Gomes Eannes de Azurara, to give the modern spelling of his name, though he always signed himself simply "Gomes Eanes" or "Gomes Annes",[1] was the son of João Eannes de Azurara, a Canon of Evora and Coimbra; but, beyond the fact of this paternity, we know nothing of his father, and only by conjecture is it possible to arrive at the name of his mother, as will hereafter appear. He is said to have come of a good family, on the ground of his admission into the Order of Christ. [Footnote 1: In the _Chronica de Guiné_, ch. 97, he calls himself "Gomez Eanes de Zurara."] As with several other Portuguese men of letters, the respective years of Azurara's birth and death are unknown,[2] and two localities dispute the honour of having given him to the world; but there seems little doubt that this "bonus Grammaticus, nobilis Astrologus, et magnus Historiographus," as his friend Pisano calls him,[3] was born in the town of his name, in the Province of Minho, at the very commencement of the 15th century. In proof of this it should be stated that Azurara expressly declares in his _Chronica de Ceuta_, which was finished in 1450, that he had not passed "the three first ages of man" when he wrote it.[4] [Footnote 2: Barros, writing before 1552, says, "I know not how long he lived."--_Asia_, Dec. 1, liv. ii, ch. 2.] [Footnote 3: "De Bello Septensi," p. 27 (in the _Ineditos de Historia Portugueza_, vol. i, Lisbon, 1790).] [Footnote 4: _Chronica de Ceuta_, ch. 23.] The dispute as to his birthplace between the Azurara in Minho and the Azurara in Beira[5] is not easy to settle, but tradition favours the former, and until the end of the last century no writer had ventured to doubt that the ancient town at the mouth of the River Ave, which received its first charter, or "foral", from the Count D. Henrique in 1102 or 1107, was the early home of the Chronicler.[6] Such evidence as exists in favour of the latter place is slight, consisting only of inferences drawn from a document, dated August 23rd, 1454, in which Affonso V grants certain privileges to two inhabitants of Castello Branco, who were accustomed to collect the Chronicler's rents and bring them to Lisbon. From this it has been argued by such able critics as Vieira de Meyrelles and Rodriguez d'Azevedo that these rents must have issued out of family property situate at the Azurara in Beira, which happens to be in the district of Castello Branco, and hence that the Chronicler was a native of Beira rather than of Minho.[7] The conclusion seems far-fetched, to say the least, for it is just as likely that these two men were agents for a benefice, or "commenda", at Alcains, in the same district, which Azurara possessed at the time this grant was made.[8] [Footnote 5: This place is in Beira Alta, twelve kilometres east of Vizeu, famous (_inter alia_) for the great picture of St. Peter as Pope, lately reproduced by the Arundel Society.]