribeira Palace – by the river, outside the city walls. The area was further developed with the building of a port, ship building facilities (the Ribeira das Naus), the Casa da Índia and other administrative buildings that regulated the commerce between Portugal and other parts ofEurope and its colonies in Africa, Asia and America.

On 1 November 1755, during the reign of King Dom José I, a great earthquake followed by a tsunami and fire destroyed most of Lisbon, including the Ribeira Palace and other buildings by the river. José I’s Prime Minister, the Marquis of Pombal, coordinated a massive rebuilding effort of Portuguese architect Eugénio dos Santos. He designed a large, rectangular square in the shape of a “U”, open towards the Tagus. The buildings have galleries on their groundfloors, and the arms of the “U” end in two large towers, reminiscent of the monumental tower of the destroyed Ribeira Palace, still vivid in the architectonic memory of the city. His plan was realised almost completely, although decorative details were changed and the east tower of the square and the Augusta Street Arch were only finished in the 19th century.

The square was named Praça do Comércio, the Square of Commerce, to indicate its new function in the economy of Lisbon. The symmetrical buildings of the square were filled with government bureaus that regulated customs and port activities. The main piece of the ensemble was the equestrian statue of King José I, inaugurated in 1775 in the centre of the square. This bronze statue, the first monumental statue dedicated to a King in Lisbon, was designed by Joaquim Machado de Castro, Portugal’s foremost sculptor of the time.

Opening towards the Augusta Street, which links the square with the other traditional Lisbon square, the Rossio, the original project by Eugénio dos Santos planned a triumphal arch, only realised in 1875. This arch, usually called the Arco da Rua Augusta, was designed by Veríssimo da Costa. It has a clock and statues of the Glory, Ingenuity and Valour (by the French sculptor Camels) and those ofViriatus, Nuno Álvares Pereira, Vasco da Gama and, of course, the Marquis of Pombal.

On 1 February 1908, the square was the scene of the assassination of Carlos I, the penultimate King of Portugal. On their way back from the palace of Vila Viçosa to the royal palace in Lisbon, the carriage with Carlos I and his family passed through the Terreiro do Paço. While crossing the square, shots were fired from the crowd by at least two men: Alfredo Luís da Costa and Manuel Buiça. The king died immediately, his heir Luís Filipe was mortally wounded, and Prince Manuel was hit in the arm. The assassins were shot on the spot by members of the bodyguard and later recognized as members of the Republican Party – which two years later overthrew the Portuguese monarchy.

Ribeira Palace was the main residence of the Kings of Portugal, inLisbon, for around 250 years. Construction of the palace was ordered under King Manuel I of Portugal, when he found the Royal Palace of Alcáçova unsuitable. The palace suffered innumerous remodels and reconfigurations from its original Manueline complex, ending with its final Mannerist and Barroque form.

The palace, along with most of the city of Lisbon, was destroyed in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. After the earthquake, the reigning monarch, King José I, suffered from claustrophobia and chose to live the rest of his life in a complex of pavilions in the hills of Ajuda, and thus the palace was never rebuilt.

Today, Lisbon’s primary square, the Praça do Comércio, is situated on the site of the former palace. The square is still popularly referred to as the Terreiro do Paço, reminiscent of the now destroyed royal residence.

After the Siege of Lisbon, in 1147, the monarchs of Portugal had used the Palace of Alcáçova, in the Castle of São Jorge, as their residence while inLisbon, which did not become Portugal’s definite capital until 1225. Over the years, various Portuguese monarchs added to the Palace of Alcáçova, and by the time King Manuel I of Portugal succeeded the throne, the Palace of Alcáçova was a large, but crampt, complex, not fitting with the tastes of King Manuel I. With his lucrative profits from Portugal’s monopoly on the spice trade, King Manuel I set of on a building spree, renovating the Lisbon landscape, and starting with the construction of a new royal palace.

The groundbreaking lof the palace was in 1498. The new palace was not to be located on a high and easily protected fortress hill, like the Palace of Alcáçova was, but instead it was built on the river shore of the Tagus river, giving it the name of Ribeira Palace, or Palace of the Riverside. The new royal palace was located in the heart of renaissance Lisbon, which had become one of the most important cities and ports in all Europe, on account of its importance in the spice trade and Age of Discoveries. Ribeira palace was situated next to theRibeira das Naus shipyard and near all the major Lisbon trading houses.

