John I

1. Saint, died A.D. 526, Italian ecclesiastic: pope 523-526.

2. ("the Great") 1357-1433, king of Portugal 1385-1433.

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Portuguese João known as John of Aviz

born April 11, 1357, Lisbon

died Aug. 14, 1433, Lisbon

King of Portugal (1385–1433) and founder of the Aviz dynasty.

The illegitimate son of Pedro I, he was elected king in 1385 despite the rivalry of Castilian candidates. He fought off a Castilian invasion (1385) and preserved Portugal's independence. He made an alliance with England (1386), but a joint invasion of León was unsuccessful. John signed a 10-year truce with Castile in 1389, but frontier warfare was intermittent until 1411. He and his sons (including the youngest, later Henry the Navigator) captured Ceuta in Morocco in 1415, thus beginning the era of Portuguese expansion.

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▪ duke of Brittany

also called  John The Redhead,  French  Jean Le Roux 

born 1217

died 1286

      duke of Brittany (from 1237), son of Peter I. Like his father, he sought to limit the temporal power of the clergy; consequently he was excommunicated, upon which he journeyed to Rome to win absolution. Subsequently, he and his wife, Blanche of Champagne, traveled with St. Louis on the crusade to Tunisia (1270).

▪ king of Aragon

born Dec. 27, 1350

died May 16, 1395

      king of Aragon (1387–1395), son of Peter IV. Influenced by his wife, Violante, he pursued a pro-French policy but refused to become involved in the Hundred Years' War. He died by a fall from his horse, like his namesake, cousin, and contemporary of Castile, John I. He was a man of insignificant character, with a taste for artificial verse.

▪ king of Castile

born Aug. 20, 1358, Épila, Castile

died Oct. 9, 1390, Alcalá de Henares

      king of Castile from 1379 to 1390, son of Henry II, founder of the dynasty of Trastámara.

      In the beginning of his reign John had to contend with the hostility of John of Gaunt, who claimed the crown by right of his wife Constance, daughter of Peter I the Cruel. The king of Castile finally bought off the claim of his English competitor by arranging a marriage between his son Henry and Catherine, daughter of John of Gaunt, in 1387. Before this date he had been engaged in hostilities with Portugal, which was in alliance with John of Gaunt. His first quarrel with Portugal was settled by his marriage, in 1382, with Beatriz, daughter of the Portuguese king Ferdinand. On the death of his father-in-law in 1383, John endeavoured to enforce the claims of his wife, Ferdinand's only child, to the crown of Portugal. He was resisted by the national sentiment of the people and was utterly defeated at the Battle of Aljubarrota (Aug. 14, 1385).

      King John was killed at Alcalá five years later by the fall of his horse, while he was riding in a fantasia with some of the light horsemen known as the farfanes, who were mounted and equipped in the Arab style.

▪ king of France

also called  John The Posthumous,  French  Jean Le Posthume 

born Nov. 15, 1316

died Nov. 19/20, 1316, Paris

      king of France, the posthumous son of Louis X of France by his second consort, Clémence of Hungary. He died just a few days after his birth but is nevertheless reckoned among the kings of France.

      His uncle, who succeeded him as Philip V, has been accused of having caused his death, or of having substituted a dead child in his place; but nothing has ever been proved. In 1358 a man called Giannino, in Florence, persuaded Clémence's nephew, Louis I of Hungary, that he was John I; but otherwise he met with little success and died in jail in Naples (1363).

▪ king of Portugal

Introduction

byname  The Prince of Fond Memory, or John of Aviz, John the Great, or John the Bastard,  Portuguese  O Principe de Boa Memória, or João de Aviz, João o Grande, or João o Bastardo  

born April 11, 1357, Lisbon

died Aug. 14, 1433, Lisbon

 king of Portugal from 1385 to 1433, who preserved his country's independence from Castile and initiated Portugal's overseas expansion. He was the founder of the Aviz, or Joanina (Johannine), dynasty.

Early life.

      John was the illegitimate son of King Pedro I and Teresa Lourenço. At age six he was made master of the military Order of Aviz; he received an ecclesiastical and military education, probably at Aviz in Alentejo. On his father's death, in 1367, his half-brother Ferdinand (Ferdinand I) became king and embarked on a calamitous rivalry with the new ruler of Castile, Henry II, who finally forced Ferdinand to accept a Castilian marriage for his infant heiress, Beatriz, thus compromising the future independence of Portugal.

