Throughout the first dynasty, the literati at the service of the Portuguese Crown played an increasingly significant and decisive role in the assertion of royal power. Men of laws and men of letters served the royal house as officials, represented the Portuguese kings in political and diplomatic acts, and played a broad range of functions in the central government sphere - political, legal, medical, economic, and administrative. The presence of these elements alongside the monarchs made itself felt from the foundation of the kingdom, right from the reign of D. Afonso Henriques, coinciding the corollary of this recruitment procedure with the arrival of D. Afonso III to the throne, policy continued, firmly, by D. Dinis. The collection of erudite registered with the Portuguese kings from the foundational era was, to that extent, an interesting case to understand, in part, as an aulic circle, in the light of the values of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Middle-Ages; Kingdom of Portugal; Scholars; Royal service
