| John III João III |
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| Portrait of John III | |
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| Reign | 13 December 1521—11 June 1557 |
| Predecessor | Manuel I |
| Successor | Sebastian |
| Spouse | Catherine of Castile |
| Issue | |
| Afonso, Prince of Portugal Maria Manuela, Princess of Portugal and Asturias João Manuel, Prince of Portugal |
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| House | House of Aviz-Beja |
| Father | Manuel I of Portugal |
| Mother | Maria of Aragon |
| Born | 7 June 1502 Palace of Alcáçova, Castle of São Jorge, Lisbon, Kingdom of Portugal |
| Died | 11 June 1557 (aged 55) Palace of Ribeira, Lisbon, Kingdom of Portugal |
| Burial | Jerónimos Monastery, Lisbon, District of Lisbon, Portugal |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism |
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John III (or João III, Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒuˈɐ̃w̃]; 7 June 1502 – 11 June 1557), nicknamed o Piedoso ("the Pious"), was the King of Portugal and the Algarves. He was the son of King Manuel I and Maria of Aragon, the third daughter of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. John succeeded his father in 1521, at the age of nineteen.
During his rule, Portuguese possessions were extended in Asia and in the New World through the Portuguese colonization of Brazil. John III's policy of reinforcing Portugal's bases in India (such as Goa) secured Portugal's monopoly over the spice trade of cloves from the Moluccas and nutmeg from the Banda Islands, as a result of which John III has been called the "Grocer King". On the eve of his death in 1557, the Portuguese empire spanned almost 1 billion acres (about 4 million square kilometers).
During his reign, the Portuguese became the first Europeans to make contact with both China, under the Ming Dynasty, and Japan, during the Muromachi period. He abandoned Muslim territories in North Africa in favor of trade with India and investment in Brazil. In Europe, he improved relations with the Baltic region and the Rhineland, hoping that this would bolster Portuguese trade.
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John, the eldest son of King Manuel, was born in Lisbon on 6 June 1502. The event was marked by a masterpiece of Portuguese theater, Gil Vicente's Visitation Play, or: the Monologue of the Cowherd (Auto da Visitação ou Monólogo do Vaqueiro), presented in the Queen's chamber.
The young prince was sworn heir to the throne in 1503, the year his youngest sister, Isabella of Portugal, Consort Empress of the Holy Roman Empire between 1527 and 1538, was born.
John I was educated by notable scholars of the time, including the astrologer Tomás de Torres and Diogo de Ortiz, Bishop of Viseu, and Luís Teixeira Lobo, one of the first Portuguese Renaissance humanists, rector of the University of Siena (1476) and Professor of Law at Ferrara (1502).
John's chronicler António de Castilho said that "Dom João III faced problems easily, complementing his lack of culture with a practice formation that he always showed during his reign" (Elogio d'el rei D. João de Portugal, terceiro, do nome). In 1514, he was given his own house, and a few years later began to help his father in administrative duties.
At the age of sixteen, John was chosen to marry his first cousin, the 20-year-old Eleanor of Austria, eldest daughter of Philip the Handsome of Austria-Burgundy and Queen Joanna of Castile, but instead she married his widowed father Manuel. John took deep offence at this: his chroniclers say he became melancholic and was never quite the same. Some historians also claim this was one of the main reasons that John later became fervently religious.
On 19 December 1521, John was crowned king in the Church of São Domingos in Lisbon, beginning a thirty-six-year reign characterized by intense activity in internal and overseas politics, especially in relations with other major European states.
The marriage of John's sister, Infanta Isabella of Portugal, to Emperor Charles V enabled the Portuguese king to forge a stronger alliance with Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. To strengthen his ties with Austria, he married his maternal first cousin Catherine of Austria, younger sister of Charles V and his erstwhile fiancée Eleanor, in the town of Crato. John had nine children from that marriage, but most of them died young. By the time of John's death, only his grandson, Sebastian, was alive to inherit the crown.
John III continued to centralize the absolutist politics of his ancestors. He called for the Portuguese Cortes only three times and at great intervals: 1525 in Torres Novas, 1535 in Évora and 1544 in Almeirim. He also tried to restructure administrative and judicial life in his realm.
