Lacerda (surname)

Lacerda is a Portuguese surname, most probably stemming from the Castilian house of La Cerda, from whence the name came through agglutination.

The first member of La Cerda to enter Portugal was João Afonso de Lacerda[1] who had married a bastard daughter of D. Dinis.

One nephew, Afonso Fernando de La Cerda, came to Portugal as a refugee[2] since he had supported the losing faction of Peter the Cruel in a civil war against his half-brother Henry of Trastamara for the throne of Castille.

He supported the party of the House of Avis against the pretensions of Juan I of Castile to inherit the Portuguese throne, since the former king Fernando had died without a male heir and the Castilan king was married to Fernando's only daughter.

There is documentation that attests that this Álvaro Gonçalves was resident in Serpa in 1384, and it was also here that he married the daughter of a local lord, owner of the present Clock Tower of the town, Diogo Nunes de Serpa, who was a supporter of the party of Avis in the civil war, as confirmed in the "Chronicle of king John I", by the Portuguese chronicler Fernão Lopes.