Talk:Álvaro Vaz de Almada, 1st Count of Avranches

[Untitled]

This article needs to be rewritten in better English. Some of it is barely intelligible.98.225.109.243 (talk) 04:49, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

English descendence of Almada?

On the Álvaro Vaz de Almada, 1st Count of Avranches, an editor inserted the statement that

"Dom Alvaro's earliest known ancestor, Saher of Archelle (or Liberche in Portuguese sources) was a feudal Lord from Lincolnshire, England, who assisted Portugal's first King in the recapture of Lisbon from the Moors and proved instrumental in breaking the Moorish hold over the village of Almada. For this latter deed, King Afonso Henriques awarded Saher / Liberche with the Lordship of Almada."

I have removed it because it was a questionable statement that was unreferenced. The sources I have seen, e.g. Moreno's Alfarrobeia [roll], traces his descendence to a non-noble commercial family. And a quick search on Googlebooks didn't turn up anything. If anyone has a reference to back up this statement, please insert it back in. Walrasiad (talk) 08:10, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Update

UPDATE: Ok, there seems to be a connection between the English and Almada town articulated in some 16th C. chronicles, and repeated through the 19th C. Searching through all the versions of this story, I can't find a particular English knight named (Liberche or Saher), only the anonymous "an English knight" (variously given as an aide-de-camp, or lieutenant, or colonel of William Longsword), or alternatively a "group of English knights". These knights erected the town, and the name Almada derives from an English phrase "Vimadel" (supposedly English (?) for "all together") or "All-is-made", or even that one of the knights was called "Almada" (or something close to it), and the town named after him. That the Almada family descends from these (unnamed) English fellows seems to really emerge only inhe 18th C.

This story was forwarded by Carvalho da Costa in his Corographia Portuguesa e.g. (1708: vol. 2 [p.59] (1708), and again (with slight differences) in his 1712 vol. 3 (p.309). After Carvalho da Costa, it was propagated by many authors until the late 19th C. e.g. Provas da Historia Genalogica(1748), Cidades e Villas (1860).

Yet already in the 18th C., it was denounced as myth. Caetano de Sousa (1744) "Agiologio Lusitano", vol. IV (p.78) savages the story, claiming it to be a complete fabrication, that Carvalho da Costa was fed the story orally by Almada family members and did not bother to verify it.

Carvalho da Costa did not invent it outright. The story of the English founding Almada is considered in Antonio Brandão's Monarchia Lusitana 1632, Vol. 3, [p.173-4, but Brandao was highly skeptical of the account, noting that Almada had long existed well before (cf. p.172), but not ruling out that some English captain or other might have settled there.

Finally, tracking back to the very origin of the story, the Cronica de D. Afonso of Duarte Galvão (1505: Ch.31), with the tale of "Vimadel" being created by English knights, from whence the name Almada. Galvao does not give any particular name to the knights.

Note: only Carvalho da Costa insinuates the Almada family and the English are connected. Others assert that Joao Annes de Almada (the first Almada, a court treasurer of the early 1300s) took up the name from the town because he happened to own estates and lived there. There is no claim of descendence in that.

So the entire claim of descendence seems hinging on the nugget of a romanticism told by Galvao in 1505.

Unfortunately, the connection is likely pure myth. On several grounds.

• (1) "Almada" is not an English word; however fanciful Galvao, Costa and the old etymologists have tried, the "Vimadel" story is nonsense. The town existed long before. Its name is doubtlessly the Arab term al-maden, meaning "the mine", and existing Andalusian records from the 11th C. definitively point out the existence of a silver mine and Moorish castle by that name long before (e.g. Portugal antigo e moderno); it's pretty much what you'll find in modern historical & archaelogial accounts today;
• (2) On record, Almada was given to the knights of the Order of Santiago in 1186. We have that documented with a foral of 1190. So if English knights had held the place in fief, they were gone by now. (again, not ruling out that some might not have lived there, but they didn't run the place, so there is no continuous fief line held from the English to the Almadas.) Moreover, Almada was retaken by the Almohads in 1191 and held for over a decade; if there were any lingering English knights, they would have been expelled then.
• (3) Unfortunately, the Almada lineage cannot be traced back nearly that far. The earliest member of the family with that name is the court treasurer Joao Annes de Almada, who took up the name in the early 1300s, when he probably acquired estates there for the first time, probably in connection with his service as treasurer.
• (4) That Almadas were of merchant fortune and non-nobles is noted in Moreno, (1980: p.999) who derives it from Costa Lobo (1904 p.487), Rita Costa Gomes, Making of Court Society (p.p.128, who in turn derives it from the 15th C. chroniclers Zurara and Rui de Pina. Unfortunately, not much more is clear. But note that in all accounts, the Almadas are never quite identified as holding Almada in lordship ('Senhorio') - or any other lordship or feudal title - before the 1380s, but only referred to loosely as "morgado" (squire), a name that can be held by someone who just acquires or purchases an estate.
• (6) One alternative, the only record of which I have is Alberto Pimentel Contemporaneo do Infante (1891: p.15), is that the Almadas are descended from Sueiro Viegas Coelho. He is in turn the great-grandson of the [Egas Moniz]. Which would make the Almadas of highly illustrious lineage indeed, but most definitely local (Portuguese-Galician-Leonese). But that certainly does not fit the "non-noble".

In sum: this story hangs on a fabricated etymological falsehood about Vimadel=Almada invented by the very misty Galvao in 1505. The connection between English knights and the Almada family was only really started by Carvalho da Costa in the 18th C. He probably learned the connection by family legend told by the Almadas themselves; yet it is likely the family probably only acquired a presence in Almada in the 1300s. No English knight is mentioned by name in any of this, and no lineage is traced or traceable.

AAAAND after writing all this, continuing on my internet research, I found out two more recent articles:

• Carlos Riley (1988) "A Inglaterra como espaço de projecção da memória e imaginário linhagísticos da família Almada", in Actas do Colóquio Comemorativo do VI Centenário do tratado de Windsor, Porto, Faculdade de Letras. online

• Carlos Riley (1989) "Da Origem Inglesa dos Almadas: Genealogia de uma ficção linhagísta" (revamp of previous) online

He asserts the Almadas are doubtlessly of mercantile bourgeois Lisbon roots, and traces the construction of the "English myth" to Duarte Nuno de Leão in 1600. (of course, Galvão had told the Almada city myth earlier in 1505, but Leao would be the first to connect it to the Almada family, not, as I first thought, Carvalho da Costa. Apologies). The relevant passage in Duarte Nunes de Leão can be found in Primeira parte das Chronicas dos Reis de Portugal (1600: p.45. He also doesn't give a name for the English knight.

So, to the extent that the story exists and is told, it might be worth mentioning, but only with the qualification that it is a legend, or simply that "it has been said", but never proven. So the statement must be made much weaker.

P.S. - Don't trust Oliveira Martims on anything. In mixing myth & fact or making up romantic stories from scratch, he is even less inhibited than Duarte Galvao. I am not sure what his "Three Garters" article is, but my guess is his long-debunked allegation that Joao Vaz de Almada (Avranches's father) was also a Garter knight. This has been proven false time and again.

P.P.S. - I don't mean to step on any Almada family sensitivities. The Almadas became a great noble family. But this English knights lineage is just a myth. Walrasiad (talk) 18:29, 8 July 2011 (UTC)