Grants

It is very likely, although the chroniclers do not say so and no document is known that proves it, that it was John I himself who granted – or, rather, confirmed – possession of the Madeira archipelago to his son Prince Henry the Navigator, to whose bold initiative the discovery of the archipelago was chiefly owed.

Bernardo de Brito tells us in the Monarchia Lusitana that in 1433, the year in which Dom Duarte began his reign, his brother Dom Henrique had made him a ‘grant of these three islands to the crown of the Kingdom (reino, i.e. mainland Portugal), and for that reason the king at once gave them back to him, reserving to himself the minting of coin and cases of death and the cutting off of limbs; and, to restore his dominion to him, he granted them to the Order (of Christ) in the said year’. This should not strictly be understood as a grant made by Prince Henry to the king, since he could not make one, but merely as his recognition that the new monarch, as head of the nation, held the primordial and fundamental right to the newly discovered lands, which formed an integral part of that nation.

Volume I of the Archive of the Municipal Council, and the transcription in ‘Longing for the Homeland’ (Saudades da Terra) on p. 325, contain the royal letter (carta régia) of Dom Duarte dated 26 September 1433, granting to the Order of Christ (Ordem de Cristo) ‘for ever and ever all the spiritual jurisdiction of our islands of Madeira and Porto Santo and of the Deserta island...’ Bearing the same date and issued by the same monarch, another letter, included in the work Alguns documentos do Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo acerca da avançada e conquistas dos portugueses, bestows the said islands on Prince Henry as a royal grant.

The grant to the Order of Christ should be understood to concern spiritual jurisdiction, and the one made to Dom Henrique the temporal dominion of the archipelago. Since, however, the Prince was Grand Master of the Order, it follows from reading that letter that he would have held the most absolute dominion over the islands of the archipelago; this did not prevent royal interference from sometimes being felt in the administration of the affairs of these islands. ‘It is to be noted, however,’ continues the aforementioned Bernardo de Brito, ‘that the Prince, knowing that after his death the conquests could not be continued with the resources of the Order, and that the arm of the king was needed, divided everything he had discovered in such a way as to leave the Order enlarged and ennobled and the Crown of the Kingdom extended. And so he granted the temporal rule of those islands and of the mainland of Guinea to the kings of Portugal and reserved the spiritual rule for the Order, which is what the kings enjoy today as Masters, for which reason they hold the tithes and the presentations of those churches. Already in the year 1439, when King Duarte was in possession of the temporal rule of the islands of Madeira, Porto Santo and the Desertas (‘deserted islands’), which the Prince had once again granted to him, their spiritual jurisdiction was conceded to the Order by a letter drawn up in Lisbon on 20 May of that year...’ By royal letters of 11 March 1449 and 17 August 1459, Afonso V confirmed the grant made to Prince Henry by King Duarte on 26 September 1433.

The work Alguns documentos do Arquivo Nacional etc., already cited, transcribes a letter from Prince Henry the Navigator dated 18 September 1460, making a fresh grant of these islands, in spiritual matters, to the Order of Christ. We cannot adequately explain this, since the earlier grants cited above were already in existence. Prince Henry died on 13 November 1460, and as early as 3 December of the same year Afonso V signed a royal letter (carta régia) granting the Madeira archipelago to his brother, Infante Ferdinand. Ferdinand succeeded Henry in the grand mastership of the Order of Christ and therefore in the privileges that Henry had held over the discovered lands.

In the office of Grand Master of the Order of Christ, Ferdinand was succeeded by his son, the Infante Dom João, Duke of Viseu, and João in turn by his brother Diogo, Duke of Viseu, who was murdered by John II. We do not know the letters granting these islands that would have been issued to him, if indeed any were.

The Infante Diogo, Duke of Viseu, was succeeded in that grand mastership by his brother Dom Manuel, later king as Manuel I. The position of head of this powerful Order, which rendered such distinguished services to our country, passed to the Crown, to be held by the monarch with all the privileges, prerogatives and exemptions that belonged to it.

The grants had come to an end and Madeira had become Crown land (realenga). The document that attests to this, transcribed on p. 479 of ‘Longing for the Homeland’, is of great interest. It is the royal letter (carta régia) of Manuel I, dated 27 April 1497, in which he states that ‘it seems to us a just and necessary thing that the said island, with its lordship, revenues and jurisdiction, should belong solely to our said Crown for ever, and to the kings our heirs and successors... that neither the said island nor any part of it shall ever be given by us or our successors, whether as a favour, for life, in perpetuity or in any other manner whatsoever, to any person of whatever estate, condition and eminence... we swear upon the sign of the cross and upon the holy Gospels, on which we bodily lay our hands, to fulfil and maintain this wholly... and we beg and earnestly charge the kings our heirs and successors, by our blessing and under pain of the curse of God and of ourselves, always so to fulfil and preserve it for ever...’. With the incorporation of the grand mastership of the Order of Christ into the Crown in 1497 and the creation of the diocese of Funchal in 1514, the jurisdiction of that Order in this archipelago became almost nil.

Although we have said above that the grants ceased, there was certainly a sham grant made by John IV, five days before his death, in favour of his daughter Queen Catherine, who married Charles II of England. This grant served purposes that have never been properly established, but it was utterly illegal and never truly took effect. We deal with it in a separate article.

We do not deal here with the grants made to the donataries, since we have already referred to them in the articles Captaincies and Donataries.