Sebastianism

I think everyone should do try to have at least some idea of the history of the place they’re living in. Who was here before you, what happened to make the place what it is now. For me, this is a very easy task, since Portugal’s history is fascinating.

Thus today’s missive is a bit of a history lesson about one of Portugal’s most consequential kings, Sebastian and the movement he inspired.

Sebastian was the last of the kings from the Portuguese Age of Discovery. He was apparently nuts, and decided (against the advice of literally everyone) to lead a crusade into Morocco. It was a disaster. The final battle at Alcácer Quibir was a catastrophe on par with Cannae. A whole generation of Portuguese nobles were wiped out and the king himself led a cavalry charge into the massed armies of the Sultan of Morocco and was never seen again.

Worst of all, the king launched this insane crusade without an heir, and probably a few dozen plausible claimants to the throne perished in battle. Thus his defeat led to the Portuguese succession crisis, which was resolved by the crown of Portugal passing to Philip, the king of Spain.

What makes this different than your typical world-historic royal dynastic wipeouts was that, since the king disappeared in battle, and nobody actually saw him fall, there was a big contingent of Portuguese holdouts who refused to believe he was dead. He was out there somewhere and he would return to reclaim the Portuguese crown. These were the “Sebastianistas”¹.

As the years passed and King Sebastian stubbornly refused to return, the meaning of “Sebastianista” evolved, and took on a more messianic tone. Maybe Sebastian would not return in the flesh, but he would return in the spirit. He became known as “O Encoberto”, the Hidden One. Mystics, theologians, and mystical theologians read a foretelling of his return in Revelations and the second chapter of Daniel².

This belief persisted even after the heroic Portuguese threw off the Spanish yoke. Sebastianism became the rallying point for various stripes of monarchists and basically everyone dissatisfied with the way things were.

And this was the biggest problem with Sebastianism, you know, other than the eponymous Sebastian’s continuing failure to reappear. Any movement predicting some event that will sweep away the status quo tends to make enemies of the status quo. It was suppressed by the Inquisition and further suppressed by the Marques de Pombal.

But Sebastianism didn’t die completely. It had a big comeback in Brazil in the late 1800s, after the military overthrew Emperor Pedro II and instituted a secular republic dominated by wealthy landowners. This was not overwhelmingly popular with the people, who were overall very religious and generally pleased with the monarchy. Or at the very least, they liked the Emperor more than they liked the wealthy landowners. “Maybe Sebastian will come back and fix this injustice!”

For me, the most noteworthy proponent of Sebastianism is the great early 20th century writer Fernando Pessoa.

Pessoa was a dreamer, and also kind of nuts, so I think he sensed a kindred spirit in Sebastian. Although his conception of Sebastianism was much more spiritual than material or temporal.

He adopted ideas from 17th century Jesuit priest António Vieira, whose reading of Daniel 2 predicted five empires, with a fifth and final empire being, not a material empire, but a spiritual empire, led by O Encoberto returned from Portugal.

His most notable collection of poetry, Mensagem, is not just filled with Sebastianist themes, but unalloyed patriotism. He believed the reason Portugal was on the cusp of returning to its place as the center of the world was that the Portuguese people were suffused with a desire for greatness.

Quando virás, ó Encoberto?
Sonho das eras portuguez,
Tornar-me mais que o sopro incerto
De um grande anceio que Deus fez?

When will you return, o Hidden One?
Dream of Portuguese eras,
Make me more than the uncertain breath
Of a great yearning that God made.

Well, maybe the idea of a spiritual Renaissance starting in Portugal seemed a bit more plausible 100 years ago, but it seems pretty unlikely today. But really, it’s not a lot less likely than tiny Portugal, on the edge of the known world, once launching a few small ships, sailing into the unknown, and conquering half the world.

This is a common motif for a people whose days of glory are conspicuously over with, or maybe never started. The Irish, who are—let’s face it—not exactly history’s big winners, have a history peppered with glorious losers and heroes like Finn Mac Cool who never died but will return at some point.

I might be wrong here, but it seems like the best years of the United States are behind it. And if the old patterns persist, as they recede further into the rear-view mirror, there will probably be something or somebody who people come to believe will return the country to the Good Old Days.

A hundred years from now, people might be saying, “Some day the mighty fortress Mar-a-Lago will reappear and the great Orange Warrior will ride forth, leading us to new golden age of prosperity and the return of the fast-food Dollar Menu.”

This might seem ridiculous to you, but is it less ridiculous than people pining for the return of some knucklehead who blundered into enemy territory wildly outnumbered and got himself and the entire aristocracy slaughtered?

That said, I am being way too hard on Sebastian. Where earlier I described his actions as “insanity” or “drooling idiocy”, some people would call them “idealism” and “bravery”.

Sebastian dreamed big dreams and had the courage to try to make them a reality. He wrecked his kingdom in the process, and of course he deserves blame for that. But it was courageous dreamers who made Portugal the mighty kingdom that Sebastian lost. His invasion of Morocco was hugely risky, but so was his ancestor King John’s decision to take over Ceuta (also in Morocco), and that’s what kicked off Portugal’s golden years in the first place.

If Portugal were going to end up in the third-tier of nations anyway, wouldn’t it be better to go out in some quest for glory than to sequester yourself in the palace and let it all fade away?

Or, as Pessoa puts it:

Minha loucura, outros que me a tomem
Com o que nella ia.
Sem a loucura o que é o homem
Mais que a besta sadia,
Cadaver addiado que procria?

My madness, let the others take it from me,
Along with the vessel it came in.
Without madness, what is man
But a healthy beast,
A delayed cadaver that procreates?

P.S. My all-time favorite author of all time, is Jorge Luis Borges. “Borges” is a Portuguese name, although he grew up in Argentina and had no connection to the Portuguese people.

He wrote a poem about this, with a nod to Sebastian and the Sebastianistas. Since this poem is why I started looking into this, I thought I’d share it:

LOS BORGES

Nada o muy poco sé de mis mayores
Portugueses, los Borges: vaga gente
que prosigue en mi carne, oscuramente,
sus hábitos, rigores y temores.

Tenues como si nunca hubieran sido
y ajenos a los trámites del arte,
indescifrablemente forman parte
del tiempo, de la tierra y del olvido.

Mejor así. Cumplida la faena,
son Portugal, son la famosa gente
que forzó las murallas del Oriente

y se dio al mar y al otro mar de arena.
Son el rey que en el místico desierto
se perdió y el que jura que no ha muerto.

THE BORGES

I know nothing or very little about my Portuguese
Ancestors, the Borges, vague people
Who carry on in my flesh, like shadows,
Their habits, rigors, and fears.

Faint as if they had never been
And foreign to the ways of art,
Undecipherably they form part
Of time, of the earth, and of oblivion

It’s better this way. Their work is done,
They are Portugal, they are the famous people,
Who breached the walls of the East

And who gave themselves to the sea and to the other sea of sand.
They are the king who in the mystic desert
Was lost and those who swore he never died.

P.P.S. Translations are mine, including Borges, despite me not speaking a ton of Spanish. They are probably riddled with errors, so my apologies in advance.

1. The Moroccans sent a body they said (and the Spanish believed) was Sebastian’s to the king of Spain/Portugal. But of course the perfidious Spanish would believe that, wouldn’t they? Whoever’s body that is, it’s buried at Jerónimos Monastery in Belém.

2. There’s something about the book of Daniel that fire’s people’s imaginations. Isaac Newton, for instance, wrote way more about the Book of Daniel than he wrote about math. You should read it. In fact, do that instead of reading this.