ith a distorted monster. This with the
drip-mould springs from a billet-moulded abacus resting on broad square
piers. Of the two inner carved orders, the outer is covered on both
faces with innumerable animals and birds, and the other with a delicate
pattern of interlacing bands. These two spring from strange square abaci
resting on the carved capitals of round shafts, two on each side. A few
feet above the door runs a billet-moulded string course, and two or
three feet higher another and slighter course. On this stands a large
window of two orders. Of these the outer covered with animals springs
from shafts and capitals very like those of the doorway, and the inner
has a billet-moulded edge and an almost Celtic ornament on the face. Now
whether Villar be older than the smaller buildings in the neighbourhood
or not, it is undoubtedly quite different not only in style but in
execution. It is not only much larger and higher, but it is better built
and the carving is finer and more carefully wrought. (Fig. 13.)

It is known that the great cathedral of Santiago in Galicia was begun in
1078, just about the time Villar must have been building, and Santiago
is an almost exact copy in granite of what the great abbey church of S.
Sernin at Toulouse was intended to be, so that it may be assumed that
Bernardo who built the cathedral was, if not a native of Toulouse, at
any rate very well acquainted with what was being done there. If, then,
a native of Languedoc was called in to plan so important a church in
Galicia, it is not unlikely that other foreigners were also employed in
the county of Portugal--at that time still a part of Galicia; and in
fact many churches in the south-west of what is now France have doorways
and windows whose general design is very like that at Villar de Frades,
if allowance be made for the difference of material, granite here, fine
limestone there, and for a comparative want of skill in the workmen.[35]

[Sidenote: Se, Braga.]

Probably these foreigners were not invited to Portugal for the sake of
the church of a remote abbey like Villar, but to work at the
metropolitan cathedral of Braga. The see of Braga is said to have been
founded by Sao Pedro de Rates, a disciple of St. James himself, and in
consequence of so distinguished an origin its archbishops claim the
primacy not only of all Portugal, but even of all the Spains, a claim
which is of course disputed by the patriarch of Lisbon, not to speak of