The first king of this tiny country, washed by the Atlantic, and blessed with fine seamen, navigators and harbours, was Alfonso I, in 1139, but the Portuguese Empire…
Category: History of Portugal
The Compilation of the Laws of the Kings of the Indies
This was published in four volumes in 1681 in Madrid; the title in Spanish is Recopilación de las leyes de los Reinos de las Indias, rather a mouthful,…
A new head of the House of Alba
The best known duchess in Spain, probably Europe too, has died after a long life (1926 – 2014) and a short but fatal illness. She was Cayetana, made…
The Revolt of Portugal II
This Atlantic, south-western European country is on the western side of the Iberian Peninsula, bounded to north and east by Spain and to the west and south by…
The Inquisition
This was a Catholic tribunal founded on a temporary basis in France and Germany. Its purpose was to seek out heresy, prosecute and punish it. In the thirteenth…
Discovery (Part II)
Columbus started his working life travelling in his father’s business. The first long trip was to Chios in the eastern Mediterranean, but he also sailed to London. It…
Discovery (Part I)
The Crusades had not achieved very much, had cost a great deal in money and lives, but had at least one merit: they introduced the idea of travel…
The royal Portuguese House of Braganza
This traditional Iberian Duchy assumed royalty in 1442 but only when one of the interminable rows with neighbouring Spain impressed John IV enough to actually sit on the…
Salazar of Portugal
In 1889 Antonio de Oliveira Salazar was born into a devout smallholding family of peasant origins. Showing that he had a studious and attentive mind, he was accepted…
Catalunya, the Revolt of Cataluña & the Count-Duke of Olivares
Catalonia (English spelling), Cataluña (Castilian spelling) and Catalunya (Catalán spelling) all refer to the same autonomous region, made up by the provinces of Barcelona, Gerona, Lérida and Tarragona…