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Portugal History
Portugal was first Christianized while part of the
Roman
Empire. Christianity was solidified when the Visigoths, a
Germanic tribe already Christianized, came into the
Iberian
Peninsula in the fifth century
(see Germanic Invasions
, ch. 1).
Christianity was nearly extinguished in southern Portugal
during
Moorish rule, but in the north it provided the cultural
and
religious cement that helped hold Portugal together as a
distinctive entity
(see Muslim Domination
, ch. 1). By the
same
token, Christianity was the rallying cry of those who rose
up
against the Moors and sought to drive them out
(see Christian Reconquest
, ch. 1). Hence, Christianity and the Roman
Catholic
Church predated the establishment of the Portuguese
nation, a
point that shaped relations between the two.
Under Afonso Henriques (r. 1139-85), the first king of
Portugal and the founder of the Portuguese state, church
and
state were unified into a lasting and mutually beneficial
partnership
(see Formation of the Monarchy
, ch. 1). To
secure
papal recognition of his country, Afonso declared Portugal
a
vassal state of the pope. The king found the church to be
a
useful ally as he drove the Moors toward the south and out
of
Portuguese territory. For its support of his policies,
Afonso
richly rewarded the church by granting it vast lands and
privileges in the territories conquered from the Moors.
The
church became the country's largest landowner, and its
power came
to be equal to that of the nobility, the military orders,
and
even, for a time, the crown. But Afonso also asserted his
supremacy over the church, a supremacy that--with various
ups and
downs--was maintained.
Although relations between the Portuguese state and the
Roman
Catholic Church were generally amiable and stable, their
relative
power fluctuated. In the thirteenth century and fourteenth
century, the church enjoyed both riches and power stemming
from
its role in the reconquest and its close identification
with
early Portuguese nationalism. For a time the church's
position
vis-à-vis the state diminished until the growth of the
Portuguese
overseas empire made its missionaries important agents of
colonization.
In 1497, reflecting events that had occurred five years
earlier in Spain, Portugal expelled the Jews and the
remaining
Moors--or forced them to convert. In 1536 the pope gave
King João
III (r.1521-57) permission to establish the Inquisition in
Portugal to enforce the purity of the faith
(see
Counter-Reformation and Overseas Evangelization
, ch. 1). Earlier
the
country had been rather tolerant, but now orthodoxy and
intolerance reigned. The Jesuit order was placed in charge
of all
education.
In the eighteenth century, antichurch sentiment became
strong. The Marquês de Pombal (r.1750-77) expelled the
Jesuits in
1759, broke relations with Rome, and brought education
under the
state's control
(see Absolutism
, ch. 1). Pombal was
eventually
removed from his office, and many of his reforms were
undone, but
anticlericalism remained a force in Portuguese society. In
1821
the Inquisition was abolished, religious orders were
banned, and
the church lost much of its property. Relations between
church
and state improved in the second half of the nineteenth
century,
but a new wave of anticlericalism emerged with the
establishment
of the First Republic in 1910
(see The First Republic
, ch.
1).
Not only were church properties seized and education
secularized,
but the republic went so far as to ban the ringing of
church
bells, the wearing of clerical garb on the streets, and
the
holding of many popular, religious festivals. These
radical steps
antagonized many deeply religious Portuguese, cost the
republic
popular support, and paved the way for its overthrow and
the
establishment of a conservative right-wing regime.
Data as of January 1993
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