Denis of Portugal
Denis, called the Farmer King and the Poet King, was King of Portugal from 1279 until his death in 1325.
Dinis was the eldest son of Afonso III of Portugal by his second wife, Beatrice of Castile, and grandson of Afonso II of Portugal, Denis succeeded his father in 1279. He was married to Elizabeth of Aragon, who was later canonised as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church.
Denis ruled Portugal for over 46 years. He worked to reorganise his country's economy and gave an impetus to Portuguese agriculture. He ordered the planting of a large pine forest near Leiria to prevent soil degradation that threatened the region, and to serve as a source of raw materials for the construction of the royal ships. He was also known for his poetry, which constitutes an important contribution to the development of Portuguese as a literary language.
Reign
In 1290, Denis began to pursue the systematic centralisation of royal power by imposing judicial reforms, decreeing Portuguese "the official language of legal and judicial proceedings", creating the first university in Portugal, and ridding the military orders in the country of foreign influences. His policies encouraged economic development with the creation of numerous towns and trade fairs. He advanced the interests of the Portuguese merchants, and set up by mutual agreement a fund called the Bolsa de Comércio, the first documented form of marine insurance in Europe, approved on 10 May 1293. Always concerned with development of the country's infrastructure, he encouraged the discovery and exploitation of sulphur, silver, tin and iron mines and organised the export of excess production of agricultural crops, salt, and salted fish to England, Flanders, and France.Denis signed the first Portuguese commercial agreement with England in 1308, and secured a contract in 1317 for the services of the Genoese merchant sailor Manuel Pessanha as hereditary admiral of his fleet, with the understanding that Pessanha and his successors should provide twenty Genoese captains to command the king's galleys, thus effectively founding the Portuguese Navy.
In 1289 Denis had signed the Concordat of Forty Articles with Pope Nicholas IV, swearing to protect the Church's interests in Portugal. When Pope Clement V allowed the annihilation of the Knights Templar throughout most of Europe on charges of heresy, Denis created in 1319 a Portuguese military order, the Order of Christ, for those knights who survived the purge. The new order was designed to be a continuation of the Order of the Temple. Denis negotiated with Clement's successor, John XXII, for recognition of the new order and its right to inherit the Templar assets and property.
Cultural pursuits
During Denis' reign, Lisbon became one of Europe's centres of culture and learning. The first university in Portugal, then called the Estudo Geral, was founded with his signing of the document Scientiae thesaurus mirabilis in Leiria on 3 March 1290. Lectures in the arts, civil law, canon law, and medicine were given, and on 15 February 1309, the king granted the university a charter, the Magna Charta Privilegiorum. The university was moved between Lisbon and Coimbra several times, and finally installed permanently in Coimbra in 1537 by order of King John III.As a devotee of the arts and sciences, Denis studied literature and wrote several books on topics ranging from government administration to hunting, science and poetry, as well as ordering the translation of many literary works into Galician-Portuguese, among them the works attributed to his grandfather Alfonso X. He patronised troubadours, and wrote lyric poetry in the troubadour tradition himself. His best-known work is the Cantigas de Amigo, a collection of love songs as well as satirical songs, which contributed to the development of troubador poetry in the Iberian Peninsula. All told, 137 of the songs attributed to him, in the three main genres of Galician-Portuguese lyric, are preserved in the two early 16th-century manuscripts, the Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional and the Cancioneiro da Vaticana. A spectacular find in 1990 by American scholar Harvey Sharrer brought to light the Pergaminho Sharrer, which contains, albeit in fragmentary form, seven cantigas d'amor by King Denis with musical notation. These poems are found in the same order in the two previously known codices.
King Denis was fond of hunting and in 1294 was hunting around Beja, when a bear attacked him and his horse, bringing them to the ground. It is said that he attacked the beast single-handedly and killed him with a dagger. To commemorate the incident, the king had a live bear captured and taken to his palace of Fuellas for the amusement of the gentlemen and ladies of his court.
