was recognized in cult and myth as the chief or typical river-god in the Peloponnesus, as was Achelous in northern Greece. His waters were said to pass beneath the sea and rise again in the fountain Arethusa at Syracuse; such is the earlier version from which later mythologists and poets evolved the familiar myth of the loves of Alpheus and Arethusa.
ALPHONSE I., Count of Toulouse (1103–1148), son of Count Raymond IV. by his third wife, Elvira of Castile, was born in 1103, in the castle of Mont-Pèlerin, Tripoli. He was surnamed Jourdain on account of his being baptized in the river Jordan. His father died when he was two years old and he remained under the guardianship of his cousin, Guillaume Jourdain, count of Cerdagne (d. 1109), until he was five. He was then taken to Europe and his brother Bertrand gave him the countship of Rouergue; in his tenth year, upon Bertrand’s death (1112), he succeeded to the countship of Toulouse and marquisate of Provence, but Toulouse was taken from him by William IX., count of Poitiers, in 1114. He recovered a part in 1119, but continued to fight for his possessions until about 1123. When at last successful, he was excommunicated by Pope Calixtus II. for having expelled the monks of Saint-Gilles, who had aided his enemies. He next fought for the sovereignty of Provence against Raymond Berenger I., and not till September 1125 did the war end in an amicable agreement. Under it Jourdain became absolute master of the regions lying between the Pyrenees and the Alps, Auvergne and the sea. His ascendancy was an unmixed good to the country, for during a period of fourteen years art and industry flourished. About 1134 he seized the countship of Narbonne, only restoring it to the Viscountess Ermengarde (d. 1197) in 1143. Louis VII., for some reason which has not appeared, besieged Toulouse in 1141, but without result. Next year Jourdain again incurred the displeasure of the church by siding with the rebels of Montpellier against their lord. A second time he was excommunicated; but in 1146 he took the cross at the meeting of Vézelay called by Louis VII., and in August 1147 embarked for the East. He lingered on the way in Italy and probably in Constantinople; but in 1148 he had arrived at Acre. Among his companions he had made enemies and he was destined to take no share in the crusade he had joined. He was poisoned at Caesarea, either the wife of Louis or the mother of the king of Jerusalem suggesting the draught.
See the documentary Histoire générale de Languedoc by De Vic and Vaissette, vol. iii. (Toulouse, 1872).
ALPHONSE, Count of Toulouse and of Poitiers (1220–1271), the son of Louis VIII., king of France, and brother of St Louis, was born on the 11th of November 1220. He joined the county of Toulouse to his appanage of Poitou and Auvergne, on the death, in September 1249, of Raymond VII., whose daughter Jeanne he had married in 1237. He took the cross with his brother, St Louis, in 1248 and in 1270. In 1252, on the death of his mother, Blanche of Castile, he was joint regent with Charles of Anjou until the return of Louis IX., and took a great part in the negotiations which led to the treaties of Abbeville and of Paris (1258–1259). His main work was on his own estates. There he repaired the evils of the Albigensian war and made a first attempt at administrative centralization, thus preparing the way for union with the crown. The charter known as “Alphonsine,” granted to the town of Riom, became the code of public law for Auvergne. Honest and moderate, protecting the middle classes against exactions of the nobles, he exercised a happy influence upon the south, in spite of his naturally despotic character and his continual and pressing need of money. He died without heirs on his return from the 8th crusade, in Italy, probably at Savona, on the 21st of August 1271.
See B. Ledain, Histoire d’Alphonse, frère de S. Louis et du comté de Poitou sous son administration (1241–1271) (Poitou, 1869); E. Boutaric, Saint Louis et Alphonse de Poitiers (Paris, 1870); A. Molinier, Étude sur l’administration de S. Louis et d’Alphonse de Poitiers (Toulouse, 1880); and also his edition of the Correspondance administrative d’Alphonse de Poitiers in the Collection de documents inédits pour servir à l’histoire de France (Paris, 1894 and 1895).
