Afonso I of Portugal

Afonso I of Portugal (; 1106/1109/11111185), also called Afonso Henriques, nicknamed the Conqueror () and the Founder () by the Portuguese, and El-Bortukali (in Arabic "the Portuguese") and Ibn-Arrink or Ibn Arrinq (in Arabic or "son of Henry", "Henriques") by the Moors whom he fought, was the first king of Portugal. He achieved the independence of the County of Portugal, establishing a new kingdom and doubling its area with the , an objective that he pursued until his death. Afonso was the son of Theresa of León and Henry of Burgundy, rulers of the County of Portugal. Henry died in 1112, leaving Teresa to rule alone. Unhappy with Teresa's romantic relationship with Galician Fernando Pérez de Traba and his political influence, the Portuguese nobility rallied around Afonso, who revolted and defeated his mother at the Battle of São Mamede in 1128 and became Count of Portugal soon afterwards. In 1139, Afonso renounced the suzerainty of the Kingdom of León and established the independent Kingdom of Portugal. Afonso actively campaigned against the Moors in the south. In 1139 he won a decisive victory at the Battle of Ourique, and in 1147 he conquered Santarém and Lisbon from the Moors, with help from men on their way to the Holy Land for the Second Crusade. He secured the independence of Portugal following a victory over León at Valdevez and received papal approval through Manifestis Probatum. Afonso died in 1185 and was succeeded by his son, Sancho I. Youth Afonso was the son of Theresa, the illegitimate daughter of King Alfonso VI of León, and her husband, Henry of Burgundy. According to the the future Portuguese king was born in Guimarães, which was at the time the most important political center of his parents. This was accepted by most Portuguese scholars until 1990, when Torquato de Sousa Soares proposed Coimbra, the center of the county of Coimbra and another political center of Afonso's progenitors, as his birthplace, which caused outrage in Guimarães and a polemic between this historian and José Hermano Saraiva. Almeida Fernandes later proposed Viseu as the birthplace of Afonso based on the , which states Afonso was born in 1109, a position followed by historian José Mattoso in his biography of the king. Abel Estefânio has suggested a different date and thesis, proposing 1106 as the birth date and the region of Tierra de Campos or even Sahagún as likely birth places based on the known itineraries of Henry and Teresa.