Portuguese royal dynasties: four houses, five dates

Portugal was ruled by four royal houses. The Burgundy house (Portuguese call it Afonsina) reigned from the founding in the 1140s until 1383. The house of Aviz took over in 1385 and lasted until 1580. Then came sixty years of Spanish Habsburg kings, who wore the Spanish and Portuguese crowns at once. Finally the house of Braganza ruled from 1640 until 5 October 1910, when a revolution ended the monarchy for good.

That paragraph is most of what you need. Portugal's nationality law asks applicants to know «the history and the national symbols» without saying which history, so the test cannot fairly expect a king-by-king list. Our guide to Portuguese history for the citizenship test covers how to study the whole theme, and the overview of the 2026 citizenship test explains where it fits. This page fills in the four centuries that guide jumps across, with one date to anchor each dynasty.

Why does each dynasty have two names?

If you learned European history in English, you know these families by their English names. A Portuguese test will use the Portuguese ones, and often there are two. The first house is Afonsina, after Afonso Henriques, the first king, or de Borgonha, after his father Count Henry, who came from the French house of Burgundy. The second is de Avis because John I was Master of the military Order of Aviz before he was king. The third is Filipina, after its three Philips. The fourth is de Bragança, the ducal family John IV came from.

The practical lesson: when two answer options say «dinastia de Borgonha» and «dinastia Afonsina», they are the same dynasty, and one of them is there to make you hesitate.

How did the first dynasty end?

When Portugal became a kingdom is a question with two defensible answers, 1143 and 1179, and the history guide explains both. The end is simpler. King Fernando died in October 1383 with no son. His heir was his daughter Beatriz, who was married to the King of Castile. A Portuguese princess on the throne meant, in practice, a Castilian king ruling Portugal, and a large part of the country refused.

1385: the year Portugal chose a king and won a battle

Two years of succession crisis and war followed. The resistance gathered around John, Master of Aviz, an illegitimate son of the earlier King Pedro I. Its military leader was Nuno Álvares Pereira.

Two dates closed the crisis. On 6 April 1385 the Cortes, the kingdom's assembly of nobles, clergy and towns, met at Coimbra and acclaimed John as King John I. On 14 August 1385 his army defeated the Castilians at Aljubarrota. The great monastery at Batalha (literally «battle») was built to give thanks for that victory. If you visit it, you will not forget the date.

The Aviz kings: the age of discoveries, and a king lost in Morocco

The voyages most foreigners associate with Portugal happened under Aviz kings: the capture of Ceuta in 1415, Vasco da Gama reaching India in 1498, Pedro Álvares Cabral reaching Brazil in 1500. If an exam asks about the discoveries, «which dynasty?» is one of the simplest ways to do it.

The dynasty ended badly. King Sebastião, young and childless, was killed in 1578 at the battle of Alcácer Quibir in Morocco. His great uncle, the elderly Cardinal Henrique, became king and died in 1580, also without heirs. The strongest claimant was Philip II of Spain, whose mother was a Portuguese princess.

1580–1640: Spanish kings, Portuguese numbers

Philip took the throne in 1580 and was acclaimed by the Portuguese Cortes at Tomar in 1581 as Philip I of Portugal. Portugal kept its own laws and institutions and remained a separate kingdom, which is why historians call this a union of crowns rather than an annexation. His son and grandson followed him.

The trap is the numbering. The same three men count differently on each side of the border:

An English-language history book will usually say «Philip IV» lost Portugal in 1640. In a Portuguese test, the same king is Filipe III.

1640: the Braganzas, and a dynasty written into a constitution

On 1 December 1640 a group of nobles in Lisbon overthrew Habsburg rule and acclaimed the Duke of Braganza as King John IV. The day is a public holiday in Portugal today, officially the Restoration of Independence. The war with Spain that followed lasted until 1668, when Spain recognised Portuguese independence.

The Braganzas are the only Portuguese dynasty named in a constitution. Portugal's Constitutional Charter of 1826 calls the government «monarchical, hereditary and representative», and its next article declares that the «reigning dynasty of the Most Serene House of Braganza» continues in the person of Princess Maria da Glória, following the abdication of her father, «Dom Pedro I, Emperor of Brazil». That one sentence explains something that surprises many newcomers: the first emperor of Brazil was a Portuguese prince, and the same family reigned on both sides of the Atlantic.

Is there still a king of Portugal?

No. In 1908 King Carlos and his heir were shot dead in Lisbon, and his younger son became King Manuel II. On 5 October 1910 a revolution proclaimed the Republic, and Manuel II left for exile. He was the last king of Portugal.

The break is written into law twice over. The first republican constitution, of 21 August 1911, opens by declaring that the Portuguese nation «adopts the Republic as its form of government», and it abolished titles of nobility and «privilege of birth». The Constitution in force today defines the national flag as the one adopted by the Republic «established by the Revolution of 5 October 1910».

Portugal's head of state is now an elected president. If you are coming from a monarchy such as the UK, the Netherlands or Spain, this is worth getting straight before the test. Our page on what the President of the Republic does covers the role.

What could a test reasonably ask about the dynasties?

Nobody knows yet what the history questions will be. What we can say is which questions about this period are fair to ask, because each has one right answer and no room for interpretation:

• the order of the four dynasties;
• which dynasty began in 1640 (Braganza) and which ended in 1580 (Aviz);
• the year the monarchy ended (1910);
• the battle that secured independence in 1385 (Aljubarrota);
• the official name of the 1 December holiday.

You can skip the full list of kings, their nicknames and their marriages. To check yourself, the question «Which dynasty begins on 1 December 1640?» is in our history flashcards, with the wrong options that catch people out. When the five dates on this page come easily, the free practice quiz will show you which theme needs more of your time.