Childhood

The city’s progress would make it a prime target for Christian raids in the first days of the Reconquista, first in 796  by King Alfonso II of Asturias, then in 851 by Ordoño I of Asturias, who both managed to sack the city, which remained however under Muslim rule. In between, two different Viking raids, one in 844 & the other in 966 were successfully repulsed by the city’s Arabic, Moorish, Arabized Muslim & Hispano-Roman, Christian population.

After the collapse of the Emirate of Cordoba in 1031 mainly as a result of political infighting, the region is divided into smaller successor states, the so called taifas. Lisbon is initially part of the Taifa of Badajoz & then forms a Taifa of its own.

The Crusades of the 11th Century gave vent to the religious & political motivation for the Christian re-conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, a dream of all Christians since the first successful battles of the Visigoth noblemen that led to the formation of the first Kingdom of Asturias in the North of Spain & the recognition of Alfonso II (791-842) as a king by both Charlemagne & the Pope. The County of Portugal was formed after the successive re-conquests of Portucale (Porto) & Coimbra from the Moors until 1064 & their inclusion in the wider Kingdom of Galicia. However it wasn’t until Alfonso Henriques (Alfonso I, the Conqueror) defeated the Moors in the Battle of Ourique in 1139 that Portugal’s independence was recognized by the King of Leon in 1143.