by Freddy Silva
The head of the Lusitani, Viriato, was celebrated as a Celtiberian leader possessing the noblest ancient virtues. He was honest, fair, and faithful to his word, and his brilliant strategizing won many wars against overwhelming Roman forces—to the point where recruitment in the legions dropped significantly.2 Only through betrayal did the Romans finally become masters of this fiercely independent patch of soil on the cusp of Europe and the Atlantic. Suffice it to say that a deep-seated resentment, nay hatred, of most things Roman persists to this day in the DNA of its inhabitants.
Viriato.
The Lusitani were also an incredibly spiritual people. They believed in the survival of the soul, in the Otherworld, and that in certain parts of the land there exists a special force that can be harnessed to connect with domains existing beyond the five senses. Such beliefs would find a continuum in that most Celtic of priesthoods, the Druids, who also found a home in Lusitania, as well as Galicia to the north; as did a Celtic tribe in the region of Denmark named Burgundii, who in time would lend their name to the French province of Burgundy.
The Druids shared something else in common with the Lusitani: they were loathed and feared in equal amounts by Julius Caesar, and he made it his mission in life to obliterate both.
After the Romans came, saw, conquered, and inevitably lost, Lusitania changed name and allegiance numerous times depending on the political wind of the month. Mountainous regions are like that: independent of mind, autonomous of spirit, stubborn to the core. Yet by the ninth century AD the political landscape began to stabilize—or comparatively so given that these were the turbulent Dark Ages—and it did so around a village appropriately named Cale.
Cale was located at the mouth of the River Douro (River of Gold), which flows into the Atlantic Ocean in the north of what is today Portugal. The Trojans were possibly one of the first groups to settle in Cale, for the name derives from the Greek word kallis (beautiful), referring to the sinuous beauty of the fertile Douro valley. Given how the Trojans did pass through this region on their journey to Britain, the hypothesis is a sound one.3Cale is also an ethnonym derived from the Celtic tribe who settled in the area, the Callaici, whose own name derives from the source of their veneration, the goddess Cailleach, still to this day present in Irish lore. Thus the Callaici or Gallaeci associated their name with their estuary home, which expanded into Porto Cale (beautiful harbor).4
Their name is also found in nearby regions of note: Gaia, Galicia, and later, the gal in Portugal.5 But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
With the evaporation of the Lusitanians and the Romans, local history becomes as easy to explain as the traffic pattern inside a mound of termites. In brief, northwestern Iberia was generally known as Galicia. Sometime around the year 848 AD, between the many conquests and reconquests that characterize the fluid stability of this region, Porto Cale expands from a mere port into the region of Portucale, a strip of coastal land between the rivers Douro and Minho. The territory of Portucale then spends some two hundred years extricating itself from the yoke of Galicia; first it comes under sole governorship by 950 AD, then is governed as a fief until 1050, but twenty years later it is reincorporated into the kingdom of Galicia. Then around 1083, just to add more ingredients to this complex stew, two cousins from the House of Burgundy arrive on horseback from Dijon.
The two noble knights—Henri and his distant but far more ambitious cousin Raimond, son of Guillaume the Great, Count of Burgundy—rode into northern Iberia at the request of Alfonso VI, king of Castilla e León, Galicia e Portucale. Nicknamed “the Brave,” Alfonso VI had given himself the thankless task of integrating all the disparate Spanish kingdoms, half of which were currently under Muslim rule, as were parts of his own provinces. But although this required battling with Saracens, Moors, and other Arabs, Alfonso VI appears to have been somewhat enlightened as a ruler, for he made no generalized judgments about his enemies. He still offered protection to Muslims in his territory, minted coins in Arabic, and admitted to his bed the refugee Muslim princess Zaida de Seville.
Alfonso’s instructions to the knights Henri and Raimond were straightforward: recapture the parts of Galicia and Portucale that had been stolen by the Moors. Which the two would do admirably, with both Burgundians earning a great reputation for services rendered over the course of eight years by reconquering territory all the way south to the river Tejo, including the city of Lisbon.
