Abstract
The coronations of Portugal’s first dynasty constitute a complex topic. Approaching the theme requires understanding that an omission of words in written documentation can both affirm and deny possibilities. Likewise, visual documentation, such as illuminations, sculptures and other figurative arts, is scarce, raising a significant number of questions and thus is not trustworthy as a historical source. For this reason, the study of Portuguese coronations is filled with questions and silences. Art does not testify to these ceremonies, but shows that Portuguese kings valued regalia pertaining to both religious and secular ceremonies affirming their power, and that those insignias were different from those used by French or English kings in the same time period. In this study, I will use art, particularly funerary sculpture, but also objects with iconographic value, to demonstrate how these reflect elements of thought and the emotional pulsar of the various European societies that produced them.
Highlights
The coronations of Portugal’s first dynasty constitute a complex topic
Authors were baffled by the lack of systematization of liturgical rites in the coronations of Portuguese and Castilian kings, the act of anointing (Ruiz 1984; Linehan 1993; Rucquoi 1992)
Regarding the Castilian case, Nieto Soria (1986, 1988) took a different approach to that of the preceding historiography, one that has been widely demonstrated in several studies
Summary
Unlike France or England, in Portugal there is nothing compared to a consecration Ordo with illumination drawings or paintings, which were so common in the Early Middle Ages; there is nothing like Bayeaux tapestry (which is a large-scale embroidery, but is known to history as a tapestry) or even wax seals and minted coins of great significance. The second sculpture in this set, which is aesthetically similar and certainly sculpted by the same craftsman, represents a bishop, probably João Peculiar, a strong supporter of the recognition of Portugal as an independent kingdom and of Afonso Henriques as its first king. The king is represented wearing a crown, his body covered by a long garment, wielding a sword over his shoulder The dimensions of both sword and crown are indicative of their prominence among all the objects composing the early monarchs’ regalia, at a time of territorial reconquest in. The most valued regal attributes are still the crown as an essential element, the sword which is of great size and over theover shoulder as well as was probably a scepter,ashaped one extreme a Latin as cross and placed the shoulder as what well as what was probably scepter,atshaped at oneasextreme a Latin held by the king on the side. All of these features can be of both AfonsoofHenriques or of his son Sancho
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