By the year of 1100, there was no country of Portugal yet. It was named the Condado Portucalense, or the Portucalense County. And so, it was ruled by the Count Henrique.
As you can see, at that time, the county belong to the Kingdom of León.
Note: the muslim territories were vast in hose times, so if u realy want to follow the history line at the begining, the catholic factions must be at war with them and there mustn't be any "rebel" cities between them. The moors were very powerful, so if we get rebels in the middle, they becomes too easy for the Hiberian catholic factions.
In 1112, Count Henrique died and his wife, Teresa, started to administrate the county while their son, Afonso Henriques, were minor.
Nine years after that, Teresa started to call herself as Queen, but the proximity with a leonese noble cause the people to riot.
With 14 years old (1225), Afonso Henriques, arms himselvf as a knight, following the proper ways of a king, becoming an independet warrior.
In 1128 a battle was fought between the forces of Afonso Henriques and the leonese supporters of her mother, but eventually, he won the battle against his own mother and so he gains the control of the county.
And the dream of independence begun to shine...
Independence, however, was not a thing a land could choose on its own. Afonso Henriques county still had to be acknowledged by the neighbouring lands as a kingdom and, most importantly, by the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope.
In Portugal, he built several monasteries and convents and bestowed important privileges to religious orders. In 1143, he wrote to Pope Innocent II to declare himself and the kingdom servants of the Church, swearing to pursue driving the Moors out of the Iberian peninsula. Bypassing any king of Castile or León, Afonso Henriques declared himself the direct liegeman of the Papacy. Thus, he continued to distinguish himself by his fighting against the Moors, from whom he wrested Santarém and Lisbon in 1147.
In 1143, the Treaty of Zamora established peace between the neighbours and the recognition by the Kingdom of León that Portugal was an independent kingdom.
In 1179 the privileges and favours given to the Roman Catholic Church were compensated. In the papal bull Manifestis Probatum, Pope Alexander III acknowledged Afonso as King and Portugal as an independent land with the right to conquer lands from the Moors. With this papal blessing, Portugal was at last secured as a country and safe from any Leonese or Castilian attempts at annexation.
The Ourique Battle
Memorial to the battle of Ourique
State of King Afonso Henriques
HOPE TO BE USEFUL