Freire

Freire / Freyre is a word used in the Portuguese and Galician languages to define the occupational name for a friar, or a nickname for a pious person or someone employed at a monastery. The word is derived from Latin frater, which means brother.

In the eleventh century religious associations of horsemen were founded, called the Military Orders, whose members, in the language of the Church, were called fratres, and each frater (m). This word entered the everyday language which meant fraternized Knight by the Military Orders, and, as circumstances of time and place, the Portuguese territory had evolved phonetically similar forms of the form "Frei" hence the name Freire of these knights, and how "Brother" was used as a prepositional name to qualify the proper name of the Knights. Among the French knights who came from France, accompanied D. Raymond and D. Henry, who were the soldiers' "Freire, the family of former Galicia, which joined the Andrade, almost at the beginning, joining later for new wedlock so many times that is difficult to distinguish one from the another. These unions created one family, that of Freire de Andrade, who came to Portugal in the Middle Ages. Some use both names together, others only to Andrade or just Freire, and this, as it were the weapons were a (Coat of nobility) with the band, open mouthed serpent heads (Encyclopedia Portuguese and Brazilian). The kingdom of Leon, a region that today corresponds to the extreme northern Spain, was divided into duchies, where he was part of that kingdom the Duchy of Portu-Callis and the duchy of Galicia. "Two French noblemen, D. Raymond, son of Count Henry of Burgundy and his cousin, offered to Alfonso VI, King of Leon to fight in the war against the Moors, perhaps in return for services rendered by war Afonso VI married his legitimate daughter, Urraca with Raymond and his illegitimate daughter, Dona Teresa to Henry. Raymond received the government of Galicia and Henry Duchy of Portu-Callis "( A. Souto Maior, History of Brazil, page 17). Portu-Callis was to become in 1143 the Kingdom of Portugal ruled by Henry (The conqueror)recognised by the kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of León through the teaty of Zamora in 1143. In 1179 Pope Alexander III r recognized Portugal as an independent nation and vassal of the church through the bull Manifestis Probatum.