Saturday 9 May 2020

tratado de windsor

Sealing the deal put forward in the Anglo-Portuguese Compact of 1373 for “perpetual friendships, unions and alliances” between the two seafaring nations, the Treaty of Windsor signed on this day in 1386 and secured with the marriage of Joรฃo of the House of Aviz—settling the kingdom’s succession crisis with the pact—to the daughter of John of Gaunt, Philippa of Lancaster.
Significantly, this treaty is the oldest, enduring diplomatic agreement and moreover demonstrates how foreign relations and trade deals were conducted until recent times—that is through martial arrangements amongst the great houses. One could imagine if this were still the case and whom from the Royal Family might yet be sacrificed and married off to appease one party or another at the UK’s advantage. As was keeping with a uniquely Portuguese tradition of the time, the wedding was conducted by proxy, a surrogate bridegroom for the king called Joรฃo Rodrigues de Sรก (chief chamberlain and from a merchant family of Porto, which does make the whole affair sound a bit like an example of Ricardian economic theory from a college textbook—English textiles in exchange for Portuguese wine and stick with what you’re good at) though I think it is Joรฃo I rather than his stand-in depicted in the ceremony here) would pretend to carry out the nuptials and consummate the service.