The
Coat of arms of Portugal was officially adopted in 30 June 1911, along with the
Republican FlagThe flag of Portugal is a rectangle-shaped vertical bicolor featuring a field unequally divided into green, on the hoist, and red, on the fly. The lesser version of the national coat of arms is centered over the colour boundary at equal distance from the upper and lower edges...
of
PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east...
. It is based in the coat of arms used by the Portuguese Kingdom since the
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
.
The Portuguese coat of arms is the result of almost a millennium of modifications and alterations. Starting with
Henry of BurgundyHenry of Burgundy was the son and heir of Robert I, duke of Burgundy. He died shortly before his father and failed to succeed in Burgundy. The name of his wife is unknown as is her origin, although a connection to the Counts of Barcelona has been hypothesized...
blue on a silver cross, successive elements were added or taken, culminating with the complex heraldic element that was officialised in 1911 (after the
Republican RevolutionThe Portuguese First Republic spans a complex 16 year period in the history of Portugal, between the end of the Constitutional Monarchy marked by the 5 October 1910 revolution and the 28 May coup d'état of 1926...
of 1910).
The
Coat of arms of Portugal was officially adopted in 30 June 1911, along with the
Republican FlagThe flag of Portugal is a rectangle-shaped vertical bicolor featuring a field unequally divided into green, on the hoist, and red, on the fly. The lesser version of the national coat of arms is centered over the colour boundary at equal distance from the upper and lower edges...
of
PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east...
. It is based in the coat of arms used by the Portuguese Kingdom since the
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
.
History and meaning
The Portuguese coat of arms is the result of almost a millennium of modifications and alterations. Starting with
Henry of BurgundyHenry of Burgundy was the son and heir of Robert I, duke of Burgundy. He died shortly before his father and failed to succeed in Burgundy. The name of his wife is unknown as is her origin, although a connection to the Counts of Barcelona has been hypothesized...
blue on a silver cross, successive elements were added or taken, culminating with the complex heraldic element that was officialised in 1911 (after the
Republican RevolutionThe Portuguese First Republic spans a complex 16 year period in the history of Portugal, between the end of the Constitutional Monarchy marked by the 5 October 1910 revolution and the 28 May coup d'état of 1926...
of 1910). The two stripes bear the colours of the Portuguese flag: red and green.
Escutcheons and bezants
After the official recognition of the
Kingdom of PortugalThe history of Portugal, in most of the 12th and 13th centuries, is chiefly that of its origin as a separate state, in the process of the Christian reconquest of the Iberian peninsula.-Background:...
as an independent country in 1143 (it had been declared in 1139), silver
bezantBezant is a medieval term for a gold coin. The term is derived from the word Byzantium, the Latinized form of the original Greek name of the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, where gold coins often came from, and were associated with, since the time of Constantine I.-History:Gold coins were not...
s were added to the Burgundian flag, symbolising coins and the right the monarch had to issue currency, as leader of a sovereign state. Eventually, and given the enormous dynamism of medieval
heraldryHeraldry is the profession, study, or art of devising, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound *harja-waldaz, "army commander"...
, it is believed that the shield degraded and lost some elements in battle, eventually losing the cross format. This is how King
Sancho ISancho I , nicknamed the Populator , second monarch of Portugal, was born on 11 November 1154 in Coimbra and died on 26 March 1212 in the same city. He was the second but only surviving legitimate son and fourth child of Afonso I Henriques of Portugal by his wife, Maud of Savoy. Sancho succeeded...
inherited the shield from his father, Afonso Henriques, with no cross and five escutcheons (known in
PortuguesePortuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and northern Portugal. It is derived from the Latin spoken by the romanized Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago...
as
quinas), which stood where the silver bezants had been placed.
Later, the number of silver bezants in each escutcheon would be reduced from eleven to five by King Sebastian I, and modern explanations interpret them as the five wounds of Jesus Christ, although this is highly improbable.
Castles
It was during the reign of Afonso III that the red border with golden castles (not towers, as some sources state) was added. Although the number of castles could vary between eight to twelve, Afonso IV would define them as twelve and Sebastian I would finally fix them as seven. They supposedly represent the Moorish castles conquered by the Kingdom of Portugal during the
ReconquistaThe Reconquista was a period of 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula succeeded in retaking the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims...
. Their origin is probably
CastilianKingdom of Castile was one of the medieval kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula. It emerged as a political autonomous entity in the 9th century. It was called County of Castile and was held in vassalage from the Kingdom of León. Its name comes from the host of castles constructed in the region...
, but unlike Spanish castles, which usually have their gates coloured blue (hence opened), Portuguese castles were always depicted with gold gates (hence closed).
Armillary sphere
An important element of Portuguese heraldry since the 15th century, the
armillary sphereAn armillary sphere is a model of the celestial sphere.- Description and use of the armillary sphere :This section refers to labels in the diagram below....
was many times used in Portuguese colonial flags, mainly in
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the fifth largest country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the fifth most populous country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean...
. It was a navigation instrument used to calculate distances and represents the importance of Portugal during the
Age of DiscoveryThe Age of Discovery, also known as the Age of Exploration, was a period in history starting in the 15th century and continuing into the 17th century, during which Europeans and its descendants intensively explored and mapped the world...
, as well as the vastness of its colonial empire when the First Republic was implemented.
Although it is commonly used as a "republican" element, as opposed to the monarchist crown in the blue/white flag (see
Flag of PortugalThe flag of Portugal is a rectangle-shaped vertical bicolor featuring a field unequally divided into green, on the hoist, and red, on the fly. The lesser version of the national coat of arms is centered over the colour boundary at equal distance from the upper and lower edges...
), some monarchist flags, such as the flag of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Algarve and Brazil, already depicted armillary spheres. The incorporation of the armillary sphere into the 1816 flag of the United Kingdom of Portugal is related to the adoption of the first flag of the Kingdom of Brazil, an armillary sphere on a blue background.
See also
- Flag of Portugal
The flag of Portugal is a rectangle-shaped vertical bicolor featuring a field unequally divided into green, on the hoist, and red, on the fly. The lesser version of the national coat of arms is centered over the colour boundary at equal distance from the upper and lower edges...
- History of Portugal
The history of Portugal, a European and an Atlantic nation, dates back to the Early Middle Ages. In the 15th and 16th centuries, it ascended to the status of a world power during Europe's "Age of Discovery" as it built up a vast empire including possessions in South America, Africa, Asia and...