THE BATTLE OF ALJUBARROTA

The Battle of Aljubarrota (Portuguese pronunciation: took place on 14 August 1385, between
the forces commanded by King John I of Portugal and his general Nuno Álvares Pereira, and the
army of King John I of Castile. The place was São Jorge, between the towns of Leiria and
Alcobaça in central Portugal. The result was a decisive defeat of the Castilians and the end of the
1383-1385 Crisis, establishing John as King of Portugal.
Portuguese independence was assured and a new dynasty, the House of Aviz, was established.
Scattered border confrontations with Castilian troops would persist until the death of John I of
Castile in 1390, but these posed no real threat to the new dynasty. To celebrate his victory and
acknowledge divine help, John I of Portugal ordered the construction of the monastery of Santa
Maria da Vitória na Batalha and the founding of the town of Batalha (Portuguese for "battle",
Portuguese pronunciation: The king, his wife Philippa of Lancaster, and several of his sons are
buried in this monastery, today a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Prelude
The end of the 14th century in Europe was a time of revolution and crisis, with the Hundred
Years' War devastating France, the Black Death decimating the continent, and famine afflicting
the poor. Portugal was no exception. In 1383, King Ferdinand I of Portugal died with no son to
inherit the crown. The only child of his marriage with Leonor Telles de Menezes was a girl,
Princess Beatrice of Portugal.
In April of that same year the Dowager Queen and Regent Leonor Telles, her lover João
Fernandes Andeiro, Count of Ourém signed the Treaty of Salvaterra de Magos with King Juan I
of Castile, ending the third Luso-Castilian war; the treaty determined that Princess Beatrice was
to marry Juan I, king of Castile, the Crown of Portugal would belong to the descendants of this
union and that the capital would be relocated to the Kingdom of Toledo. This situation left the
majority of the Portuguese discontent, and the Portuguese nobility was unwilling to support the
claim of the princess because that would mean the incorporation of Portugal to Castile; also the
powerful merchants of the capital, Lisbon, were enraged from being excluded from the
negotiations. Without an undisputed option, Portugal remained without king between 1383 and
1385, in an interregnum known as the 1383–1385 Crisis.
The first act of hostility was taken in December 1383 by the faction of John (João), the Grand
Master of the Aviz Order (and a natural son of Peter I of Portugal), with the murder of Count
Andeiro. This prompted the Lisbon merchants to name him "rector and defender of the realm".
However, the Castilian king would not relinquish his wife's claim to the throne. In an effort to
normalize the situation and secure Beatrice's crown, he forced Leonor to abdicate from the
regency and sent a punitive expedition, which was promptly defeated by Nuno Álvares Pereira
leading a much smaller Portuguese army at the battle of Atoleiros on 6 April 1384. This marked
the first use of English defensive tactics on the Iberian peninsula, reportedly without any
casualties to the Portuguese. A larger second expedition led by the Castilian king himself
reached and besieged Lisbon for four months before being forced to retreat by a shortage of food
supplies due to harassment from Nuno Álvares Pereira, and the bubonic plague.
In order to secure his claim, John of Aviz engaged in politics and intense diplomatic negotiations
with both the Holy See and England. On 6 April 1385, (the anniversary of the "miraculous"
battle of Atoleiros, a fortuitous date), the council of the kingdom (cortes in Portuguese)
assembled in Coimbra and declared him King John I of Portugal. After his accession to the
throne, John I of Portugal proceeded to conquer the cities that supported Princess Beatrice and
her husband's claims, namely Caminha, Braga and Guimarães among others.
Enraged by this "rebellion", Juan I ordered a 40 000-strong two-pronged invasion in may. The
smaller Northern force sacked and burnt populations along the border, including the open city of
Viseu, before being defeated by local Portuguese nobles in the battle of Trancoso, on the first
week of June. On the news of the invasion by the Castilians, John I of Portugal's army met with
Nuno Álvares Pereira, the Constable of Portugal, in the town of Tomar. There, they decided to
face the enemy in battle, before they could get close to Lisbon and besiege it again.
