he Mohammedans would regain these territories was so great
that Alfonso VI "summoned
14
the chivalry of Christendom to his aid. Among the knights who
came to his assistance were Counts Raymond and Henry of
Burgundy; . . . and in 1094 he combined the fiefs of Coimbra and
Oporto into one great county," called Terra Portucalensis, or
County of Porto Cale; and, with the hand of his daughter Theresa,
conferred it upon Henry of Burgundy, who thus became Count of
Portucalensis: Porto Cale: Portugal. And that the Suevi who at the
first inhabited Southern and Western Spain and Galicia, were the
root of this Portugal, is clear from the fact that "ethnologically the
Galicians are allied to the Portuguese, whom they resemble in
dialect, in appearance, and in habits, more than any other
inhabitants of the peninsula." 282
4. The history of Portugal as a kingdom, therefore, really begins
with this gift by Alfonso VI, descended from Alfonso I, grandson of
Pelayo the Visigoth, to Henry of Burgundy, in A. D. 1094. It must
be remembered, however, that at that time Portugal was only a
county, held in fief by Henry of Burgundy as vassal of Alfonso VI,
king of Leon, Castile, and Galicia, who by reason of his great
successes assumed the title of "Emperor of Spain." This grand title,
however, vanished with him; and he was no sooner dead than
Count Henry, his beneficiary, invaded the kingdom in a contest
with four other claimants, to make himself king. He carried on this
contest for five years, but failed; and died suddenly at Astorga in
1112, leaving his wife Theresa to rule the county of Portugal
during the minority of his infant son, Affonso Henriques.
5. "Affonso Henriques, who, at the age of seventeen, assumed
the government [1112-1185], was one of the heroes of the Middle
Ages. He succeeded to the rule of the county of Portugal when it
was still regarded as a fief of Galicia; and after nearly sixty years of
incessant fighting, he bequeathed to his son a powerful little
kingdom, whose independence was unquestioned, and whose fame
was spread abroad throughout Christendom by the reports of the
victories of its first king over the Mohammedans. The four wars of