John III of Portugal
John III, nicknamed The Pious, was the King of Portugal and the Algarve from 1521 until he died in 1557. He was the son of King Manuel I and Maria of Aragon, the third daughter of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. John succeeded his father in 1521 at the age of nineteen.
During his rule, Portuguese possessions were extended in Asia and the Americas through the Portuguese colonization of Brazil. John III's policy of reinforcing Portugal's bases in India, such as Goa, secured Portugal's monopoly over the spice trade of cloves and nutmeg from the Maluku Islands. On the eve of his death in 1557, the Portuguese Empire had a global dimension and spanned almost.
During his reign, the Portuguese became the first Europeans to contact Muromachi Japan. He abandoned Muslim territories in North Africa in favor of trade with India and investments in Brazil. In Europe, he improved relations with the Baltic region and the Rhineland, hoping that this would bolster Portuguese trade.
Early life
John, the eldest son of King Manuel I born from his second wife Maria of Aragon, was born in Lisbon on 6 June 1502. The event was marked by the presentation of Gil Vicente's Visitation Play or the Monologue of the Cowherd in the queen's chamber.The young prince was sworn heir to the throne in 1503, the year his younger sister, Isabella of Portugal, Empress Consort of the Holy Roman Empire between 1527 and 1538, was born.
John was educated by notable scholars of the time, including the astrologer Tomás de Torres, Diogo de Ortiz, Bishop of Viseu, and Luís Teixeira Lobo, one of the first Portuguese Renaissance humanists, rector of the University of Siena and Professor of Law at Ferrara. He studied Latin, Greek, mathematics, and cosmography.
John's chronicler António de Castilho said that, "Dom João III faced problems easily, complementing his lack of culture with a practice formation that he always showed during his reign". In 1514 he was given his own house, and a few years later began to help his father in administrative duties.
At the age of sixteen John was chosen to marry his first cousin, the 20-year-old Eleanor of Austria, the eldest daughter of Philip the Handsome of Austria-Burgundy and Queen Joanna of Castile, but instead she married his widowed father Manuel. John took deep offence at this: his chroniclers say he became melancholic and was never quite the same. Some historians also argue this was one of the main reasons that John later became fervently religious, giving him the name of the Pious.
Initial reign
On 19 December 1521 John was crowned king in the Church of São Domingos in Lisbon, beginning a thirty-six-year reign characterized by extensive activity in internal and overseas politics, especially in relations with other major European states. John III continued the absolutist politics of his predecessors. He called the Portuguese Cortes only three times and at great intervals: 1525 in Torres Novas, 1535 in Évora and 1544 in Almeirim. During the early part of his reign, he also tried to restructure administrative and judicial life in his realm.The marriage of John's sister Isabella of Portugal to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, enabled the Portuguese king to forge a stronger alliance with Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. To strengthen his ties with Austria he married his maternal first cousin Catherine of Austria, younger sister of Charles V and his erstwhile fiancée Eleanor, in the town of Crato. John and Catherine had nine children who all unfortunately died at young ages. By the time of John's death, only his grandson Sebastian was alive to inherit his crown.
Policy
The large and far-flung Portuguese Empire was difficult and expensive to administer and was burdened with huge external debt and trade deficits. Portugal's Indian and Far Eastern interests grew increasingly chaotic under the poor administration of ambitious governors. John III responded with new appointments that proved troubled and short-lived: in some cases, the new governors even had to fight their predecessors to take up their appointments. The resulting failures in administration brought on a gradual decline of the Portuguese trade monopoly. Considering the challenging military situation Portuguese forces faced worldwide, on 7 August 1549, John III declared every male subject between 20 and 65 years old recruitable for military service.Among John III's many colonial governors in Asia were Vasco da Gama, Pedro Mascarenhas, Lopo Vaz de Sampaio, Nuno da Cunha, Estêvão da Gama, Martim Afonso de Sousa, João de Castro and Henrique de Meneses.
Overseas, the Empire was threatened by the Ottoman Empire in both the Indian Ocean and North Africa, causing Portugal to increase spending on defense and fortifications. In the Atlantic, where Portuguese ships already had to withstand constant attacks of privateers, an attempted expansion of the French colonial empire in Brazil, France Antarctique, created yet another front. The French allied with indigenous peoples of South America against the Portuguese, and military and political interventions were used. Eventually, the French were forced out, but not until 1565.