Along with its English allies who arrived on the 1385 passover, consisting of a company of about
600 English longbowmen, veterans from the 100 years war, sent to honor the 1373 alliance
(presently the oldest active treaty in the world). The Portuguese set out to intercept the invading
army near the town of Leiria. Nuno Álvares Pereira took the task of choosing the ground for the
battle. The chosen location was São Jorge near Aljubarrota, in a small flattened hill surrounded
by creeks, with the very small settlement of Chão da Feira (Fair´s Ground) at its widest point,
still present today.

Portuguese dispositions
At around 10 o'clock in the morning of 14 August, the army took its position at the north side of
this hill, facing the road where the enemy would soon appear. As in other defensive battles of the
14th century (Crécy, for example, or Poitiers), the dispositions were the following: dismounted
cavalry and infantry in the centre with archers occupying the flanks. Notably, on the vanguard's
left wing (later covering the left flank), a company composed by some two hundred unmarried
young nobles who left their studies at the university city of Coimbra are remembered to history
as the "Ala dos Namorados" (Sweethearts' Flank); the right wing, also two hundred strong,
known as "Ala de Madressilva" or Honeysuckle Flank, didn't achieve the same heroic fame. On
either side, the army was protected by natural obstacles (in this case, creeks and steep slopes). In
the rear, reinforcements were at hand, commanded by John of Portugal himself. In this
topographically high position, the Portuguese could observe the enemy's arrival and were
protected by a steep slope in their front. The rear of the Portuguese position, which was in fact its
front in the final battle, was at the top of a narrow slope, which came up to a small village, and
was further constricted by a complex series of interlocking trenches and caltrops designed to
surprise and trap the enemy cavalry. This trenching tactic was developed around this time and
used extensively by both the English in France and the Portuguese in the rare set-piece battles of
the Crisis of the Succession.
Castile arrives
The Castilian vanguard arrived at lunch time from the north. Seeing the strongly defensive
position occupied by the Portuguese, John of Castile made the wise decision to avoid combat on
John of Portugal's terms. Slowly, due to the numbers of his army (about 30,000 men), the
Castilian army started to contour the hill where the Portuguese were located. John of Castile's
scouts had noticed that the South side of the hill had a gentler slope and it was there that the
Castilian king wanted to attack.
In response of this movement, the Portuguese army inverted its dispositions and headed to the
South slope of the hill. Since they were fewer than the enemy and had less ground to cover, they
attained their final position very early in the afternoon.To calm the soldiers' nervousness and to
improve his army's defensive position, general Nuno Álvares Pereira ordered the construction of
a system of ditches, pitches and caltrops. This application of typical English tactical procedures
had also been used by the Portuguese on the previous battle of Atoleiros and was especially
effective against cavalry (the speciality of both the Castilian and the French armies).
Around six o'clock in the afternoon the Castilian army was ready for battle. According to John of
Castile's own words, in his report of the battle, his soldiers were by then very tired from the
march that started early in the morning under a blazing August sun. There was no time to halt
now, and the battle would soon began.

Battle
The initiative of starting the battle was on the Castilian side. The French allied cavalry charged,
as they were accustomed to do: in full strength, in order to disrupt order in enemy lines. Even
before they could get in contact with the Portuguese infantry, however, they were already
disorganized. Just like at Crécy, the defending archers along with the ditches and pits did most of
the work. The losses on the cavalry were heavy and the effect of its attack completely null.
Support from the Castilian rear was late to come and the knights that did not perish in the combat
were made prisoners and sent to the Portuguese rear.
