in customs from

[Illustration: FIG. 5.

CROSS AT COIMBRA.]

[Illustration: FIG. 6.

CHALICE AT COIMBRA.]

[Illustration: FIG. 7.

MONSTRANCE AT COIMBRA.]

those they ruled, has naturally had a strong influence, not only on the
language of Portugal, but also on the art. Though there survive no
important Moorish buildings dating from before the re-conquest--for the
so-called mosque at Cintra is certainly a small Christian church--many
were built after it for Christians by Moorish workmen.

These, as well as the Arab ceilings, or those derived therefrom, will be
described later, but here must be mentioned the tilework, the most
universally distributed legacy of the Eastern people who once held the
land. There is scarcely a church, certainly scarcely one of any size or
importance which even in the far north has not some lining or dado of
tiles, while others are entirely covered with them from floor to ceiling
or vault.

The word _azulejo_ applied to these tiles is derived from the Arabic
_azzallaja_ or _azulaich_, meaning _smooth_, or else through the Arabic
from a Low Latin word _azuroticus_ used by a Gaulish writer of the fifth
century to describe mosaic[23] and not from the word _azul_ or _blue_.
At first each different piece or colour in a geometric pattern was cut
before firing to the shape required, and the many different pieces when
coloured and fired were put together so as to form a regular mosaic.
This method of making tiles, though soon given up in most places as
being too troublesome, is still employed at Tetuan in Morocco, where in
caves near the town the whole process may still be seen; for there the
mixing of the clay, the cutting out of the small pieces, the colouring
and the firing are still carried on in the old primitive and traditional
manner.[24]

Elsewhere, though similar designs long continued to be used in Spain and
Portugal, and are still used in Morocco, the tiles were all made square,
each tile usually forming one quarter of the pattern. In them the
pattern was formed by lines slightly raised above the surface of the
tile so that there was no danger during the firing of the colour running
beyond the place it was intended to occupy.

For a long time, indeed right up to the end of the fifteenth century,
scarcely anything but Moorish geometric patterns seem to have been used.
Then with the renaissance their place was taken by other patterns of
infinite variety; some have octagons