In the first years of John III's reign, explorations in the Far East continued, and the Portuguese reached China and Japan; however, these accomplishments were offset by pressure from a strengthening Ottoman Empire under Suleiman the Magnificent, and especially in India, where attacks became more frequent. The expense of defending Indian interests was huge. To pay for it, John III abandoned several strongholds in North Africa: Safim, Azemmour, Ksar es-Seghir and Arzila.
John III achieved a crucial political victory in securing the control of the Maluku Islands, the "Spice Islands" claimed by Spain since the Magellan expedition. After almost a decade of skirmishes in Southeast Asia, he signed the Treaty of Zaragoza with Emperor Charles V on 22 April 1529. It defined the areas of Spanish and Portuguese influence in Asia and established the anti-meridian to the Treaty of Tordesillas.
International relations
The reign of John III was marked by active diplomacy. With Spain, he made alliances through marriage that ensured peace in the Iberian Peninsula for years. He married Catherine of Austria, the daughter of Philip the Handsome, the king of Castile and the Burgundian Netherlands. His sister, Isabella of Portugal, married Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. His daughter Maria Manuela married King Philip II of Spain – and there were others. However, the intermarriage of these closely related royal families may have contributed to the poor health of John's children and future King Sebastian of Portugal.John III remained neutral during the war between France and Spain but stood firm in fighting the attacks of French privateers.
He strengthened relations with the Papal States by establishing the Portuguese Inquisition in 1536, as well as the adhesion of the Portuguese clergy to the Counter-Reformation. This relationship with the Catholic Church made it possible for John to name whoever he desired for important religious positions in Portugal: his brothers Henry and Afonso were made cardinals and his biological son, Duartem was made archbishop of Braga.
Commercial relations were intensified with England, the countries of the Baltic region, and Flanders during John III's reign. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the world, Portugal was the first European nation to contact Japan. In China, Macau was offered to the Portuguese, and soon, Portugal controlled significant trade routes in the area. In South Asia, the Portuguese continued their hostile stance against Muslim rivals and insurgent Indian leaders.
Culture
John III's support for the humanist cause was significant. He patronized various writers, including Gil Vicente, Garcia de Resende, Sá de Miranda, Bernardim Ribeiro, Fernão Mendes Pinto, João de Barros and Luís de Camões. He also supported the mathematician Pedro Nunes and the physician Garcia de Orta. Through his links to Portuguese humanists such as Luís Teixeira Lobo, Erasmus dedicated his Chrysostomi Lucubrationes to John III of Portugal in 1527. French mathematician Jean Fernel and Spanish academic Juan Luis Vives also dedicated works to the king.John awarded many scholarships to universities abroad, mainly in the University of Paris, where fifty Portuguese students were sent to the Collège Sainte-Barbe headed by Diogo de Gouveia. He definitively transferred the Portuguese university from Lisbon to Coimbra in 1537.
In 1547 John established in Coimbra a College of Arts and Humanities and invited André de Gouveia, principal of the College of Guienne in Bordeaux, to head the college and organize faculty. André de Gouveia assembled a group of Scottish, French, and Portuguese scholars who had been educated in France. Those included George Buchanan, Diogo de Teive, Jerónimo Osório, Nicolas de Grouchy, Guillaume Guérante and Élie Vinet, who were decisive for the dissemination of the contemporary research of Pedro Nunes. However, rivalry between the orthodox views of the "Parisians" group headed by Diogo de Gouveia and the more secular views of the "Bordeaux" school headed by his nephew André de Gouveia led to accusations of heterodoxy and Protestant sympathies, resulting in all foreign professors leaving by 1551. The Society of Jesus took over administration of the college in 1555.
Another noteworthy aspect of John III's rule was the support he gave to missionaries in the New World, Asia and Africa. In 1540, after successive appeals to Pope Paul III asking for missionaries for the Portuguese East Indies under the "Padroado" agreement, John III appointed Francis Xavier to take charge as Apostolic Nuncio. He had been enthusiastically endorsed by Diogo de Gouveia, his teacher at the Collège Sainte-Barbe, and advised the king to draw the youngsters of the newly formed Society of Jesus. The Jesuits were particularly important for mediating Portuguese relations with native peoples.