As a token of his appreciation to Raimond, Alfonso the Brave offered his daughter Urraca’s hand in marriage and bestowed on him the government of Galicia as a personal fief.
As for the equally brave Henri—a descendent of the Frankish kings in the male line, great-grandson of King Robert I, son of Duke Henri of Burgundy, and nephew of Alfonso’s second wife—he received the hand in marriage of Alfonso’s illegitimate daughter Dona Tareja, along with a dowry of lands in Castilla.
In any other era this would have seemed a straightforward arrangement, but this being the eleventh century, even one’s own family could not be trusted, and no sooner had Raimond joined Urraca in matrimony than his father-in-law discovered their ambition to expand their newly acquired Galician territory. And so Alfonso the Brave designed a cunning plan to thwart this, by awarding Henri and Tareja a slice of an adjacent territory—the county of Portucale—which at that moment was under the suzerainty of Raimond. Essentially, Alfonso would undermine the pretensions of his more ambitious son-in-law by making Raimond an immediate neighbor of his cousin Henri, while establishing both their territories as dependencies of his own kingdom of Castilla e León.
And finally some sense of order comes to bear on the region.
At least for now.
Meanwhile, the summer of 1096 was in full bloom, and over in the Flemish kingdoms and French duchies, including Burgundy, armies were assembling, saddling up and heading east on the arduous Crusade to the Holy Land. As news of this most noble enterprise reached Alfonso VI, the Spanish king unreservedly vowed to make a personal contribution, but with the Moors making constant incursions into his kingdom, even retaking Lisbon, Alfonso was otherwise too occupied with his own campaigns at home to venture overseas. Instead, he would send help to the First Crusade by way of his trusted son-in-law Henri, who would act on his behalf.6
Here, family relationships worked in Henri’s favor (Alfonso’s second wife was also Burgundian), not to mention his upbringing within the enlightened House of Burgundy. In this era, the duchy of Burgundy was the epicenter of a renaissance, the commercial and intellectual crossroads of Europe, and since Henri and Alfonso were alumni of its liberal circle, both men no doubt shared intellectual bonds as well as a common view of the world. In return for his commitment to sail the 2,500 miles to Jerusalem—and partly to keep cousin Raimond under control—Henri’s newly acquired father-in-law further granted him full governorship of the port city of Porto Cale and its surrounding territory.7
For a man who had been born a younger son, and thus stood to achieve little wealth or inheritance by title, Henri of Burgundy did well for himself. Upon acquiring the ancient land of the Lusitanians he was awarded the title of count and took to his new estate of mountains, moorland, coastline, and forests with enthusiasm, adopting the local customs, learning the Portuguese language, even changing his name to Count Dom Henrique as a mark of respect. Rather than staying in the city of Porto Cale, he settled instead for the verdurous hills and the inland city of Guimarães—by his time already venerated as a place of pilgrimage—whereupon he granted a charter for the city and effectively established a de facto capital for the county of Portucale.
With the affairs of state in order, Henri/Dom Henrique paused briefly to enjoy his new and wonderful life before making preparations to embark on the long voyage to Palestine, with the aim of liberating the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.8 Little did he know that his decision would mark a pivotal moment in the history of Portucale, for the people he’d meet in Jerusalem would shape the destiny of this territory.
Dom H
enrique set sail from Porto Cale en route to Genoa on the northern Italian coast and joined forces with one of the Crusader armies—most likely the one led by the son of the French king9—then continued with the fleet to the ancient port of Jaffa, disembarking 33 miles to the west of the gates of Jerusalem. His timing could not have been better, coinciding as it did with the arrival of the Crusaders presently descending on the city from the north, dusty from months of the laborious march through the Levant.10
Count Dom Henrique’s adventure is rarely acknowledged in history, and yet his travels to Palestine are asserted by a chronicler of the Cistercian Order, who also noted how the count was accompanied by a Portuguese monk from the Hermitage of Saint Julian.11 Further support for this voyage comes from foreign sources—not all of them supporters of the Portuguese at that—such as Father Zapater, chronicler of the Cistercian Order in the Spanish court of Aragon.12 A later account by a member of the Templar Order goes so far as to state that Dom Henrique “was known by Pope Urban II who named him as one of the twelve leaders of that sacred expedition.”13
And there’s more. The Cistercian monks were consummate scribblers. They wrote copious volumes chronicling the events of their day, and in one account they state that while in Palestine Dom Henrique “venerated the Sacred Places,” and in return for his faithful assistance, a grateful king of Jerusalem—a Flemish knight—gave him custody of various holy relics, including the lance used at Christ’s crucifixion, samples of the crown of thorns, and the cloak of Mary Magdalene.
