As big as a country like spain, i was just wondering why havent they taken over portugal back in the day? ?

Question

THINK far as in medieval times

Answer 1

idk

Answer 2

I have often thought the same myself.

From my knowledge Portugal area was once part of a Spain, and grew out of that.  But what one needs to know is that Spain as we know it did not really come about until the 1469 when Isabelle of Castille and Ferdinand of Aragon married, thus joining their territories together forming the borders of what is basically Spain now.  At that stage Portugal had already been a Kingdom for some while, and was seen as an important Royal House of Europe - which meant that it was not going to be conquered and made part of Spain, it didn't work like that.  

Before that Spain had been made up of a number of smaller Christain states, and before that even Muslim states.  As the Christian states grew and slowly forced the Mulsim rulers out of Iberia, Portugal was one of these states that was also formed.  By the mid 1200's Portugal was basically what it is today and seemed to be happy with hwat had and stopped expanding.  This was at a time when the other Christian states were still driving out the Muslims, and fighting amongst themselves.  By the time 1469 came about and there was a unified Spain, Portugal had established herself a strong European Royal House, with a lot of backing by other Christain states, including the Holy See.  It had also stating building up it's overseas possesions, "discovered" and captured by its huge and successful navy.  So whilst Spain became strong, Portugal also was strong and it was believed best to not to try to take one from the other.

Basically Spain missed out by 200/300 years.  If it was to have unified earlier, when Portugal was still forming or not formed it could have taken the territoty and no Spain today.

Hope that helps, have a look in encyclpedia's or Wikipedia for more info about Spain and Portugal

Answer 3

Just to re-iterate there was no Spain in medieval times. Spain as a empire existed only since the late 15th century with Ferdnand and Isabella. And of course,from 1580–1640  Spain and Portugal were co-ruled.

Answer 4

spain and portugal are basically the same people, same religion, their laguage is only slightly diferent from spanish,

Why would you conquer yourself. spain wouldnt gain anything except a larger population and land area, the economy wouldnt change significantly, because they already work with each other.

Answer 5

huh?! that's a interesting question! i know spain is a powerful country back in medievil times and spain has discoverd many islands such as philippines,mexico,macao and some other unknown countrys located in south america.yes in some part of portugal were conquerd by the spainiard.

Answer 6

Portugal is much, much older than Spain, it was created by the son of a french templar knight from the house of Burgundy in 1143.

Spain was "assembled" in 1492, it didn't exist in medieval times. In those days there were several separate kingdoms, Castille, Leon, Asturias, Galicia, Catalonia, Valencia, Andalusia, Navarre and the Basque Country. Most of these kingdoms were at war with each other and to this day most of them have their own language and culture.

That's why Portugal, a single culturally united older nation, remained strong and independent.

The realms that now compose Spain, especially Castille, were always rivals to Portugal but from the moment the portuguese king was able to  expel the moors from Portugal, in the 1200's, the kingdom became very solid, stable and strong. Spain back then was divided and torn in several wars among the kingdoms and against the moors. The spanish only expelled the moors in 1492, almost 300 years after Portugal did.

Besides the fact that Portugal is 450 years OLDER than Spain, the Portuguese Empire was the first global empire in the world, and the portuguese began exploring uncharted territories and seas around 1415, when Spain didn't even exist and never even dreamed of some day having an empire. The first major spanish journey was Columbus in 1492, by then Portugal had already discovered the Sea Route to India and China, had discovered Brazil, explored the entire african east coast and had build several fortified outposts in Africa to assure the control of the future trade between India, China and Europe.

Portugal controlled the Spice Trade, the most single lucrative business in history, one ship arriving in Lisbon from India made a 5000% profit.

Meanwhile the spanish were trying, unsuccessfully, to make some profit out of the americas. They only made it in the 1540's with the silver mines in Potosi, Bolivia, almost 100 years after the portuguese began to explore the african gold.

Portugal had always managed to remain stronger and wealthier than Spain until the young portuguese king Sebastian died heir less in a battle in northern africa. The strongest pretender to the throne was his first cousin, Philip II of Spain. With the help of some portuguese nobles he eventually became king of Portugal also in 1580. The two reigns remained separated, each with it's own administration until 1640 when the portuguese regained independence. It's ironic this only lasted 70 years in the almost 900 years of history of Portugal and many people still think Portugal originated from Spain maybe because of this...

Curiously enough, in the past Portugal became much closer to control Spain than the other way around. For example, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain was suppose to marry the son of John II of Portugal, creating the biggest Empire in History, Portugal and Spain together. But the future portuguese king of the joint reigns died falling from a horse and that union never happened.

Answer 7

At that time a unified Spain didn't existed and Portugal was already a Kingdom .