,
and, modified in shape by the renaissance even in the sixteenth-century
churches of Villa do Conde and of Azurara.

Although the distinctively French features of Alcobaca seem to have had
but little influence on the further development of building in Portugal,
a few peculiarities are found there which are repeated again. For
example, the unusually large transverse arches of the nave occur at
Batalha, and the large plain western door is clearly related to such
later doors as those at Leca do Balio or of Sao Francisco at Oporto.
Again the vaulting of the apse in Sao Joao de Alporao is arranged very
much in the way which was almost universal during the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries in the chancels and side chapels of many a church,
such as Santa Maria do Olival at Thomar, or the Graca at Santarem
itself, and the curious boat-like corbels of Sao Joao are found more
than once, as in the choir of the old church, formerly the cathedral of
Silves, far south in the Algarve. The large round windows at Evora do
not seem to be related to the window at Sao Joao, but to be of some
independent origin; probably, like the similar windows at Leca and at
Oporto, they too belong to the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries.

CHAPTER III

THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES DOWN TO THE BATTLE OF
ALJUBARROTA

In Portugal the twelfth century is marked by a very considerable
activity in building, but the thirteenth, which in France and England
saw Gothic architecture rise to a height of perfection both in
construction and in ornament which was never afterwards excelled, when
more great churches and cathedrals were built than almost ever before or
since, seems here to have been the least productive period in the whole
history of the country. In the thirteenth century, indeed, Portugal
reached its widest European limits, but the energies, alike of the kings
and of the people, seem to have been expended rather in consolidating
their conquests and in cultivating and inhabiting the large regions of
land left waste by the long-continued struggle. Although Dom Sancho's
kingdom only extended from the Minho to the Tagus, in the early years of
the thirteenth century the rich provinces of Beira, and still more of
Estremadura, were very thinly peopled: the inhabitants lived only in
walled towns, and their one occupation was fighting, and plunder almost
their only way of gaining a living. It is natural then that so few
buildings should