      When Ferdinand died, in 1383, his widow, Queen Leonor, submitted to the demand of her Castilian son-in-law, John I, that he be recognized as king of Portugal. John of Aviz, who had hitherto remained carefully in the background, though he had been arrested for a time in 1382, was now persuaded by a group of young nationalists, led by Nuno Álvares Pereira (Pereira, Nuno Álvares, Blessed), to murder Queen Leonor's favourite and adviser, the Galician João Fernandes Andeiro, conde de Ourém. Popular support was at once stirred up for John, and Queen Leonor fled from Lisbon, appealing to Castile for help. In May 1384 Castilian armies besieged John in Lisbon until the outbreak of plague forced them to withdraw (September).

Election as king.

      John had been named defender of the realm; but in April 1385 representatives of the three estates met in the Cortes (assembly) of Coimbra, and, after it had been demonstrated that King Pedro's elder surviving sons had not been legitimized, John was elected king. The cities of Lisbon and Porto and the merchants and trade guilds enthusiastically backed him, but much of the older nobility still favoured the Castilian succession. John and Nuno Álvares, now his constable, marched northward and obtained the submission of the chief places but returned on hearing that the Castilians were preparing a major invasion. As Spanish forces entered central Portugal, John and Nuno Álvares advanced to bar the road to Lisbon and won the famous Battle of Aljubarrota (Aug. 14, 1385). This victory assured Portugal's independence and made John a desirable ally. He had already received some English aid, and a small party of English archers had fought for him at Aljubarrota; and he now concluded the Treaty of Windsor (May 9, 1386), which became the cornerstone of the Anglo-Portuguese alliance. In consequence, John of Gaunt (John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster), duke of Lancaster, arrived in Galicia hoping, through his second marriage (1371), with the daughter of King Pedro I of Castile, to realize his claim to the Castilian crown. John of Aviz sealed the alliance by marrying, in February 1387, Lancaster's daughter, Philippa. A joint invasion of León was unsuccessful, and Lancaster withdrew. John of Aviz made a 10-year truce with Castile in 1389, but frontier warfare with Castile was intermittent thereafter until peace was finally made in 1411.

Consolidation and expansion.

      John's elder sons had now reached the age at which they could become knights, and it was ostensibly on their behalf that he organized an expedition against Ceuta, which fell in a day (Aug. 24, 1415). He had probably hoped to advance into Morocco and tap the African caravan routes, but, instead, Ceuta became a beleaguered outpost supplied from the Portuguese Algarve. This stimulated the maritime explorations, beginning with the rediscovery and settlement of the Madeira Islands and the Azores.

      John's court now became a centre of culture, influenced through Queen Philippa by English traditions. Of their sons, the inclita geração (“illustrious generation”), the eldest, Edward, administered the kingdom under his father and was later king; the second, Pedro, travelled through Europe and was regent after Edward's death; and the third, Henry, known as the Navigator, was the patron and organizer of the overseas discoveries. For them, John introduced the title of duke into Portugal. Their sister, Isabel, married Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy and count of Flanders, thus consolidating Portuguese interests in the Low Countries. John's bastard son, Afonso, married the daughter of the constable Nuno Álvares, and their descendants, the House of Bragança, became kings of Portugal from 1640.

      John's long struggle with Castile and the need to recompense a new aristocracy caused serious financial difficulties, but he rallied his people around his throne and acquired a reputation as a cautious leader and shrewd statesman. He rewarded the faithful trade guilds by granting them permanent representation in the House of Twenty-four, in which two members of each of the 12 major guilds were to sit. He also granted them a special magistrate, the judge of the people. At Porto he ended the unpopular civil jurisdiction exercised over the city by the bishop. He displayed his devotion by building near Leiria the great Abbey of Batalha to commemorate his victory and serve as a pantheon. He was the author of a work on hunting (Livro da montaria), his favourite pastime.

      There is a portrait of John in the Museum of Ancient Art, Lisbon, and recumbent statues of John and Philippa over their tomb at Batalha.

Harold V. Livermore

Additional Reading

John's reign was chronicled by Fernão Lopes; there are several modern editions in Portuguese, but only a short excerpt has been translated into English, E. Prestage, The Chronicles of Fernão Lopes and Gomes Eannes de Zurara (1928). An excellent account of the international politics and military enterprises of the period is found in P.E. Russell, English Intervention in Spain and Portugal in the Time of Edward III and Richard II (1955).

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