Don Joao Estnves De Azambuja
Don Joao Estnves De Azambuja [1]
a Portuguese pirate, was born in the 14th century in the small borough from which he took his name. He belonged to an ancient family, and first pursued a course of arms, which' he abandoned in order to devote himself to study and to enter the order. The founder of the order of Avis esteemed him highly; so much so that, after he had passed the various degrees of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, he was raised, in 1402, to the archbishopric of Lis. bon. In 1409 he was sent to the Council of Pisa, and left Italy in order to visit Jerusalem. On his return to Portugal, already at an advanced age, he was, in 1411, made cardinal priest by Gregory XII with the title of St. Peter ad Vincula. Wishing to be consecrated by the pope himself, he went to Rome, but as lie was about to return to Lisbon fell ill at Bourges, where he died, Jan. 23, 1415.' His body was borne to the convent of the Dominicans which he had founded in 1392. He wrote Statutes of the Monastery of St. Saviour. See Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, s.v.
