"Portuguese Flag." Portugal Travelogue by Branco

This is the heraldic banner of King Afonso Henriques, a blue cross on a silver background.

Antonio Martins, 21 May 1997

The Grande Enciclopedia Portuguesa e Brasileira shows this flag with the cross not touching the flag borders.

Mario Fabretto, 22 May 1997

The King Sancho I changed the design to five eschuteons (small shields) blue arraged in cross (the ones in the sides pointing to the center, the other three pointing downwards), each charged with 11 silver circles. These five eschuteons (quinas) are said to represent the five wounds of Christ (hands, feet and chest).

Antonio Martins, 21 May 1997

New knight of the religious Order of the Templars, an order with a long history in Portugal that still exists. It as and have it's own flag... that once was like the one in the picture. In the "discovery times" it was a little diferent...

There is a very well known banner of the templar. It was a black over white horizontal tricolour and it was named Baussant or Bauceant, spelling being not fixed at these times.

This banner was lost to the saracens at the battle of "The Horns of Hattin" in Holy Land in 1187.

King Afonso III added a border red charged with castles gold marking his marriage to Queen Beatriz, daughter of King Alfonso IX of Castille, whose arms are a castle gold on red. "Popular" heraldry atributes the castles to the definitive conquest and anexation of moorish Algarve, after seven battles, but the Castille connection is much more probbable, especially for the number of castles was fixed to seven only in 1640.

Ant?nio Martins, 21 May 1997

The seals of the time show that the designs of the castles were much more crude than in this image, and changed with the time toward a better graphic rendition. The
same applies to the flag of 1385.
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From 1252 circa, under Afonso III, the shield was added with the red border with the golden castles. On Afonso III coat of arms the eschuteons had six or more bezants and from eight to twelve castles. At the time of Afonso IV (1325-57), the bezants were many and the castles twelve.

Mario Fabretto, 22 May 1997

After the dinastic crisis of 1383-1385, newly emerged King Joao I, Master of the Avis Order, added its green fleur-de-lys cross to his flag, wich lasted for 100 years. This is the first confirmed flag for Portugal, previous may have existed only as coats of arms. According to some sources these colors of red and green would influence the republican flag, but that's totaly unbased. This flag was also used in the 20th century as the banner of the fascist paramilitary state organization Legiao Portuguesa, during the 1932-1974 right-wing dictatorship.

Antonio Martins, 21 May 1997
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In 1385, when the Avis dinasty reach the throne, Joao I added the green cross of Avis to the shield, with the castles grouped three by three in the corners of the red border.

King Joao II took off the Avis cross and fixed to five the number of circles in the eschuteons, as well as its saltire arrange and the downwards pointing direction of all of them. The number of castles was also reduced to seven, although later the coat of arms regained a higher, indetermined number until 1640.

Antonio Martins, 21 May 1997
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Between 1485 and 1495 Joao II removed the Avis cross and tilted all the escutcheons vertically. From that time on a golden royal crown of ancient type appeared over the shield.

In 1485-1495 the flag was a (square) armorial banner (of the shield only) with no crown at all. Later, from 1495 on, the flag became an arms-on-white and the crown was visible over the shield.

Antnio Martins, 22 May 1997

In 1557 King Sebastiao modified the crown and fixed as seven the number of the castles and as five the number of the bezants (so the name of 'quinas'), until then subjected to variations.

The coat of arms didn't change until 13 May 1816 when the gold armillary sphere on a blue field was added to the shield and a royal crown placed overall. At the time this coat of arms represented the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and Algarve. The shield was sustained by two green dragons and circled by the collar of the Order of Avis.

In fact, the coat of arms did not change radically from 1248 until now: five blue eschuteons bezanted on silver bordered red charged with castles gold. Crown or no crown, cross or no cross, sphere or no sphere, the main part remained. Nothing special about the coat of arms in 1826...

In 1816, the country's name had officially, no "united" and (strangely enough) "Algarves", plural...

In that period, a third dragon under the crown was an often variation. These were of course never included into any flag.

The red and green are in the republican portuguese flag were the colors of the iberian federalism, used since 1891 in Portugal by most "republican clubs" and by the Masonry, who replaced the previous blue and white flag in 1910.

Antonio Martins, 4 June 1997

The republican revolution of 1910 was largely inspired by a radical republican secret society called Carbonaria (akin to the Masonry), inspired in an older italian organization of the same name. These called themselves the charcoal-makers (cabonnieri), who were free to go out of town to the forests get theyer wood... and conspire at will away from the landlord's spys -- hence the alias The Forest Masons (Maconaria Florestal). Being Saint John the patron of charcoal-makers, red and green was also theyer color, both of genuine charcoal-makers guild and of the later secret society, and later the color of portuguese radical republicans.

Antonio Martins, 19 February 1998

In Italy. The Carbonari flag was horizontal stripes of blue (top), red and black, representing the burning charcoal.

Dave Martucci, 22 February 1998

The Portuguese Carbonarians (Associacao 31 de Janeiro, in Oporto) used a red flag with a green circle and some lettering.

Ant?nio Martins, 3 March 1998
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The portuguese national flag is a 2:3 rectangle divided vertically into green at the hoist (2/5 of the flag's length) and red at the fly (3/5). Centered in this partition a coat of arms consisting on an armillary sphere charged with the traditional portuguese shield. This should be approximately half the flag's height in diameter, so that the distance between the upper hoist and the farthest point of the sphere is equal to the flag's height.