Toward the end of John III's reign, Portugal entered a period of serious economic, social, and political problems, resulting in the wane of Portuguese power.
The large and far-flung Portuguese Empire was difficult and expensive to administer, and was burdened with huge external debt and trade deficits. Portugal's Indian and Far Eastern interests grew increasingly chaotic under the poor administration of ambitious governors. John III responded with new appointments that proved troubled and short-lived: in some cases, the new governors even had to fight their predecessors to take up their appointment. The resulting failures in administration brought on a gradual decline of the Portuguese trade monopoly.
Among John III's many governors of this region, were Vasco da Gama, Pedro Mascarenhas, Lopo Vaz de Sampaio, Nuno da Cunha, Estêvão da Gama, Martim Afonso de Sousa, João de Castro and Henrique de Meneses.
Overseas, the Empire was threatened by Turkey in both the Indian Ocean and North Africa, causing Portugal to increase spending on defense and fortifications. Meanwhile, in the Atlantic, where Portuguese ships already had to withstand constant attacks of corsairs, an initial settlement of French colonists in Brazil created yet another "front". The French made alliances with native South Americans against the Portuguese and military and political interventions were used. Eventually they were forced out, but not until 1565.
In the first years of John III's reign, explorations in the Far East continued and the Portuguese reached China and Japan; however, these accomplishments were offset by pressure from a strengthening Ottoman Empire under Suleiman the Magnificent, especially in India, where attacks became more frequent. The expense of defending Indian interests was huge. To pay for it, John III abandoned a number of strongholds in North Africa: Safim, Azamor, Alcacer Ceguer and Arzila.
In consideration of the challenging military situation faced by Portuguese forces world wide, John III declared every male subject between 20 and 65 years old recruitable for military service on 7 August 1549.
The reign of John III was marked by active diplomacy. With Spain, he made alliances through marriage (himself with Catherine of Spain; Isabella, princess of Portugal with Charles V; Maria, princess of Portugal – his daughter – with Philip II of Spain, and others) that ensured peace in the Iberian Peninsula for a number of years. However, the intermarriage of these closely related royal families may have been one of the factors contributing to the poor health of John's children and of future King Sebastian.
John III remained neutral during the war between France and Spain, but stood firm in fighting French corsair attacks. He strengthened relations with the Papal States by introducing the Inquisition in Portugal and the adhesion of the Portuguese clergy to the Counter-Reformation. This relationship with the Catholic Church made it possible for John to name whomever he wanted to important religious positions in Portugal: his brothers Henry and Afonso were made Cardinals, and his natural son Duarte was made Archbishop of Braga.
Commercial relations were intensified with England, the countries of the Baltic regions and Flanders during John's reign. Meanwhile, at the other end of the world, Portugal was the first European nation to make contact with Japan. In China, Macau was offered to the Portuguese, and soon Portugal controlled major trade routes in the area. In the South, the Portuguese continued its hostile stance against their Muslim rivals and insurgent Indian leaders.
John III achieved an important political victory in securing the control of the Maluku Islands, the "Spice Islands" claimed by Spain since the Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation. After almost a decade of skirmishes in Southeast Asia, he signed the Treaty of Zaragoza with Emperor Charles V on 22 April 1529. It defined the areas of Spanish and Portuguese influence in Asia and established the anti-meridian to the Treaty of Tordesillas.[1]
John III's support for the humanist cause was significant. In literature, his active support of Gil Vicente, Garcia de Resende, Sá de Miranda, Bernardim Ribeiro, Fernão Mendes Pinto, João de Barros and Luís de Camões was notable. In the sciences, John III supported mathematician Pedro Nunes and physician Garcia de Orta. Through his links to Portuguese humanists such as Luís Teixeira Lobo, Erasmus dedicated his Chrysostomi Lucubrationes to John III of Portugal in 1527.[2][3]
The monarch awarded many scholarships to universities abroad, mainly in the University of Paris, having sent fifty Portuguese students to the Collège Sainte-Barbe headed by Diogo de Gouveia. He definitively transferred the Portuguese university from Lisbon to Coimbra in 1537.
