Mad Baker legend enlivens Battle of Aljubarrota festivities

The Mad Baker roams the streets, getting up in men’s faces, brandishing her long wooden baker’s paddle and threatening to beat them if they’re Spanish. They laugh. Their partners take photos. It’s all good fun at the medieval festival celebrating the Battle of Aljubarrota.

The Mad Baker’s story – possibly legend, possibly true – is but one of many great tales arising from this battle, considered one of the most significant in Portugal’s history.     

The small village 100 kilometres north of Lisbon celebrates the Aug. 14, 1385, battle each August with a week-long festival. Despite being vastly outnumbered, the underdog Portuguese scored a dramatic win over the invading Castilians (now known as Spanish).

The victory set Portugal on a path to independence. It also marked a new warfare strategy, led to the longest-lasting diplomatic treaty in the world, inspired the construction of a gorgeous Gothic monastery, and fueled a fun legend or two.

Battle re-creation: cheer for Portugal!

The battle re-creation featured mounted Castilian knights, English archers, townsfolk, and King Juan I arriving by oxen-driven cart. Afterwards, Bill, our friend Maxine and I enjoyed the festival.

The festival’s highlight is a re-creation of the battle on a sloping field – similar to the actual battlefield – at the edge of Aljubarrota.

Here’s why the original battle happened (the simple version):

• King Fernando I of Portugal married off his only child, Beatriz, to King Juan I of Castile in 1383, with the idea that their descendants would rule Portugal. (Women were essentially marriage pawns then.) However, Fernando up and died mere months later, leaving Portugal with no clear ruler, since Beatriz and Juan had produced no descendants in that short time.
• Who would rule? King Juan felt entitled to integrate Portugal into Castile. The Portuguese nobility thought otherwise.
• There followed two years of scattered attempts to settle the matter: several murders, Castilian border raids and skirmishes, a siege of Lisbon, and Portuguese diplomatic appeals to the Pope and the English, who agreed to send some troop support.
• Finally, the Castilians (supported by the French) invaded again, vastly outnumbering the Portuguese (supported by the English) and they clashed at the Battle of Aljubarrota. 

For the battle re-creation, anyone dressed in medieval garb can take part. Most opt to be Portuguese, who receive all the cheers. But a fair number of armoured knights mounted on horses become Castilian and French, although they’re frequently booed.

“Port-u-gal!! Port-u-gal!! Port-u-gal!!” A man with a loudspeaker tried to whip the crowd into excited cheering. We joined in the chant for our adopted country, getting caught up in the fun.

Drums beat. Banners waved. Horses pounded the earth and kicked up dust as they cantered by with their armoured knights.  English archers let their arrows fly – away from the crowd. Swordfights and hand-to-hand combat led to (fake) dead bodies that were carted off the field on stretchers. The loudspeaker man narrated the battle – all in fast Portuguese, of course, so we understood only bits.

Just like the real battle, the re-enactment was over in about an hour. Everyone cheered the victorious Portuguese.

Mad Baker legend lives on

Ads for the Aljubarotta festival feature the Mad Baker. Bakers at the festival scramble to make enough pão com chorizo [bread with chorizo sausage filling] for hungry fairgoers, like me. The village also honours the Mad Baker legend with a tile plaque and sculpture.

As the Castilians fled after the battle, they hid all over the countryside to avoid the victorious Portuguese. Many local people routed out the Castilians and killed them. In fact, more Castilians were killed in the days after than during the battle. Brites de Almeida, aka the Mad Baker, reputedly found seven Castilians hiding in her bake oven and beat them to death with her wooden paddle.

A pamphlet about village history described Brites as “corpulent, bony and ugly, with a wide mouth and scruffy hair.” She was tall, strong, “famously fearless and unruly,” commanded respect from everyone, and had six fingers per hand.

The first document to mention Brites was written nearly 300 years later in 1642 by Francisco Brandão, a Cistercian monk from the nearby Alcobaça monastery. He wrote that the “Legendary Baker Brites de Almeida had her oven in 1385 in Rua Direita” next to a granary. So, it’s possible she did exist. 

But whether she’s legend or whether she was real, the “accounts feed the imagination of the people,” the pamphlet concluded. The Mad Baker is associated “with the patriotic sentiment of the Battle of Aljubarrota.”

For that, she’s remembered with three things:

• Pão com chorizo: A bread roll stuffed with chorizo sausage and baked in a wood-fired oven is a popular snack during the festival (and indeed every day in just about every café in the Alcobaça area). Since chorizo is a Spanish sausage, the Portuguese are symbolically eating their enemy – without resorting to actual cannibalism.
• Artwork: A traditional Portuguese tile plaque shows Castilian faces peering from her bake oven. A modern sculpture, by José Aurélio, depicts Brites brandishing her wooden paddle. The sculpture’s base represents a bake oven with seven doors, for the seven hiding Castilians. Nearby ruins mark the possible location of her house.
• Starring role: Brites is the star of the annual medieval festival. Each year, an actor dressed up as her roams the streets, challenging potential enemies and dancing to the medieval music. She also features on the advertising posters.

I love a good legend, especially when it’s possibly true!

(As a side note: In the Kings Hall of the Alcobaça Monastery, a giant iron cauldron sits in the corner, with no sign to explain its significance. But according to The Rough Guide to Portugal, it’s a “piece of war booty which must have warmed the souls of the brothers – the huge metal cauldron in which soup was heated up for the Spanish army before the battle of Aljubarrota in 1385.”)

Festival fun

Music, food, and great costumes fueled a festive atmosphere.