In 1502, the palace had been built large enough so that the Portuguese Royal Court could begin moving into the palace. In 1508, King Manuel I started expansion works on the palace, which ended in 1510, and appointed Diogo de Arruda as head architect of the project. The King was an absolutist in all manners, and sought to concentrate all his powers in Ribeira Palace, by holding the Portuguese Cortes and installing the Casa da Índia, the imperial administration, in the palace’s walls.

The palace of King Manuel I, and his successors until King Henry I of Portugal, was a true palace of the Portuguese Renaissance. Done in the Manuelinestyle, among others, the palace included various wings, loggia, balconies, gardens, and courtyards. The main loggia of the palace, facing the Terreiro do Paço, followed the style employed by King Manuel I at many of his palaces, most notably at the Royal Palace of Évora.

The hallmark of the palace, not just in the Manueline era but in all it’s history, was its Tower of the King, in the southern wing. During the Manueline era, the Casa da Índia was installed in the tower, which hoisted a large sculpture of the Royal Coat of Arms of Portugal on the exterior of the tower, facing the river. Starting in 1525, King John III sponsored a set of enlargements and renovations to the palace, which, most notably, altered the Tower of the King, expanding it and opening a large balcony, faced towards the Tagus.

It was during the Manueline era, when the House of Aviz ruled Portugal, that the Portuguese Renaissance truly flourished, and Ribeira Palace was one of its centers. It was a beacon for artists, scientists, navigators, and noblemen from all over Portugal and Europe alike. It was at Ribeira Palace, in 1515, that Gil Vicente, the father of Portuguese and Spanish theatre, first performed his play, Quem Tem Farelos?, for King Manuel I. The Palace was also where other great Portuguese and European artists and scholars presented themselves, including Luís de Camões, famed Portuguese playwright, Cristóvão de Morais, famed Portuguese painter, and Pedro Nunes, famed Portuguese mathematician and royal tutor.

Philipine era

When the Portuguese House of Habsburg seized the throne, in 1580, the newly acclaimed King Philip I of Portugal started a large series of constructions and renovations throughout Portugal, seeking to rehabilitate the kingdom after the War of the Portuguese Succession. During his three year stay in Lisbon, from 1580 to 1583, King Philip I, who also ruled as King of Castile, Aragon, and Naples, considered turning Lisbon into the imperial capital of his trans-European monarchy and empire.

To better suit Lisbon for King Philip I’s extravagant court, the King ordered the remodeling and expansion of Ribeira Palace, under the authority of Filipe Terço, the Master of the Royal Works. King Philip I decided to modernize the palace, stripping it of its early renaissance, Manueline style and planning and converting Ribeira Palace into a monumental, organized Mannerist complex. The highlight of the Philipine renovations was the reconstruction and enlargement of the Tower of the King, which transformed a three-story Manueline tower, which housed the Casa da Índia, into a five-story Mannerist tower, complete with an observatory and one of the largest royal libraries in all of Europe.

When King Philip I left Lisbon, in 1583, Ribeira Palace became the official seat of the Council of Portugal and the residence of theViceroys of Portugal. King Philip I’s successors, King Philip II, and King Philip III, did not continue his legacy of stressing the importance of Lisbon, and instead visited their Portuguese capital only on rare ceremonial occasions. However, each time King Philip II and King Philip III visited Ribeira Palace, they ordered the construction of a ceremonial arch for the palace’s Terreiro do Paço, culminating in a large series or triumphal and ceremonial arches by the end of the Philipine era.

Brigantine era

Another King to improve the Palace was John V, who invested great sums – derived from the gold mines in colonial Brazil – to enlarge and embellish the Ribeira Palace. The original manueline chapel was turned into a magnificentbaroque church, and the Palace gained another wing, parallel to the previous one. Later in the century, King Joseph I built a Royal Opera House by the Palace, designed by the Italian Giuseppe Bibiena.

The Opera House, inaugurated in 1755, lasted only a few months. On 1 November of 1755, a huge earthquake, and resulting tsunami and fire destroyed the palace and most of Lisbon. King Joseph I was not at the palace and survived. His Prime Minister, the 1st Marquess of Pombal, coordinated a massive reconstruction effort that would give rise to the Pombaline Downtownof Lisbon. The royal family abandoned the Ribeira area and moved to palaces in the areas of Ajuda and Belém.

The old Palace Square (Terreiro do Paço) gave rise to a new square, the Pombaline Commerce Square (Praça do Comércio). The two towers at the corners of the square are still reminiscent of the old tower of the Ribeira Palace.

Jeronimos Monastery

Lisbon Downtwon, The Inquisition