In 1542 John III created in Coimbra a College of Arts (Liberal arts) for which he quickly recalled the many prominent Portuguese and European teachers headed by André de Gouveia at the College of Guienne in Bordeaux.[4] Those included George Buchanan, Diogo de Teive, Jerónimo Osório, Nicolas de Grouchy, Guillaume Guérante and Élie Vinet, who came to be decisive for the disclosure of the contemporary research of Pedro Nunes.[5] The king provided the university with excellent resources. However, the importance of the College was shadowed by rivalry between the orthodox views of the "Parisians" group headed by Diogo de Gouveia and the more secular views of the "Bordeaux" school headed by his nephew André de Gouveia, within the advent of the Counter-Reformation and the Society of Jesus.
The Society of Jesus founded colleges and made education more widely available, but it also created great instability in Portuguese education, setting itself up as a rival of the University of Coimbra, often taking a conservative position against any innovation. The Inquisition also arrested and killed many prominent teachers and censured new ideas like Erasmism.
Another noteworthy aspect of John's rule was the support he gave to missionaries in the New World, Asia and Africa. In 1540, after successive appeals to the Pope asking for missionaries for the Portuguese East Indies under the Padroado agreement, the John III appointed Francis Xavier to take charge as Apostolic Nuncio. He had been enthusiastically endorsed by Diogo de Gouveia, who had been his teacher at the Collège Sainte-Barbe and advised the king to draw the youngsters of the newly- formed Society of Jesus.[6] The Jesuits were particularly important for mediating Portuguese relations with native peoples.
The Inquisition was introduced into Portugal in 1536. As in Spain, the Inquisition was placed under the authority of the King. The Grand Inquisitor, or General Inquisitor, was named by the Pope after being nominated by the king and he always came from within the royal family. The Grand Inquisitor would later nominate other inquisitors. In Portugal, the first Grand Inquisitor was Cardinal Henry, the king's brother (who would later himself become King). There were Courts of the Inquisition in Lisbon, Coimbra and Évora and, from 1560 onwards, in Goa. The Goa Inquisition changed the demographics of Goa considerably. Goa was called the "Lisbon of the Far East" and trade reached a new level, the Portuguese did not leave Goa un-developed but progressed it to modern architecture and built strong roads and bridges which have stood the test of time even till today.
The activities of the Inquisition extended to book censorship, repression and trial for divination, witchcraft and bigamy, as well as the prosecution of sexual crimes, especially sodomy. Book censorship proved to have a strong influence in Portuguese cultural evolution, serving to keep the country in ignorance and cultural backwardness. Originally created to punish religious deviance, the Inquisition came to have influence in almost every aspect of Portuguese society: politically, culturally and socially. It did serve to spare Portugal the civil upheavals of religious warfare of the sort that occurred in France and elsewhere in Europe during the 16th century.
In John III's time, trade between the Portuguese and Africans was extremely intense in the feitorias like Arguim, Mina, Mombasa, Sofala or Moçambique.[7] Under John III, several expeditions started in coastal Africa and advanced to the interior of the continent. These expeditions were formed by groups of navigators, merchants, adventurers and missionaries. Missions in Africa were established by the College of Arts of Coimbra. The objective was to increase the king's dominion, develop peace relations and to Christianize the native population. Relations with local rulers were often complicated by trade in slaves, as shown by John's correspondence with them.[8]
John III refused to abandon all of the Portuguese North African strongholds, but he had to make choices based on the economic or strategic value of each possession. John III decided to abandon Safim and Azamor in 1541, followed by Arzila and Alcácer Ceguer in 1549. The fortresses of Ceuta, Tangiers and Mazagan were strengthened "to face the new military techniques, imposed by the generalization of heavy artillery, combined with light fire weapons and blades".[9]
Before the reign of John III, the Portuguese had already reached Siam (1511), the Moluccas (1512), the Chinese littoral (1513), Canton (1517) and Timor (1515). During John's rule, the Portuguese reached Japan, and at the end of John's reign, Macau was offered to Portugal by China. A vast array of exotic goods were imported from the East:
"From India, he [John III] receives all kinds of spice, drug & stone & many cotton clothes, taficiras and alaquecas [kinds of Indian fabrics]. From Malacca, clovetrees, marzipan, sandalwood, camphor, porcelains, beijoim & calaim [kinds of spices]. From Bengala, sinafabos, flannel, chautares, castor beans, & rebotins that are kinds of thin fabric made of cotton (…). From Alexandria & Cairo, red dyewood, cinnabars, saffron, copper, rosed waters, borcados [a kind of silk], velvets, taffeta, grains of wood, camlets, gold & silver in bars, & in coins, & carpets. From China, musk, rhubarb, & silk in exchange of gromwells, pearls, horses from Arabia & Persia, non worked silk, silk embroidery threads, fruits of the date palm, raisins, salt, sulphur & many other goods."[10]
As Muslims and other peoples constantly attacked Portuguese fleets in India, and because India was so far from mainland Portugal, it was extremely difficult for John III to assure Portuguese dominion in this area. A viceroy (or Governor-General with extensive powers) was nominated, but this was not enough to defend the Portuguese possessions in India. The Portuguese started by creating feitorias – commercial strongholds in Cochin, Cannanore, Coulão, Cranganore and Tanor with the initial objective of establishing just a commercial dominion in the region.
