Today, 541 years have passed since the signing on September 4, 1479, at Paço dos Henriques, in Alcáçovas (Portugal), of the Peace Treaty between the crowns of Castile and Portugal which ended the War of the Succession of the Kingdom of Castile. This important treaty was also responsible for defining for the first time the areas of influence of territorial, economic and cultural expansion of the two Iberian crowns, fifteen years later consolidated with the signing of the well-known Treaty of Tordesillas.
By the Treaty of Alcáçovas an imaginary line was drawn at the level of the 27th parallel, which defined the division of the domain of the seas between the two Iberian Crowns: to the north for the Spanish crown and to the south for the Portuguese crown. Spain received the Canary Islands while Portugal gained recognition of its dominion over the island of Madeira, the archipelago of Azores, Cape Verde and the coast of Guinea.
To commemorate the anniversary of the signing of this historic treaty, the Municipality of Viana do Alentejo, Portugal (Member of ENPP and headquarters of the municipality to which the village of Alcáçovas belongs today) organizes during this month of September a cycle of four conferences that will take place in Paço dos Henriques, the place where the Treaty was negotiated and signed and which underwent important recovery and improvement works from 2016 to today.
This cycle begins precisely today, at 5 pm, with a conference on the theme “Revisiting Alcáçovas – Toledo. New perspectives of approach to the diplomatic documentation of the treaty ”, given by Dr. Maria Barreto Dávila, from the Humanities Center of Universidade Nova de Lisboa (CHAM).
The cycle of conferences will end on September 26 and can be followed online through live streams on the page of Facebook of the Municipality of Viana do Alentejo.
