ABSTRACT
Afonso Henriques Count Henrique and his beautiful wife Teresa, who always remembered to emphasize her imperial pedigree in her letters, clearly had great expectations of their first child, who was to continue the family line and extend Henrique's county yet further into Muslim territory. Teresa gave birth to the child at the castle in Guimarães or at Viseu. It was a boy, larger and more beautiful than any other child one could imagine. Apart from the stunted lower legs. He would never be able to walk or ride, and the doctors that were summoned agreed that he could never be cured. Count Henrique’s disappointment was immense. His good friend and closest adviser, Egas Moniz, asked to have the child handed over so he could raise it, as agreed beforehand, but Henrique answered bitterly that he would never put such a burden on Egas. The child was a cripple because of the sins of its father, and “it would never become a human.”1 Thus, one was only human during the Middle Ages if one was able to ride and wage war, otherwise not.