The hostility of many Indian kingdoms and the alliances between sultans and zamorins to expel the Portuguese made it necessary for the Europeans to establish a sovereign state. Portugal thus militarily occupied some key cities on the Indian coast, and Goa became the headquarters of the Portuguese Empire in the East as of 1512. Goa became a starting point for the introduction of European cultural and religious values in India, and churches, schools and hospitals were built. Goa remained an overseas possession of Portugal until India reclaimed it in 1961.
The Portuguese arrived in Japan in 1543. Japan was known in Portugal since the time of Marco Polo, who called it Cipango. Whether Portuguese nationals were the first Europeans to arrive in Japan is debatable. Some say it was the writer Fernão Mendes Pinto, and others say the navigators António Peixoto, António da Mota and Francisco Zeimoto.
Portuguese traders started negotiating with Japan earlier than 1550 and established a base there at Nagasaki. By then, trade with Japan was a Portuguese monopoly under the rule of a Captain. Because the Portuguese established themselves in Macau, Chinese commercial relations, mainly the silver trade with Japan, were improved under John III's rule.
After the voyage of Ferdinand Magellan, the Castilians claimed the recently discovered Moluccas Islands. In 1524, a conference of experts (cartographers, cosmographers, pilots, etc.) was held to solve the dispute caused by the difficulty of determining the meridian agreed to in the Treaty of Tordesillas. The Portuguese delegation sent by John III included names such as António de Azevedo Coutinho, Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, Lopo Homem and Simão Fernandes]].
The dispute was settled in 1529 by the Treaty of Zaragoza, signed by John III and Charles I of Spain. The Portuguese paid 350,000 golden ducados to Spain and secured their presence in the islands.
This payment should not have been a necessity, as Portugal was actually entitled to the islands, according to the Treaty of Tordesillas.
In 1553, Leonel de Sousa obtained authorization for the Portuguese to establish, in Canton and Macau. Macau was later offered to John III as a reward for the Portuguese assistance against maritime piracy in the period between 1557 and 1564.
Portugal retained Macau for over 400 years. It became a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China in 1999, two years after Hong Kong was similarly returned to Chinese jurisdiction by the UK.
Malacca, which controlled the eponymous Strait of Malacca, was vital to Portuguese interests in the Far East. After an unsuccessful expedition in 1509, Malacca was finally conquered by Afonso de Albuquerque, the Portuguese viceroy of India, on 24 August 1511. Malacca was later taken by the Dutch in 1641.
In order to follow its trade routes to the Far East, Portugal depended on the seasonal monsoon winds in the Indian Ocean. In winter, the prevailing northeasterly monsoon impeded travel to India; in summer, the southwest monsoon made departure from India difficult. As a result, Portugal determined that it needed permanent bases in India, in addition to its ports of call in Africa, to pass the time while the wind changed. In addition to Goa, they founded a base at Colombo (in what is now Sri Lanka) in the sixteenth century. This port remained in Portuguese hands until 1656, when it was seized by the Dutch after an epic siege.