At this point the main Castilian force entered the battle. Their line was enormous, due to the
great number of soldiers. In order to get to the Portuguese line, the Castilians had to disorganize
themselves, to squeeze in the space between the two creeks that protected the flanks. It was not
an auspicious start. At this time, the Portuguese reorganized. The vanguard of Nuno Álvares
Pereira divided into two sectors. Since the worst was still to come, John of Portugal ordered the
retreat of the archers and the advance of his rear troops, through the space opened between the
vanguards. With all troops needed at the front, there were no men available to guard the knight
prisoners. John of Portugal ordered them to be killed on the spot and proceeded to deal with the
approaching Castilians.
Advancing uphill with the sun on their backs, squashed between the funnelling Portuguese
defensive works and their own advancing rear, and under a heavy rain of English longbowmen's
arrows fired from behind the Portuguese line and crossbow quarrels from both the Sweethearts'
and the Honeysuckle wings on their flanks, the Castilians did their best to win the day. The
Castilian knights on the main body were forced to dismount and break in half their unwieldy four
metres-long lances in order to join the constricted melèe alongside their infantry. At this stage of
the battle, both sides sustained heavy losses, especially on the "Ala dos Namorados" where the
Portuguese students became renowned for holding off the heavily armoured knights of the
Castilian wings who, still on horseback, attempted to flank the Portuguese lines. A similar attack
was more successful on the right "Honeysucle" flank, though only briefly and late in the fight.
By sunset, only one hour after the battle began, the Castilian position was indefensible and the
situation quite desperate. When the Castilian royal standard-bearer fell, the already demoralized
troops on the rear thought their King was dead and started to flee in panic; in a matter of
moments this became a general rout where Juan of Castile himself had to run at full speed to
save his life, leaving behind not only common soldiers but also many still dismounted noblemen.
The Portuguese pursued them down the hill and, with the battle won, killed many more while
there was still light enough to see the enemy.
Aftermath
During the night and throughout the next day, as many as 5000 more Castilians were killed by
the neighbouring towns' villagers; according to Portuguese tradition surrounding the battle, there
was a woman called Brites de Almeida, the Padeira of Aljubarrota (the baker-woman of
Aljubarrota), said to be very tall, strong, and to possess six fingers on each hand, who ambushed
and killed by herself eight Castilian soldiers as they stormed her bakery in the town of
Aljubarrota itself. This story in particular is clouded in legend and hearsay. But the popular
intervention in the massacre of Castilian troops after the battle is, nevertheless, historical and
typical of battles between nations in this period, as in the Hundred Years' War.
In the morning of the following day, the true dimension of the battle was revealed: in the field,
the bodies of Castilians were enough to dam the creeks surrounding the small hill. In face of this,
the Portuguese King offered the enemy survivors an amnesty and free transit home; an official
mourning was decreed in Castile that would last until the Christmas of 1387. The French cavalry
contingent suffered yet another defeat (after Crecy and Poitiers) by English defensive tactics.
The battle of Agincourt decades later would show that they still had a lesson to learn.
In October 1385, Nuno Álvares Pereira led a pre-emptive attack against Merida, in Castilian
territory, defeating an even larger Castilian army than at Aljubarrota in the battle of Valverde, in
Valverde de Mérida. Scattered border skirmishes with Castilian troops would persist for five
years more until the death of John I of Castile in 1390, but posed no real threat to the Portuguese
crown; recognition from Castile would arrive only in 1411 with the signature of the Treaty of
Ayton-Segovia.
As stated above this victory assured that John of Aviz was the uncontested King of Portugal and
the House of Aviz ascended to the crown of Portugal. In 1386, the closeness of relations between
Portugal and England resulted in a permanent military alliance with the Treaty of Windsor, the
eldest still active in existence. His marriage to Philippa of Lancaster in 1387 initiated the
Portuguese second dynasty, and their children went on to make historically significant
contributions in their own right. Duarte, or Edward of Portugal, became the eleventh King of
Portugal, and was known as "The Philosopher" and "The Eloquent". Henrique, or Henry the
Navigator, sponsored expeditions to Africa.