Administration
As heir-apparent to the throne, Denis was summoned by his father Afonso III to share governmental responsibilities. The country was again in conflict with the Catholic Church at the time, Afonso having been excommunicated in 1277, and only being absolved in 1279 when he acceded to Rome's demands on his deathbed. Consequently, the church was favorably inclined to reach an agreement with the new monarch upon his accession to the throne.In 1284, however, Denis emulated the example of his grandfather and father, and launched a new series of inquiries to investigate the expropriation of royal property; this was to the detriment of the church. The next year he took further steps against ecclesiastical power when he promulgated amortisation laws. These prohibited the church and religious orders from buying lands, and required that they sell or forfeit any they had purchased since the start of his reign. Several years later he issued another decree forbidding them to inherit the estates of recruits to the orders.
In 1288, Denis managed to persuade Pope Nicholas IV to issue a papal bull that separated the Order of Santiago in Portugal from that in Castile, to which it had been subordinate. With the extinction of the Knights Templar, he was able to transfer their assets in the country to the Order of Christ, specially created for this purpose.
Denis was essentially an administrator and not a warrior king. He went to war with the kingdom of Castile in 1295, relinquishing the villages of Serpa and Moura. In 1297, he signed the Treaty of Alcañices with Castile, which defined the current borders between the two Iberian countries, and reaffirmed Portugal's possession of the Algarve. The treaty also established an alliance of friendship and mutual defense, leading to a peace of 40 years between the two nations.
Denis pursued his father's policies on legislation and centralisation of power, and promulgated the nucleus of a Portuguese civil and criminal law code, protecting the lower classes from abuse and extortion. These edicts survived in the Livro das Leis e Posturas, and the Ordenações Afonsinas, proclaimed during the reign of Afonso V. These are not legislative "codes" as we understand them today, but rather compilations of laws and customary municipal law, as amended and restated by the Portuguese crown.
As king, Denis travelled around the country to resolve various problems. He ordered the construction of numerous castles, created new towns, and granted the privileges due cities to several others. He declared in 1290 that 'the language of the people' was to become the language of the state, and officially known as Portuguese. Denis also decreed that Portuguese replace Latin as the language of the law courts in his kingdom. His wife Elizabeth donated much of the large income generated by her lands and properties to charities, inspiring Denis to help improve the life of the poor and found several social institutions.
The frequent procedural issues that arose when he issued his decrees increasingly occupied Denis in his quest to frame the common law as being within the scope of the crown's jurisdiction, and in exercising royal power in the realm. The restrictions he placed on the actions of alvazis, judges, as well as proctors and advocates in the courts, show that a merely nominal power of the monarchy over all the inhabitants of the kingdom, as was typical in the Middle Ages, was not compatible with his effort to assert a royal prerogative to scrutinise legal procedures or moralise on the exercise of justice. The appointment of magistrates clearly marks the start of the process of the crown claiming territorial jurisdiction, thus expanding the royal domain, along with the growing importance of Lisbon as the nation's de facto capital. The preference for Lisbon as a venue of the royal court was accentuated during Denis's long reign. There was as yet no official capital of the country, but Lisbon's location, as well as its advanced urban, economic and commercial development, made the city the most viable choice for a national centre of administration.
Its geographical situation between the ancient divisions of the country, i.e., the north and the south, enhanced Lisbon's status as the most practical centre for an emergent united Portuguese nation, the south now receiving as much royal attention as the north and becoming the residence of the monarchy. Their different characters created a realm where the two regions complemented each other. The great manors were closer together in the north, and the vast dominions conquered from the Muslims in the south, as well as the large areas of unclaimed land there, expanded the domain of the crown, and much of the territory of the extreme south came under the control of the military orders.
Denis promoted development of the rural infrastructure, earning the nickname of "the Farmer". He redistributed land, founded agricultural schools to improve farming techniques, and took a personal interest in the expansion of exports. He set up regular markets in a number of towns and regulated their activities. One of his principal achievements was to protect agricultural lands from advancing coastal sands by ordering the planting of a pine forest near Leiria, which also provided a source of raw materials for construction of a naval fleet. This forest, known as the Pinhal de Leiria, still exists, and is an important conservation area.