County of Portugal

The County of Portugal was a frontier lordship in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula that preceded the Kingdom of Portugal. Its history begins in 868, when Vimara Peres, acting for Alfonso III of Asturias, recaptured Porto and was made count of the district between the Limia and Douro rivers. The county alternated between autonomy and dependence on Asturias, Galicia and Leon, and its counts often used the title of duke. In the late eleventh century a second county was formed around Porto and Coimbra and granted to Henry of Burgundy, who married Teresa, an illegitimate daughter of Alfonso VI of Leon. Their son Afonso Henriques gradually broke with Leon, won battles against the Moors and his Leonese overlord, and in 1139 assumed the title of king. The county thus became the Kingdom of Portugal, although recognition of the new royal title took decades and was only secured by the Treaty of Zamora in 1143.