ssive crocketed ribs
ending in a huge finial, and with the space between filled in with very
fine pierced work.[79] From such of the original detail which has

[Illustration: FIG. 33.

BATALHA.

WEST FRONT OF CHURCH.

_From a photograph by E. Biel & Co., Oporto._]

survived the beautiful alterations of Dom Manoel, the details of the
cloister must have been very like those of the church. The refectory to
the west of the cloister is a plain room roofed with a pointed
barrel-vault; but the chapter-house is constructively the most
remarkable part of the whole convent. It is a great room over sixty feet
square, opening off the east cloister walk by a large pointed door with
a two-light window each side. This great space is covered by an immense
vault, upheld by no central shaft; arches are thrown across the corners
bringing the square to an octagon, and though not very high, it is one
of the boldest Gothic vaults ever attempted; there is nowhere else a
room of such a size vaulted without supporting piers, and probably none
where the buttresses outside, with their small projection, look so
unequal to the work they have to do, yet this vault has successfully
withstood more than one earthquake.

The inside of the church is in singular contrast to the floridness of
the outside. The clustered piers are exceptionally large and tall; there
is no triforium, and the side windows are set so far back as to be
scarcely seen. The capitals have elaborate Gothic foliage, but are so
square as to look at a distance almost romanesque. In front of each pier
triple vaulting shafts run up, but instead of the side shafts carrying
the diagonal ribs as they should have done, all three carry bold
transverse arches, leaving the vaulting ribs to spring as best they can.
Each bay has horizontal ridge ribs, though their effect is lost by the
too great strength of the transverse arches. The chancel, a little lower
than the nave and transepts, is entered by an acutely pointed and richly
cusped arch, and has a regular Welsh groined vault, with a
well-developed ridge rib. Unfortunately almost all the church furniture
was destroyed during the French retreat, and of the stained glass only
that in the windows of the main apse survives, save in the three-light
window of the chapter-house, a window which can be exactly dated as it
displays the arms of Portugal and Castile quartered. This could only
have been done during the life of Dom Manoel's first wife