Henry, Count of Portugal, a grandson in the senior line of Robert I, Duke of Burgundy, had joined the Reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula in the late 11th century.

It was only in 1179 that Pope Alexander III recognized Portugal as an independent state,[1] recognition, at the time, needed for total acceptance of the kingdom in the Christian world.

On his father's side, Afonso I of Portugal is connected to the Capetian dynasty, a branch of the Frankish Robertians that goes back to Robert II, Count of Hesbaye in the 9th century.

The borders of Portugal were defined in the Treaty of Alcanizes (1297) when king Dinis I, son of Afonso III, started developing the kingdom's land.

When Ferdinand I (her father) died during the same year the kingdom entered a period of anarchy called the 1383-1385 Crisis, threatened with a possible annexation by Castile.