THE PORTUGUESE ‘PADROADO’

In the beginning was the padroado; out of the padroado grew many things that followed after. It lasted for five hundred years. The kings of Spain and Portugal wanted papal approval for their enterprises and aggressions; the pope was glad to hand over the labours of conquest and evangelisation to secular rulers who had access to resources far greater than he could himself supply. So from the start it was an arrangement of convenience and advantage to both sides.

The story seems to begin with the circular letter of Pope Martin V dated 4 April 1418, which calls upon all the faithful to bend their energies to the extermination of the unbelievers and their errors. In 1442 the king of Portugal transferred to Prince Henry the Navigator, as grand master of the Order of Christ (founded 1319), all the conquests and discoveries which had been made or which were to be made in Africa and the East. Pope Eugenius IV, in the bull Etsi suscepti of 9 January 1443, solemnly confirmed this transfer of power. It is to be noted that in this document we meet for the first time the expression ius patronatus, the right of patronage of the king of Portugal.