Joao Peculiar (1103-3 December 1175) was the Portuguese Roman Catholic Bishop of Porto from 1136 to 1138 and Archbishop of Braga from 1138 to 1175.
Biography[]
Joao Peculiar was born in Coimbra, Portugal in 1103, and he studied in Coimbra and Paris before being ordained as a Roman Catholic priest and founding a convent in Beira in 1123. He went on to serve as Bishop of Porto from 1136 to 1138 and then as Archbishop of Braga from 1138 to 1175, organizing the 1143 meeting between King Alfonso VII of Leon and Afonso Henriques of Portugal which resulted in the signing of the Treaty of Zamora and Castile and Leon's recognition of Portuguese independence. Joao always accompanied King Afonso, including during the 1147 Siege of Lisbon, and, while he travelled to Rome 14 times in a bid to secure the Papacy's recognition of Afonso as King, this would only happen in 1179, four years after Joao's death.