Teive (family)

The annotator of the Saudades and various books of genealogy state that this family surname ‘derives from Diogo de Teive, who in the year 1452 made a contract with Prince Henry the Navigator, in which he calls himself squire of the said Infante, and in which he undertook to build on the island of Madeira a sugar mill (engenho), the first there ever was here. He held much sesmaria (royal land grant to settlers on condition of cultivation) land at Ribeira Brava (‘wild river’) and on the northern side, and there he founded an entailed estate (morgadio)’.

If the Teive family was illustrious for the lineage and ancestry of its forebears, it was no less so, and with ample reason, for counting among its members several men who distinguished themselves notably in arms and in letters, leaving a name crowned with glory in the history of this archipelago. We shall make brief mention of some of them. Diogo de Teive, the founder of the entailed estate, had several sons. He was succeeded in the administration of the entailed house (casa vinculada) by Gaspar de Teive, who held important court offices. He was accountant to Queen Catherine and master of the horse to Princess Maria, wife of Philip II, and to Dona Joana, mother of King Sebastian, whom he accompanied to Spain and where he died.

Gaspar de Teive left numerous descendants. Concerning his four sons, Diogo, Pantaleão, Aleixo and Gaspar, we transcribe word for word, leaving it all its old flavour, what we found in a piece of writing published some seventy years ago, which seems to us to date from the 18th century: ‘Dom Diogo de Teive, who was baptised in the same parish church of São Bento in the parish (freguesia) of Ribeira Brava in March 1540, was a page and then a gentleman of King Philip, with whom he took part in the expedition to England in the year 1544; and in Flanders he carried his helmet at the assault on Guintem. He went to Peru, whence he returned, serving the same king with that famous pearl kept in the Royal Treasury, called the Orphan because no equal to it has been found, of 89 carats. For this service the king granted him the royal grant of the staff of office of Chief Alguazil of Penama, with four thousand pesos of income for his life and that of his son, nine thousand cruzados towards his costs for the second expedition, and the corregidorship of Ariquipa, with two colleagues, in Peru, where he died, leaving distinguished descendants in Spain.','

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Dom Pantaleão, his brother, was also a gentleman of the same kingdom, and the finest figure in Spain in his day; he died in Madrid, unmarried, of a lovesickness, in 1569.

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Dom Aleixo de Teive, brother of the aforesaid, was page to Prince Carlos, whom he attended until the year 1668, when the death of that unfortunate prince took place; he was very valiant and, by order of the same King, it is said, he was found dead beneath the Ladies’ Balcony with 24 wounds, on the morning of 28 November 1573. ‘Dom Gaspar de Teive, another of his brothers, was brought up at the Paço (‘manor house’), where he was a menino of the prince and later page to Queen Isabel; he went to Germany in the year 1571 with the princes Ernest and Rudolf, and was a gentleman of the latter when he was emperor, and at his command came to Portugal to greet King Sebastian, whom he accompanied at the battle of Alcácer, and there he was killed on 4 August 1578.

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António de Teive, his uncle, who was born in the lugar (settlement ranking between a town and a parish) of Ribeira Brava in the year 1516, served King John III at court and afterwards went to India, where he held various posts until he became overseer of the royal treasury (vedor da fazenda), independent of the viceroy. He was present at the sieges of Chaul and Goa. Finally, returning from that state, the carrack in which he was sailing disappeared. He left descendants in Portugal, from whom the lords of Bayan descend.

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Friar António de Teive, says Henriques de Noronha in his Nobiliário, was a friar of the Order of St Augustine, a great theologian and preacher, prior (title of the parish priest) of Castelo Branco (‘white’) and Vila Viçosa. He was Definitor General of his province and visitor general (visitador, ecclesiastical inspector) in India, where he died.

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Baltazar de Teive, says the already cited Henriques de Noronha, was the son of Diogo de Teive and was born on this island in the year 1508. He studied in Paris and became a doctor of law, a man of great promise, all of which he cut short by marrying for love a kinswoman of his in Braga against the wishes of his parents, and he lived in poverty.

Diogo Barbosa Machado, in the Bibliotheca Lusitana (‘Portuguese library’), gives this Baltazar de Teive as a native of Braga. The genealogist Henriques de Noronha has him born on this island, without stating the place, and the distinguished Madeiran Agostinho de Ornelas e Vasconcelos, who carefully investigated the origins and descendants of the Teive family, states that he was born in the parish (freguesia) of Ribeira Brava, an opinion we can accept without rashness. The same Barbosa Machado says that he was a distinguished Latin poet and left some unpublished works. We cannot affirm it, but we have some reasons to believe, that the well-known Latin writer and jurist Diogo de Teive also belonged to this illustrious family. Those moderately versed in the literary history of our country know that this Diogo de Teive was, among us, one of the most celebrated writers in the Latin language of the 16th century. He was also a distinguished professor at the Faculty of Bordeaux and at our University of Coimbra (Universidade de Coimbra), to which John III expressly summoned him, and there he was one of the most brilliant ornaments of that institution of learning. We shall deal with the Madeiran Belchior de Teive, a distinguished member of this family, in a separate article.