Chronicon Lusitanum

The Chronicon Lusitanum or Lusitano (also Chronica Lusitana or Chronica/Chronicon Gothorum) is a chronicle of the history of Portugal from the earliest migrations of the Visigoths (which it dates to 311) through the reign of Portugal's first king, Afonso Henriques (1139–85). The entries in the chronicle, ordered by year and dated by the Spanish Era, get increasingly longer and the majority of the text deals with the reign of Afonso. The conventional title of the chronicle means "Lusitanian (i.e. Portuguese) chronicle" or "chronicle of the Goths". It was first given by the editor Enrique Flórez, who rejected the title under which it had previously been edited (Gothorum Chronica) because of its subject matter.^[1] Flórez also claims that the manuscript of the Chronicon had previously been utilised by André de Resende, the first archaeologist of Portugal, and Manuel de Severim de Faria, the first journalist of Portugal; it was also edited in the third volume of the Monarchia Lusitana by António Brandão (1632).^[2]

Excerpts

311. The Goths left their homeland.^[3]

328. They entered Hispania, and they reigned there 387 years. From their own land to Spain took them seventeen years.^[4]

...

1008. On 6 October Count Menendo was killed.^[5]

1016. On 6 September the Northmen came to the "Castle of Vermudo", which is in the province of Braga. The count there was then Aloito Núñez.^[6]

1018. The lord king Alfonso [V of León] died at Viseu [1028 recte]. And in this year died the great count Nuño Álvarez.^[7]

1034. On 14 October Gonzalo Trastamárez took Montemor and restored it to the Christians.^[8]

1038. On 1 September Gonzalo Trastamárez was killed at Avenoso.^[9]

...

1128. As his father the lord Count Henry died while this child [Afonso Henriques] was only two or three years of age, certain undignified foreigners [led by Fernando Pérez de Traba] came to the kingdom of Portugal, with the consent of his mother Queen Dona Teresa, who desired to take the place of her husband and her son in the affairs of the realm. Since such a dishonorable injury he [Afonso] could never bear (being already grown up and well-formed), he invited his friends and the more noble men of Portugal, who much preferred his rule to that of his mother or of the ignoble foreigners who wished to dispossess him, and he met them to battle in the field of São Mamede, which is beside the castle of Guimarães, and they were fought and defeated by him, and they fled from his face, and he captured them. He [thus] obtained the government and the kingship of the realm of Portugal.^[10]

...

1162. On 30 November during the night of Saint Andrew the Apostle the men of the king of Portugal, Dom Afonso, led by Fernão Gonçalves and other cavaleiros vilões invested the city of Pace, that is, Beja at night, and bravely captured it, and the Christians possessed it in the thirty-fifth year of his [Afonso’s] reign.^[11]

1166. The city of Évora was captured and devastated and entered at night by Gerald, called ‘without fear’, and his fellow bandits, and he handed it over to the king Dom Afonso. Shortly after this king seized Moura and Serpa and Alconchel, and he ordered the castle of Coruche rebuilt in the thirty-ninth year of his reign.^[12]

1168. King Dom Afonso and his army were defeated at Badajoz in the forty-first year of his reign.^[13]

Editions

• Enrique Flórez. España Sagrada (Madrid: 1796), XIV:415–32. (Latin)
• Marc Szwajcer, trans. Chronique de Lusitanie. French translation based on Flórez's edition. (French)

Notes

1. ^ Hanc praeferimus titulum, potius quam Gothorum Chronica, sub quo editum; quoniam de rebus in Lusitania gestis, non de Gothorum Regibus, tota illi cura est.
2. ^ Chronicon Lusitanum quo olim manuscripto Resendius et Faria sunt usi: editum Tomo III Monarchiae Lusitanae.
3. ^ Æra 349. Egressi sunt Gothi de terra sua.
4. ^ Æra 366. Ingresi sunt Hispaniam, & regnaverunt ibi annis 387. De terra autem sua perveniunt ad Hispaniam per 17. annos.
5. ^ Æra 1046. 2. Non. Octobris occisus fuit Comes Menendus.
6. ^ Æra 1054. Octavo Idus Septembris venerunt Lormanes ad Castellum Vermudii, quod est in Provincia Bracharensi. Comes tunc ibi erat Alvitus Nuniz.
7. ^ Æra 1056. Obiit Rex Donnus Adefonsus Viseo. Et in ipso anno obiit magnus Comes Nunus Alvares.
8. ^ Æra 1072. Secundo Idus Odobris Gundisalvus Trastamiriz cepit Montem majorem, & reddidit cum Christianis.
9. ^ Æra millesima septuagesima sexta Calend. Septembris, Gundisalvus Trastamiriz occisus est in Avenozo.
10. ^ Æra 1166. . . Siquidem mortuo patre suo Comite Domino Henrico, cum adhuc ipse puer esset duorum, aut trium annorum, quidam indigni & alienigenae vendicabant Regnum Portugallis, matre ejus Regina Donna Tarasia eis consentiente, volens fie ipsa superbe regnare loco mariti sui, amoto filio a negotio Regni. Quam injuriam valde inhonestam nullatenus ferre valens (erat enim jam grandaevus aetate, & bonae indolis) convocatis amicis suis, & nobilioribus de Portugal, qui eum multo maxime, quam matrem ejus, vel indignos & exteros natione volevant regnare super se, commisit cum eis praelium in campo Sanct Mametis, quod est prope Castellum de Vimaranes, & contriti sunt & devicti ab eo, & fugerunt a facie ejus, & comprehendit eos. Obtinuit ipse pricipatum & Monarchiam Regni Portugallis.
11. ^ Æra 1200. Pridie Calendas Decembris in node Sancti Andrez Aposcoli Civitas Pace, id est, Begia ab hominibus Regis Portugallis D. Alfonsi, videlicet Fernando Gunsalvi, & quibusdam aliis plebeis militibus noctu invaditur, & viriliter capitur, & a Christianis possidetur, anno Regni ejus 35.
12. ^ Æra 1204. Civitas Elbora capta, & depraedata, & noctu ingressa a Giraldo cognominato sine pavore, & latronibus sociis ejus, & tradidit eam Regi D. Alfonso, & post paululum ipse Rex cepit Mauram, & Serpam, & Alconchel, & Coluchi Castrum mandavit reedificare anno Regni ejus 39.
13. ^ Æra 1206. Factum est infortunium Regis D. Alfonsi & sui exercitus in Badalioz anno 41. Regni ejus.