Manuel established the Casa da Índia, a royal institution that managed Portugal's monopolies and its imperial expansion. He financed numerous famed Portuguese navigators, including Pedro Álvares Cabral (who discovered Brazil), Afonso de Albuquerque (who established Portuguese hegemony in the Indian Ocean), among numerous others. The income from Portuguese trade monopolies and colonized lands made Manuel the wealthiest monarch in Europe,[1][2] allowing him to be one of the great patrons of the Portuguese Renaissance, which produced many significant artistic and literary achievements. Manuel patronized numerous Portuguese intellectuals, including playwright Gil Vicente (called the father of Portuguese and Spanish theatre).[3] The Manueline style, considered Portugal's national architecture, is named for the king.[4]
Manuel grew up amidst strife between the Portuguese noble families and King John II.[9] In 1483, Fernando II, Duke of Braganza, leader of Portugal's most powerful feudal house,[10] was executed for treason.[11][12] Later, Manuel's older brother, Diogo, Duke of Viseu, was accused of leading a conspiracy against the crown and was stabbed to death in 1484 by the king himself.[13][14]
After the death of his son Prince Afonso and failed attempts to legitimise his illegitimate son, Jorge de Lencastre, Duke of Coimbra, John II named Manuel heir to the throne.[15][16] Manuel succeeded John as king of Portugal in 1495.[5]
Manuel would prove a worthy successor to his cousin John II for his support of Portuguese exploration of the Atlantic Ocean and development of Portuguese commerce. During his reign, the following achievements were realized:
All these events made Portugal wealthy from foreign trade as it formally established a vast overseas empire. Manuel used the wealth to build a number of royal buildings (in the "Manueline" style)[27] and to attract artists to his court.[28]
Commercial treaties and diplomatic alliances were forged with the Ming dynasty of China and the Persian Safavid dynasty.[citation needed]Pope Leo X received a monumental embassy from Portugal during his reign designed to draw attention to Portugal's newly acquired riches to all of Europe.[29][30]
Like Afonso V, Manuel extended his official title to reflect Portugal's expansion. He styled himself King of Portugal and the Algarves, on this side and beyond the Sea in Africa, Lord of Guinea and the Lord of Conquest, Navigation and Commerce in Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia and India.[31][32]
Judicial reform
In Manuel's reign, royal absolutism was the method of government.[33] The Portuguese Cortes (the assembly of the kingdom) met only four times during his reign,[34] always in Lisbon, the king's seat.
He reformed the courts of justice and the municipal charters with the crown, modernizing taxes and the concepts of tributes and rights.[35] During his reign, the laws in force in the kingdom were recodified with the publication of the Manueline Ordinances.[36][37]
Manuel was a very religious man and invested a large amount of Portuguese income to send missionaries to the new colonies, among them Francisco Álvares, and sponsor the construction of religious buildings,[28] such as the Monastery of Jerónimos.[38][39] Manuel also endeavoured to promote another crusade against the Turks.[40]
At the outset of his reign, Manuel relaxed conditions that had kept Jews in virtual slavery under John II.[41][42] However, in 1496, while seeking to marry Infanta Isabella of Aragon, he relented to pressure from her parents, Ferdinand and Isabella, and decreed that Jews who refused baptism must leave the country.[43][44] Then, before the deadline for their expulsion he converted all Jews to Christianity by royal decree.[45]
That period of time technically ended the presence of Jews in Portugal. Afterwards, all converted Jews and their descendants would be referred to as "New Christians" and were given a grace period of thirty years in which no inquiries into their faith would be allowed, which was later extended to end in 1534.[46][47]
During the Lisbon massacre of 1506, people murdered thousands of accused Jews. The leaders of the riot were executed by Manuel.[34][48]
In addition, Manuel also ordered the expulsion of Muslims from Portugal, and he is known to have pressured Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to end the toleration of Islam in their own kingdom.[40]
Family
Isabella died in childbirth,[49] thus putting a damper on Portuguese ambitions to rule in Spain, which various rulers had harbored since the reign of King Ferdinand I (1367–1383).[50] Manuel and Isabella's young son, Miguel da Paz, was named Prince of Asturias, Prince of Portugal, and Prince of Girona, making him heir apparent of Castile, Portugal, and Aragon until his death in 1500, at the age of two years, ended the ambitions of the Catholic Monarchs and Manuel.[29][51]
Manuel's next wife, Maria of Aragon, was his first wife's younger sister.[51][52] Two of their sons later became kings of Portugal.[29] Maria died in 1517 but the two sisters were survived by two other sisters, Joanna of Castile, who was born in 1479 and had married Archduke Philip (Maximilian I's son) and had a son, Charles V who would eventually inherit Spain and the Habsburg possessions,[51] and Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII.[53] After Maria's death, Manuel married her niece, Eleanor of Austria.[18]
In December 1521, while Lisbon was dealing with an outbreak of the Black Plague, Manuel and his court remained at Ribeira Palace.[54] On 4 December, Manuel began displaying symptoms of an intense fever which incapacitated him by the 11th. He died on 13 December 1521, at the age of 52,[55] and was succeeded by his son, John III of Portugal.[56][57]
The next day, his body was transported to the Belém district of Lisbon, in a black velvet-draped coffin, followed by masses of mourners. He was provisionally buried at Restelo Church, while the royal pantheon of the House of Aviz was furnished inside Jerónimos Monastery. His coffin was buried by four of the most prominent nobles of the kingdom, the Duke of Braganza, the Duke of Coimbra, and the Marquis of Vila Real, in a private ceremony attended only by the royal family and the Portuguese nobility. His remains were transferred to Jerónimos Monastery in 1551,[55] along with his second wife Maria of Aragon.
^Benveniste, Arthur (October 1997). 500th Anniversary of the Forced Conversion of the Jews of Portugal (Speech). Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel, Los Angeles.
^ abde Sousa, Antonio Caetano (1735). Historia genealogica da casa real portugueza [Genealogical History of the Royal House of Portugal] (in Portuguese). Vol. 2. Lisboa Occidental. p. 497.
Rebelo, Luis (2003). "Manuel I, King of Portugal". In Gerli, E. Michael (ed.). Medieval Iberia : an encyclopedia. New York: Routledge. ISBN0-415-93918-6.
* also an infante of Castile and León, Aragon, Sicily and Naples,§ also an infante of Spain and an archduke of Austria,# also an infante of Spain,‡ also an imperial prince of Brazil,¶ also a prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke in Saxony,◙ also a prince of Braganza,¤ title removed in 1920 as their parents' marriage was deemed undynastic,ƒ claimant infante
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