Dinis I of Portugal
Dinis I ruled Portugal from 1279 to 1325 and is remembered as the Farmer King for the agricultural and administrative work that outlasted his wars. Born in 1261, the son of Afonso III and Beatrice of Castile, he inherited a kingdom with settled borders and spent his reign organising it. He redistributed land, encouraged clearance and cultivation, established regular markets and fairs with royal protection, and founded or chartered a large number of towns. He planted the pine forest at Leiria on the coastal dunes, which stabilised the sand and later supplied timber for the ships of the discoveries. He made Portuguese rather than Latin the language of the royal chancery and of legal documents, which did more than any other single act to establish it as a written language. He was himself a considerable poet, and well over a hundred of his cantigas survive. He founded the country's first university at Lisbon in 1290, later moved to Coimbra. He settled the frontier with Castile permanently by the Treaty of Alcañices in 1297, acquiring Riba-Côa. When the Templars were suppressed in 1312 he negotiated with the papacy to transfer their Portuguese property and personnel to a new body, the Order of Christ, founded in 1319 — which kept the wealth in the kingdom and later financed Henry the Navigator's voyages. He built or rebuilt some fifty castles along the Castilian border, and signed a commercial treaty with England in 1308. His last years were consumed by revolt from his son, the future Afonso IV, resentful of the favour shown to an illegitimate half-brother. His wife Isabel mediated between them and was later canonised. He died in 1325.
- Lived: 1261 CE – 1325 CE
- Nationality: Portuguese
- Roles: king, head_of_state
