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Chapter 9 - How the king ordered the wife of Afonso André to be burnt, and concerning other acts of justice he ordered to be carried out

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 December 2023

Amélia P. Hutchinson
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
Juliet Perkins
Affiliation:
King's College London
Philip Krummrich
Affiliation:
Morehead State University, Kentucky
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Summary

Who has heard of the kind of punishment the king inflicted on the wife of Afonso André, an honourable merchant who lived in Lisbon?

It was customary, when kings visited cities, for the merchants and other citizens to joust with the men from the Royal Court as part of the festivities. Whilst Afonso André was jousting in the Rua Nova, the king, who was present, having been informed with certainty that Afonso André's wife was deceiving him, deemed that the time was right to find her and catch her while she was in the very act. With great stealth and the help of spies she was seized, together with the man who was incriminated with her. The king had her burnt and him beheaded.

Afonso André, who was still jousting, was told of this as soon as he finished and he made his way to the king to complain about what he had done to him. When the king saw him, and before Afonso André could speak, he asked to be rewarded by the latter for what he had ordered to be carried out, explaining that he had taken revenge against Afonso André's cheating wife and the one who cuckolded him, and furthermore he knew better what she was than Afonso André himself.

What are we to say of Maria Roussada, a married woman whose husband had forced her to sleep with him – an act which was at that time termed as roussar (to rape) – for which deed he deserved to die?

He already had sons and daughters by her, and they both loved each other dearly. When the king heard her being called by such a name, he asked why that was. So he found out how it had all been and that they had both agreed to get married in order to avoid that deed being made public. To enforce justice, the king had the husband hanged, and his wife and children followed behind wailing.

When the king was in Braga, the pleas of those that were with him were of no avail to save the life of Álvaro Rodrigues de Grade, an honourable and well-born squire from the Minho province, who had cut the hoops of a poor farmer's vat of wine. No sooner did the king find this out than he ordered his head to be cut off.

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The Chronicles of Fernão Lopes
Volume 1. The Chronicle of King Pedro of Portugal
, pp. 86 - 88
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2023

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