Wandering the main drag of Aljubarrota during the festival gave us a tiny but fun taste of what medieval life may have been like, minus odourous latrines and leprous bodies, of course. Although, one man done up in rather leprous makeup passed us by. And the horses and oxen left “pickup on aisle three” remains behind. The horses also added olfactory contributions for a full sensory experience.

We tapped our toes to peppy tunes played on a lute, drums, bagpipe and a wind instrument I didn’t recognize – a short clarinet-type instrument with a double reed mouthpiece giving an oboe-type sound. Other musicians wandered about, beating tambors and strumming guitars. We watched middle-eastern-inspired belly dancers sway. (Muslims ruled parts of Portugal in medieval times, until Christians slowly pushed them out).

Parades included jugglers, stilt walkers, elegant ladies in silken gowns and pointy hats, knights in shining armour, and fire carried in baskets hung between two people. Priests flung holy water at people. Banners flapped in the breeze.

Men in rough tunics cranked spits hung with whole pigs over glowing coals. Another man cranked a wooden handle to power a swing ride for children (no glowing coals though). They sat in the circling baskets and waved to their parents at each revolution.

Booths sold beer, wine, pão com chorizo, and all manner of pork dishes, served in terracotta cups, plates and bowls.

Vendor stalls featured pastries, honey, dried nuts and fruit, baskets, wooden toys, and costumes for those who wanted to get into the spirit. I bought a flower garland and wore it… along with the young girls.

The lively atmosphere was just plain fun.

Battle interpretation centre: warfare strategies explained

The excellent interpretation centre has a cinema, exhibits, timelines, a monument, and outside markers at key battle sites.

While watching the battle re-creation in Aljubarrota was entertaining, we learned more detail when we visited the Battle of Aljubarrota Interpretation Centre, located about 10 kilometres away next to the actual battlefield. The Portuguese chose to face the enemy at this spot – a sloping hillside with creeks on each side, acting as a natural funnel that constricted enemy movements.  

The Portuguese and English prepared the battlefield by digging dozens of long trenches and about 800 smaller pits called covas de lobo [wolf holes – we’d say ‘fox hole’ in English]. The centre’s lobby is built around an archeological dig of one of the trenches.

These pits and trenches – a new strategy of warfare the Portuguese had learned from the English – proved quite successful during the battle. The charging French and Castilian cavalry – with heavily armoured knights astride armoured horses – fell into the holes, killing and wounding many, and making it easier for the English archers and Portuguese infantry to do in the rest.  

We examined horses’ bones excavated from the battlefield along with some human bones showing injuries from swords and arrows.

An excellent multi-media show explained the battle and prepared us for walking around the battlefield. Many very detailed information panels (with English) marked where the Portuguese and English moved their troops and clashed with the Castilians and French in all phases of the battle.

Honestly, it was hard to keep all the troop movements straight. I simply tried to picture the English archers lined up on one side and imagined the Castilians working their way up the slope, only to fall into the trenches. I felt most sorry for the poor horses. 

John of Aviz, who had led the Portuguese along with Nuno Alvares Pereira, was confirmed as Portugal’s new king – King João I.

Portugal-Britain treaty still in force today

The English-Portuguese treaty, still in force today, is the longest-lasting diplomatic treaty in the world.

After the battle, the English and Portuguese reaffirmed their alliance with the Treaty of Windsor, signed in 1386 and sealed with the marriage of Philippa of Lancaster (from England) to King João I of Portugal. (Again, woman = pawn.)

However, the Treaty of Windsor was a reaffirmation of the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty that had been signed by the two countries nine years before, in 1373, promising “perpetual friendships, unions [and] alliances.”

Incredibly, the treaty is still in force today!

Indeed, it’s said to be the longest-lasting diplomatic treaty in the world. Although, to be accurate, there was a break from 1580 to 1640, when Spanish kings finally had their way and ruled Portugal. But the treaty resumed after that.

The treaty has been called into action many times over the centuries, including during the Napoleonic wars, the Second World War, and the 1982 Falklands War. Both countries commemorated the treaty’s 650^th anniversary in 2023.

Batalha monastery built as thanks

The Batalha monastery shows off its Gothic architecture and intricate Manueline stone carvings and detail.

One of the first things new King João did was to order the construction of a monastery as thanks to the Virgin Mary for winning the Battle of Aljubarrota. Officially called the Monastery of Santa Maria da Vitória [of Victory], the monastery is still seen as a symbol of Portuguese independence.

The town that grew up around it is called Batalha, meaning “Battle” in Portuguese, hence the colloquial name “Batalha Monastery.”  

The monastery complex took nearly 200 years to complete, although the so-called Unfinished Chapels were… wait for it… never completed at all. Even so, the open-air chapels without roofs are still beautiful – made up of seven funerary chapels.

Put quite simply, the ornate monastery is stunning. Built in the Gothic style of architecture, it was embellished later with the intricate stone carvings, curlicues, filigrees, and sculptures of the Manueline style – a solely Portuguese style that arose under King Manuel I in the late 1400s.

The splendid Founders’ Chapel has a gorgeous octagonal ceiling over some important entombed royals, including King João, his wife, Philippa of Lancaster, and their son Prince Henry the Navigator, who helped fuel Portugal’s Age of Discoveries.  

Brites de Almeida, know affectionately as the Mad Baker of Aljubarrota, allegedly had six fingers on each hand.

Does it matter now if the Mad Baker was real or legend?

I think not. The tale has fed Portuguese pride in the Battle of Aljubarrota and their country, knowing that the underdog can defeat those much bigger and stronger than themselves. And that’s something we all need.  

For more pictures of the festival from 2022, check out my Instagram posts; battle recreation, street parade

We visited Aljubarrota’s medieval festival in 2022 and 2024. Find out where we are right now by visiting our ‘Where’s Kathryn?’ page.