st free King of Portugal. His victories over the Moors in taking
Lisbon (1147) and winning the day of Ourique (1139), are followed by the
first wars with Castille and by the time of quiet organisation in his
last years under the regency of his son Sancho, the City Builder. The
building and planting of Sancho is again followed by the first relapse,
into the weakness of Affonso II., and the turbulent minority of Sancho
II. Constitutional troubles begin with the First Sancho's quarrel with
Innocent III. and with the appearance of the first national Cortes under
Chancellor Julian.

The second forward movement starts with Affonso III., "of Boulogne," who
saves the kingdom from anarchy and conquers the Algarves, on the south
coast, from Islam; who first organises the alliance of Crown and people
against nobles and clergy, and, in the strength of this, defies the
interdict of Urban IV.

Diniz, his bastard son, for whose legitimation he had made this same
struggle with Rome, follows Affonso III., in 1279, and with him begins
the wider life of Portugal, her navy and her literature, her
agriculture, justice, and commerce.

The second relapse may be dated from the Black Death (1348), which
threatened the very life of the nation, and left behind a sort of
chronic weakness. National spirit seemed worn out; Court intrigue and
political disaster the order of the day; the Church and Cortes alike
effete and useful only against themselves.

But in the revival under a new leader, John, the father of Prince Henry,
and a new dynasty--the House of Aviz--and its "Royal Race of Famous
Infants," in the years that follow the Revolution of 1383, the older
religious and crusading fervour is joined with the new spirit of
enterprise, of fierce activity, and the Portugal thus called into being
is a great State because the whole nation shares in the life and energy
of a more than recovered liberty.

Before the age of King Diniz, before the fourteenth century, there is
little enough in the national story to suggest the first
state-profession of discovery and exploration in Christian history. But
we must bring together a few of the suggestive and prophetic incidents
of the earlier time, if we are to be fully prepared for the later.

(1.) Oporto, the "port" of Gallicia, from the formation of the county or
"march" of Henry of Burgundy, seems to have given the district its name
of "Portugallia," at one time as a military frontier against Islam, then