The History of the Siege of Lisbon

Yet it looks as if it might be necessary to step back a little, for example, to begin with the speech of Dom Afonso Henriques, which will permit, moreover, further reflection about the style and the words of the orator, perhaps even the invention of another speech, more in keeping with the age, the person and the place, or simply the logic of the situation, which because of its substance and detail, might justify that fatal refusal by the crusaders. This raises an earlier question, it would be useful to know the names of the king's interlocutors at that point, whom he was addressing, which people were present when he delivered his discourse. Fortunately, we can find out by turning to the primary sources, the writings of the chroniclers, the real History of the Siege of Lisbon sitting on Raimundo Silva's desk, it could not be more explicit, you only have to browse, search, discover, the information comes from a reliable source, some believe directly from the famous Osbern of Bawdsey, and so we learn that Count Arnold of Aarschot was there, the commander of the warriors from various regions of the German empire, Christian of Ghistelles was there, leader of the Flemings and the men from Boulogne, and that a third of the crusaders were led by four constables, namely, Hervey de Glanville with a contingent of men from Norfolk and Suffolk, Simon of Dover with ships from Kent, Andrew with recruits from London, and Saher of Archelle in charge of the others. We should also mention Willelmus Vitulus of Normandy and his brother Radulphus, neither name easy to pronounce, who were not in charge of any major army, yet were endowed with authority, military power and political influence which allowed them to participate in any discussions.

But the disadvantage with sources, however truthful they try to be, is their lack of precision in matters of detail and their impassioned account of events, we refer to a certain internal faculty of contradictory germination which operates within facts or the version of those facts as provided, sold, or proposed, and stemming like spores from the latter, the proliferation of secondary and tertiary sources, some copied, others carelessly transmitted, some repeated from hearsay, others who changed details in good or bad faith, some freely interpreted, others rectified, some propagated with total indifference, others proclaimed as the one, eternal and irreplaceable truth, the last of these the most suspect of all. Naturally, everything depends on the greater or lesser quantity of documents available for consultation, on how much or how little time one is prepared to devote to this irksome task, but, in order to get an updated idea of the nature of the problem in hand, we need only imagine, in this day and age in which Raimundo Silva is living, that he or one of us needs to verify some regurgitated truth, constantly being modified by dint of repetition, in the newspapers, yet notwithstanding, the country is small and the population littlè given to reading,-scanning the titles alone gives them vertigo because, frankly, there are far too many of them, the Diário de Notícias, the

Correio de Manhã, O'Século, the Capital, O Dia, the Diário de Lisboa,

the Diàrio Popular, O Diário, the Comércio do Porto, the

Jornal de Notícias, O Europeu, the Primeiro de Janeiro, the Diário de Coimbra,

and these are only the daily newspapers, because after glossing, summarising, commenting, forecasting, announcing, speculating, we have the weekly newspapers and magazines, O Expresso, O Jornal, O Semanário, O Tempo, O Diabo, O Independente, O'Sábado, and O Avante, and Acção Socialista, and O Povo Livre, and the list would be never-ending if, in addition to the most important and influential publications, we were to include all the newspapers and magazines published further afield, where people also have the right to exist and voice their opinions.