Inês de Castro
Inês de Castro | |
---|---|
Born | 1325 Galicia, Castile |
Died | 7 January 1355 Coimbra, Portugal | (aged 29–30)
Buried | Alcobaça Monastery |
Family | Castro |
Spouse |
Beatrice, Countess of Alburquerque |
Father | Pedro Fernández de Castro |
Mother | Aldonça Lourenço de Valadares |
Inês de Castro (Portuguese pronunciation:
Biography
Inês was the natural daughter of Pedro Fernández de Castro, Lord of Lemos and Sarria, and his noble Portuguese mistress Aldonça Lourenço de Valadares.[1] Her family descended both from the Galician and Portuguese nobilities. She was also well connected to the Castilian royal family, by illegitimate descent. Her stepmother was Infanta Beatriz of Portugal, the youngest daughter of Afonso of Portugal, Lord of Portalegre and Violante Manuel. Her grandmother was Violante Sánchez of Castile, Lady of Uzero, the illegitimate daughter of Sancho IV of Castile. Her great-great grandfather was Rodrigo Alfonso de León, Lord of Aliger, the illegitimate son of Alfonso IX of León. She also descended from Infanta Sancha Henriques of Portugal, the daughter of Henry, Count of Portugal.
Inês came to Portugal in 1340 as a lady-in-waiting of
Constance of Castile died in 1349. Afonso IV tried several times to arrange for his son to be remarried, but Pedro refused. Afonso IV had banished Inês from the court in 1344. After several attempts to keep the lovers apart, Afonso IV ordered Inês' death. Pêro Coelho, Álvaro Gonçalves, and Diogo Lopes Pacheco went to the Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Velha in Coimbra, where Inês was living at the time, and killed her, decapitating her in front of her small child.
Pedro became king of Portugal in 1357 (
Some sources say that after Pedro became king of Portugal, he had Inês' body exhumed from her grave and forced the entire court to swear allegiance to their new queen: "The king [Pedro] caused the body of his beloved Inês to be disinterred, and placed on a throne, adorned with the diadem and royal robes, and required all the nobility of the kingdom to approach and kiss the hem of her garment, rendering her when dead that homage which she had not received in her life..."
Inês de Castro and Pedro I had the following children, who were legitimized by Pedro I on 19 March 1361:
- Afonso, died shortly after birth.
- 1383–85 Crisis.
- Denis, Lord of Cifuentes, claimant to the throne during the 1383–1385 Crisis.
- Sancho Alfonso, 1st Count of Alburquerque and was thereby the great-grandmother of Ferdinand II of Aragon, and thereby an ancestor of all Spanish monarchs.[9]
Inês de Castro in literature and music
Inês de Castro's story is immortalized in several plays and poems in Portuguese, such as
Works written in English include
Felicia Hemans' poem The Coronation of Inez de Castro first appeared in The New Monthly Magazine in 1828.
She is a recurring figure in Ezra Pound's The Cantos. She appears first at the end of Canto III, in the lines Ignez da Castro murdered, and a wall/Here stripped, here made to stand.
There have been over 20 operas and ballets created about Inês de Castro.[11][12] Operas from the 18th and 19th centuries include:
- Ines di Castro by Bernhard Anselm Weber (1790, Hanover)[12]
- Ines di Castro by Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli (1798)[12]
- Ines de Castro by Walter Savage Landor (1831)
- Ines de Castro by Giuseppe Persiani to a libretto by Salvadore Cammarano (1835)[12]
- Ines di Castro by Pietro Antonio Coppola (1842, Lisbon)[12]
In modern times, Inês de Castro has continued to inspire operatic works, including:
- Ines de Castro by Scottish composer James MacMillan. This work was first performed at the 1996 Edinburgh International Festival[13]
- Wut (Rage) in German by Swiss composer Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini. The world premiere of this work was given at the Theater Erfurt, Germany, on 9 September 2006.
- Ines de Castro by American composer Thomas Pasatieri. This work premiered in 1976 with the Baltimore Opera Company.
- Ines by Canadian composer James Rolfe. Premiered in 2009 by the Queen of Puddings Music Theatre Company in Toronto.
In addition, Portuguese composer Pedro Camacho (born 1979) composed the Requiem to Inês de Castro, first performed on March 28, 2012 in New Cathedral of Coimbra on the occasion of 650 years of the transportation of Ines de Castro's body from Coimbra to Alcobaça Monastery.[14] Christopher Bochman, with the Lisbon Youth Orchestra, has produced an opera "Corpo E Alma" (Body and Soul) focusing on Pedro's transition from a sensual to a spiritual love following her death, drawing on various aspects of the tale.[15]
Popular culture
The 2005 TV series Pedro e Inês recounts the love story.
The 2018 film Pedro e Inês (released as The Dead Queen internationally), based on the novel by
See also
Notes
- ^ In order to have his issue with Inês legitimized, Pedro claimed to have married her in 1354.
References
- ^ Diccionario histórico, genealógico y heráldico de las familias ilustres de la Monarquia Espanola, Ed. Luis Vilar y Pascual, Juan José Vilar Psayla, (Imprenta de D.F. Sanchez A Cargo de Augustin Espinosa, 1859), 253.
- ^ Stephens, Henry Morse (1898). Portugal. New York: G.P. Putnam's sons. pp. 92–99.
- ISBN 0-521-09571-9. Retrieved 22 April 2015.
- ^ The Popular Encyclopedia. Edinburgh: Blackie & Son. 1836. p. 83. Retrieved 22 April 2015.
Inês de Castro.
- ISBN 978-0-8108-7075-8.
- ISBN 9789722405669.
- ^ "Inês de Castro na literatura mundial (I)". Portugal Através do Mundo. 2009.
- ^ Vieira da Silva, José Custódio (1997). "Os Túmulos de D. Pedro e de D. Inês, em Alcobaça". University of Oporto. Portugalia. Retrieved 5 April 2024.
- Beatrice, Countess of Alburquerque
- ^ The text is a translation of the novel of the same name by French writer Jean-Baptiste de Brilhac.
- ^ Manuel Pereira Peixoto d'Almeida Carvalhaes (1908). Inês de Castro na opera e na choregraphia italianas: separata da obra em manuscripto intitulada: Subsidios a historia da opera e da choregraphia italianas, no seculo XVIII, em Portugal. Typ. Castro Irmão. p. 9.
- ^ a b c d e Dassori, Carlo (1903). Opere e operisti (dizionario lirico 1541-1902). Genova: Tipografia editrice R. Istituto sordomuti. p. 695.
- ^ "Scottish Opera Online - Scotland's National Opera Company - Scottish Opera History: Page 3". 30 September 2006. Archived from the original on 30 September 2006. Retrieved 28 July 2018.
- ^ "Requiem a Inês de Castro fez estreia mundial em Coimbra". Rádio e Televisão de Portugal. Retrieved 2013-10-03.
- ^ (a live recording was made with the assistance of the Portuguese Ministry of Culture and others).
Sources
- Diccionario histórico, genealógico y heráldico de las familias ilustres de la Monarquia Espanola, Ed. Luis Vilar y Pascual, Juan José Vilar Psayla, Imprenta de D.F. Sanchez A Cargo de Augustin Espinosa, 1859.
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.