Immediately following the discovery of Brazil, the Portuguese imported brazilwood, Indian slaves and exotic birds from there. Brazilwood was a much appreciated product in Europe, because it could be used to produce a red dye. During John III's rule, after the initial colonization, Portuguese explorers intensified the search for brazilwood and began the cultivation of sugarcane, which was well suited to the climate of Brazil, especially around Recife and Bahía.
In the final years of John's reign, Portugal's colony of Brazil was just beginning its rapid development as a producer of sugar that compensated for the gradual decline of revenues from Asia, a development that would continue during the reign of his grandson and successor, Sebastian.
Since Brazil lacked a large native population, and the Indians did not make good plantation workers, the Portuguese colonists began to import African slaves to work their plantations. The first slaves, from the region of Guinea, arrived in Brazil in 1539. Most of them worked in the sugarcane fields or served as house servants.
John III was the first Portuguese monarch to recognize the potential of the New World, and the colonization of Brazil began during his reign. The territory was divided into 12 captaincies in 15 lots (some captaincies had more than one lot) that were given to donatary captains with obligations to defend them, populate them, and to develop their resources.
The first Governor-General appointed by John III was Tomé de Sousa, who in 1549 founded the city of Bahia (known at the time as São Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos - Holy Saviour of the Bay of All Saints).
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From 1539, the heir to the throne was John, prince of Portugal, who married Joan of Spain, daughter of Charles V. The sole son of John II to survive childhood, Prince John was sickly and died young (of juvenile diabetes), eighteen days before his wife gave birth to Prince Sebastian on 20 January 1554. When John III died of apoplexy in 1557, his only heir was his grandson Sebastian, who was just three years old.
Today, John's body rests in the Monastery of Jerónimos in Lisbon.
| Name | Birth | Death | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| By Catherine of Austria (married 10 February 1525) | |||
| Prince Afonso | 24 February 1526 | March 1526 | Prince of Portugal (1526). |
| Princess Maria Manuela | 15 October 1527 | 12 August 1545 | Princess of Portugal (1527–1531). Princess consort of Asturias by marriage to King Philip II of Spain, then Prince of Asturias. She had one deformed child, Don Carlos, and she died a few days after his birth. |
| Infanta Isabel | 28 April 1529 | 28 April 1529 | |
| Infanta Beatriz (Beatrice) | 15 February 1530 | 15 February 1530 | |
| Prince Manuel | 1 November 1531 | 14 April 1537 | Prince of Portugal (1531–1537). Declared heir in 1535. |
| Prince Filipe (Philip) | 25 March 1533 | 29 April 1539 | Crown Prince of Portugal (1537–1539). Declared heir in 1537. |
| Infante Dinis (Denis) | 6 April 1535 | 1 January 1537 | |
| Prince João (John) | 3 June 1537 | 2 January 1554 | Prince of Portugal (1537–1554). Declared heir in 1539. Married Joan of Spain. Their son became King Sebastian I. |
| Infante António (Anthony) | 9 March 1539 | 20 January 1540 | |
| By Isabel Moniz | |||
| Duarte, Archbishop of Braga | 1521 | 11 November 1543 | Natural son. |
Like his predecessors John used the style "El-rei" (the king) followed by "Dom" (abbreviated to D.), a mark of high esteem for a distinguished Christian nobleman.
The official style was the same used by his father Manuel I: "Dom João, by the grace of God, King of Portugal, of the Algarves, of either side of the sea in Africa, Lord of Guinea, & of the Conquest, Navigation, & Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, & India" (Dom João, por graça de Deus, Rei de Portugal, e dos Algarves, d'aquém e d'além mar em África, Senhor da Guiné, e da Conquista, Navegação, & Comércio da Etiópia, Arábia, Pérsia, & Índia). This style would only change in the 19th century when Brazil became a Vice-Kingdom.
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John III of Portugal
Cadet branch of the House of Aviz
Born: 7 June 1502 Died: 11 June 1557 |
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| Regnal titles | ||
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| Preceded by Manuel I |
King of Portugal and the Algarves 1521–1557 |
Succeeded by Sebastian |
| Portuguese royalty | ||
| Preceded by Miguel da Paz |
Prince of Portugal 1502–1521 |
Succeeded by Afonso |
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