s to the buildings at Thomar, for the knights had not been
compelled to live in common like monks.

Accordingly Joao de Castilho was summoned back from Belem and by 1528
had got to work.

All these additions were made to the west of the existing buildings, and
to make room for them Dom Joao had to buy several houses and gardens,
which together formed a suburb called Sao Martinho, and some of which
were the property of Joao de Castilho, who received for them 463$000 or
about L100.[150]

[Illustration: PLAN OF THOMAR]

These great additions, which took quite twenty-five years to build,
cover an immense area, measuring more than 300 feet long by 300 wide and
containing five cloisters. Immediately to the west of the Coro of the
church, then probably scarcely finished, is the small cloister of Sta.
Barbara; to the north of this is the larger Claustro da Hospedaria,
begun about 1539, while to the south and hiding the lower part of the
Coro is the splendid two-storied Claustro, miscalled 'dos Filippes,'
begun in its present form in 1557 by Diogo de Torralva some time after
de Castilho's death.

Further west are two other large cloisters, do Mixo or da Micha to the
north and dos Corvos to the south, and west of the Corvos a sort of
farmyard called the Pateo dos Carrascos--that is of the evergreen oaks,
or since Carrasco also means a hangman, it may be that the executioners
of the Inquisition had their quarters there.

Between these cloisters, and dividing the three on the east from the two
on the west, is an immense corridor nearly three hundred feet long from
which small cells open on each side; in the centre it is crossed by
another similar corridor stretching over one hundred and fifty feet to
the west, separating the two western cloisters, and with a small chapel
to the east.

North of all the cloisters are more corridors and rooms extending
eastwards almost to the Templars' castle, but there the outer face dates
mostly from the seventeenth century or later.

The first part to be begun was the Claustro da Micha, or loaf, so called
from the bread distributed there to the poor. Outside it was begun in
1528, but inside an inscription over the door says it was begun in 1534
and finished in 1546. Being the kitchen cloister it is very plain, with
simple round-headed arches. Only the entrance door is adorned with a
Corinthian column on either side; its straight head rests on well-carved
corbels, and above it is a large i