ALPHONSO, the common English spelling of Affonso, Alonso and Alfonso, which are respectively the Galician, the Leonese and the Castilian forms of Ildefonso (Ildefonsus), the name of a saint and archbishop of Toledo in the 7th century. The name has been borne by a number of Portuguese and Spanish kings, who are distinguished collectively below.
Portuguese Kings.—Alphonso I. (Affonso Henriques), son of Henry of Burgundy, count of Portugal, and Teresa of Castile, was born at Guimarães in 1094. He succeeded his father in 1112, and was placed under the tutelage of his mother. When he came of age, he was obliged to wrest from her by force that power which her vices and incapacity Kings of Portugal.had rendered disastrous to the state. Being proclaimed sole ruler of Portugal in 1128, he defeated his mother’s troops near Guimarães, making her at the same time his prisoner. He also vanquished Alphonso Raymond of Castile, his mother’s ally, and thus freed Portugal from dependence on the crown of Leon. Next turning his arms against the Moors, he obtained, on the 26th July 1139, the famous victory of Ourique, and immediately after was proclaimed king by his soldiers. He assembled the Cortes of the kingdom at Lamego, where he received the crown from the archbishop of Braganza; the assembly also declaring that Portugal was no longer a dependency of Leon. Alphonso continued to distinguish himself by his exploits against the Moors, from whom he wrested Santarem in 1146 and Lisbon in 1147. Some years later he became involved in a war that had broken out among the kings of Spain; and in 1167, being disabled during an engagement near Badajoz by a fall from his horse, he was made prisoner by the soldiers of the king of Leon, and was obliged to surrender as his ransom almost all the conquests he had made in Galicia. In 1184, in spite of his great age, he had still sufficient energy to relieve his son Sancho, who was besieged in Santarem by the Moors. He died shortly after, in 1185. Alphonso was a man of gigantic stature, being 7 ft. high according to some authors. He is revered as a saint by the Portuguese, both on account of his personal character and as the founder of their kingdom.
Alphonso II., “the Fat,” was born in 1185, and succeeded his father, Sancho I., in 1211. He was engaged in war with the Moors and gained a victory over them at Alcácer do Sal in 1217. He also endeavoured to weaken the power of the clergy and to apply a portion of their enormous revenues to purposes of national utility. Having been excommunicated for this by the pope (Honorius III.), he promised to make amends to the church; but he died in 1223 before doing anything to fulfil his engagement. He framed a code which introduced several beneficial changes into the laws of his kingdom.
Alphonso III., son of Alphonso II., was born in 1210, and succeeded his brother, Sancho II., in 1248. Besides making war upon the Moors, he was, like his father, frequently embroiled with the church. In his reign Algarve became part of Portugal. He died in 1279.
Alphonso IV. was born in 1290, and in 1325 succeeded his father, Dionis, whose death he had hastened by his intrigues and rebellions. Hostilities with the Castilians and with the Moors occupied many years of his reign, during which he gained some successes; but by consenting to the barbarous murder of Iñez de Castro, who was secretly espoused to his son Peter, he has fixed an indelible stain on his character. Enraged at this barbarous act, Peter put himself at the head of an army and devastated the whole of the country between the Douro and the Minho before he was reconciled to his father. Alphonso died almost immediately after, on the 12th of May 1357.
Alphonso V., “Africano”, was born in 1432, and succeeded his father Edward in 1438. During his minority he was placed under the regency, first of his mother and latterly of his uncle, Dom Pedro. In 1448 he assumed the reins of government and at the same time married Isabella, Dom Pedro’s daughter. In the following year, being led by what he afterwards discovered to be false representations, he declared Dom Pedro a rebel and defeated his army in a battle at Alfarrobeira, in which his uncle was slain. In 1458, and with more numerous forces in 1471,