By the end of 1099 this same king dispatched Dom Henrique back to Portucale. Upon arrival, he promptly rode to the city of Braga, accompanied by Gerard, the soon-to-be French archbishop of that city, whereupon they placed said holy relics inside its main church.
Dom Henrique subsequently spent the next couple of years traveling between the city of Coimbra (to administer to the affairs of state) and his court in Guimarães (to attend to his neglected wife, Tareja), before embarking on a second voyage to Palestine in 1103, again with the Genoese fleet, this time accompanied by Dom Mauricio, French bishop of Coimbra,14 together with Guido of Lusitania and other nobles of the region.15 Three years later Dom Henrique and the bishop are back in Coimbra, as evidenced by the count’s signature on a document.16 So, not only do the accounts place the ever-journeying Count of Portucale in Jerusalem at the time of the Crusade—twice—they also provide another revelation: they list by name the Flemish knight, king of Jerusalem, who originally handed him the religious artifacts for safekeeping in Portucale, for in the description of the movements of Count Dom Henrique it is written that “his valor was esteemed by Godefroi, King of Jerusalem.”17
Count Dom Henrique.
Which begs the question: What exactly transpired at the siege of Jerusalem, and how did a Flemish knight of average social rank attain the highest seat of power in the city of God?
7
1099. JUNE. OUTSIDE THE GATES OF JERUSALEM . . .
The outline of the city shimmered and refracted in the searing heat of the summer sun. Soldiers openly wept at the sight of this divine apparition, the mirage now only too real. And although they had fared better than the poorly organized People’s Crusade, only about twelve thousand of the original thirty-four thousand Crusaders reached their intended destination.1
The terrain surrounding the hilltop city was arid from the relentless heat. Men were thirsty and hungry and insufficient in number to lay siege. All-out assault was the only choice.
Five weeks later the city walls remained resilient and impervious to all attacks. Better news arrived on June 17 when ships from Genoa anchored at Jaffa to provide the leaders of the armies with skilled engineers and, critically, with the expertise to built siege engines made from timber cannibalized from their own vessels.2 The sultry air made haste impossible, until news of impending Arab reinforcements marching from Egypt motivated the Crusaders to act. With one final effort they hurled every projectile at the city walls from the north and south until the stones protecting Jerusalem finally relented. The prize was theirs.
Crusaders upon first sighting Jerusalem.
The conduct of the victors over the vanquished very much depended on who was in charge of which army, and atrocities, as in any war, became standard practice, “the juxtaposition of extreme violence and anguished faith.”3 The air of disgust from some Crusaders was impaled on the odor of depravity of the rest, but the same was true of the Arabs, who massacred all the captives they had held prisoner inside a mosque.
A week after the adrenalin of war subsided, a council was held in the refreshing interior of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on July 22, the feast day of Mary Magdalene, to deliberate on the election of a king for Jerusalem. Of all the leaders whose names were volunteered, one stood above the others by seniority alone: Comte Raimond de Toulouse, highly admired as a fighter and the first to volunteer for the Crusade back on that fateful November day in Clermont. But in the end the votes were awarded to the one man who had not sought any. By his own deeds Godefroi de Bouillon had proven himself to be valiant, discreet, worthy, and modest. His own servants, in private counsel, testified to his “possession of the virtues which are put in practice without any show.” His ideals for the common man impressed even the Arab sheiks, who marveled at the modesty of the Flemish prince, for when they came to make offerings to Godefroi they were surprised by a royal tent bereft of silk and its king content with squatting on a bail of straw. Made aware of their comments, Godefroi elucidated that “man must remember that he is only dust and will return to dust.”4
Godefroi had marched all the way to the Holy City on one principle: to liberate the Holy Sepulcher. Personal gain had not been his motivation. When presented with the title king of Jerusalem he politely refused to be crowned, accepting instead the alternative title Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri (defender of the Holy Sepulcher) and adopting the informal term princeps (first citizen). As he would later state, “I will never wear a crown of gold in the place where the Savior of the world was crowned with thorns.”5
Urban II, whose words had set these events in motion, for better or worse, would never learn of the developments taking place in Jerusalem, for he died barely two weeks after the siege ended and before news of it reached his ear.
