2020The General Inquiries Of D. Afonso II– 800th Anniv. - First Day Cover MS

One of the more interesting and notable undertakings in the history of royal power in Western Europe between the mid-12th and mid-13th centuries was the gradual recovery by monarchs of essentially public rights, which in the political, social and economic circumstances of previous centuries, in particular between the 9th and 11th centuries, had been appropriated by both secular and ecclesiastical powers, at times by delegation from the royal authorities themselves, and which had limited the ability of monarchs to exercise full authority over the territories they ruled. As one would expect, this recovery was slow, with rhythms and timelines varying substantially according to political vicissitudes and the internal or external circumstances of each monarchy. In the Iberian case, as one would expect, the permanent border war with Islam substantially conditioned these evolutionary processes, variously accelerating or decelerating them in light of the possibilities and requirements of each moment.