Manifestis Probatum is a papal bull dated 23 May 1179,[1] in which Pope Alexander III officially recognised the ruler and self-proclaimed king Afonso Henriques as the first sovereign King of Portugal.
The Papacy did not at first recognize the legitimacy of Afonso's adoption of the royal title in 1139, instead continuing to regard him as a vassal of the kingdom of León. The switch in papal policy in 1179 was justified by Afonso's reconquest of lands to the south of the Iberian Peninsula to which no other Christian monarch had claim.[2]
- ^ Philipp Jaffé, p. 786
- ^ Javier Gallego Gallego and Eloísa Ramírez Vaquero, "Rey de Navarra, rey de Portugal, títulos en cuestión (siglo XII) Príncipe de Viana 48, 180 (1987): 115–20. The kingdom of Navarre presented a similar case at the same time. The Papacy initially refused to recognize the election of García Ramírez as king in 1134, because the kingdom had been willed by the late King Alfonso the Battler to the military orders. The Papacy continued to recognize the kings of Navarre as mere "leaders of Navarre" (duces Navarrae) until 1196. In a bull sent to "Duke" Sancho VII on 29 March, he was urged to break his alliance with the Almohads; on 28 May, a letter to Cardinal Gregory of Sant'Angelo referred to Sancho with the royal title. This was confirmed in a bull addressed to Sancho as king on 20 February 1197, confirming that he could expand his lands by conquest in the south, even though his kingdom did not border Almohad territory.