Portuguese sovereign born in Alcochete, whose reign is considered the most glorious phase of Portugal. Son of infant D. Fernando and D. Beatriz, and paternal grandson of King D. Duarte assumed the crown (1495) as the fifth king of the Avis dynasty and the fourteenth king of Portugal. He married (1497) Princess Isabel of Castile, widow of D. Afonso, son of D. João II, and daughter of the kings of Spain, Fernando and Isabel. With the death of his brother, Prince D. John, D. Isabel inherited the crowns of Aragon and Castile and the Portuguese sovereigns went to Spain and, in Toledo and Zaragoza, were consecrated kings of Castile and Aragon (1498). With the death of D. Isabel and her son, the Portuguese claim to those kingdoms fell, and the king, a widower, married his sister-in-law, Infanta D. Maria, sister of D. Isabel, with whom she had nine children.
Widowed again, he married D. Leonor d'Austria (1518), sister of Emperor Charles V. During his reign, the Portuguese navigators consolidated their feats with the great discoveries and started, in Europe, the commercial revolution that opened the paths of modernity to the world. João Fernandes Labrador arrived in the Canadian peninsula that earned his name, Vasco da Gama circled Africa to India, Gaspar Corte Real discovered Newfoundland, Pedro Álvares Cabral discovered Brazil and established trading posts in Calicut, Cochin and Cananor, on the Indian coast of Malabar, and Fernão de Magalhães went around the country. world.
All these discoveries were confirmed by the pope and recognized by Spain. He consolidated the Portuguese influence in the Orient, with D. Francisco de Almeida who, as the first viceroy of India, became lord of commerce in the Indian Ocean. He conquered Goa (1510) and Malacca and the Malay Peninsula (1511) with the successor of D. Francisco, Afonso de Albuquerque. He reached China (1513) and made agreements with Abyssinia and captured Azamor, in Morocco (1513), with the Duke of Bragança. Internally, with an increasingly rich royal treasury, he transformed the nobility into a sumptuous court, restored them to rights and privileges, and began to pay him about five thousand pensions.
It replaced municipal judges with outside judges, strengthened the judiciary, centralized it, and appointed royal magistrates for all districts. He ordered his council to review the code of laws: the famous Manueline Ordinances (1512), later revised (1521). Lover of the arts and religious, he built the monastery of Jerônimos and the tower of Belém. He laid the foundations for the Portuguese Renaissance as he sponsored poetic publications such as Cancioneiro geral (1516), published by Garcia de Resende, and the theatrical genius of Gil Vicente. He died in Lisbon and his body was buried in the Jerônimos monastery.
Source: http://www.dec.ufcg.edu.br/biografias/
Order M - Biography - Brazil School
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/biografia/manuel-i-de-portugal.htm