Meanwhile, the indefatigable Godefroi de Bouillon made his way through the southern Gate of Sion and beyond the walls of Jerusalem, to a trail leading up a short incline to a limestone hill where, according to tradition, the Virgin Mary passed into eternity and her son performed the Last Supper. On this sacred space Godefroi observed the shell of a church, the Hagia Sion, the Byzantine Basilica of the Assumption. The dilapidated building was hardly fit for habitation, let alone a king, and its position beyond the protective walls of the city would make it hard to defend, if and when the Arab armies returned. Nevertheless, Godefroi took up residence. But he was not to live there alone, for he was promptly joined by a chapter of Augustinian canons,6 along with a religious icon in his own right, Peter the Hermit.7
It turns out that, far from being some moribund evangelist, Peter was regarded with great esteem, because shortly after the capture of Jerusalem the Crusaders embarked on another military campaign and left the monk temporarily in charge of the entire city. Peter the Hermit eventually returned to France to become prior of a church of the Holy Sepulcher, which he founded before entering into retirement near Huy, where he also founded a monastery.8 His contemporaries were not ungrateful, nor did they forget his contribution to the purer ideals of Christianity.
The faithful, dwellers at Jerusalem, who, four or five years before had seen the venerable Peter there, recognizing at that time in the same city him to whom the patriarch had committed letters invoking the aid of the princes of the West, bent the knee before him, and offered him their respects in all humility. They recalled to mind the circumstances of his first voyage; and they praised the Lord who had endowed him with effectual power of speech and with strength to rouse up nations and kings to bear so
many and such long toils for love of the name of Christ. Both in private and in public all the faithful at Jerusalem exerted themselves to render to Peter the Hermit the highest honors, and attributed to him alone, after God, their happiness in having escaped from the hard servitude under which they had been for so many years groaning, and in seeing the holy city recovering her ancient freedom.9
Godefroi de Bouillon.
Curiously, also taking up residence with Peter, Godefroi de Bouillon, and the canons in the tumbledown basilica was a further group of monks from Orval under the direction of an abbot.10 Somehow Godefroi’s odd choice of home on Mount Sion, along with Peter and the monks from Orval, had all the appearances of a premeditated agreement.
8
THIRTY YEARS EARLIER. ORVAL. A TOWN DOWNRIVER FROM BOUILLON . . .
In 1070 a group of monks made their way from Calabria in southern Italy to Orval in Upper Lorraine, a grand adventure of 1,200 miles, and appeared on the doorstep of Mathilde de Toscane, Countess de Briey. The monks had come to take charge of a tract of land kindly granted by the countess and her husband.1
This graceful land had been a sacred place for centuries, and since at least the ninth century a chapel had stood there. Now it was the monks’ turn to leave their mark. They needed a quiet place to do their business and quickly set about building a monastery, thanks to the generosity of their new patrons.
It is a mystery why a group of monks—led by an individual named Ursus (Bear)—should have ventured so far in search of peace and tranquillity. It has been suggested they harbored secret scrolls and other long-suppressed material pertaining to ancient Mysteries, as well as evidence of records relating to a holy bloodline; indeed the land in and around Orval was once associated with a Merovingian bloodline. What is certain is the monks had recently escaped persecution in Jerusalem by sailing to Calabria and the safety of monasteries in Sicily, then made their way north via Burgundy and Champagne to meet with people who were friendly to whatever cause they harbored.2 Perhaps an examination of their patron, Mathilde de Toscanne, will present an answer.