Portugal of the Portuguese

by Aubrey F. G. Bell

Portugal’s Battle Abbey, the Mosteiro da Batalha or de Santa Maria da Vitoria commemorates a victory not over the Moors, but over the invading Spaniard in the battle of Aljubarrota, King João I against King Juan I. The military genius and enthusiasm of Nun’ Alvares won the day. King João two years later married an English wife. Their children were given an English education, and became Prince Henry the Navigator, King Edward the Eloquent, one of the masters of early Portuguese prose, the Infante Pedro, also author and statesman, and the Infante Fernando, who died loyally in Africa, a happier death than that which awaited his brother Pedro, killed in a civil feud in the reign of his nephew Affonso V. English was all the order of the day, the story of King Arthur penetrated deep into Portuguese Court life and literature, the knightly Galahad was Nun’ Alvares’ model and hero. And under English influence, perhaps English workmen, was begun the great monastery which stands so nobly apart, grey traceries and pinnacles in a hollow of dark pine-covered hills. It must ever continue to be one of the chief attractions to those who visit Portugal, and it is to be hoped that it will ever retain its rustic situation, far from trains, hôtels and all those appurtenances of civilisation which usually dog the tourist’s footsteps. Indeed, this sequestered region between Leiria and Alcobaça will to many, whether they drive or walk, but especially if they walk, remain the principal among their many delightful memories of Portugal. The church of Batalha is more magnificent than that of Alcobaça, yet in some respects as severely beautiful. These lordly pillars have none of the false ornament which defaces the pillars of Belem, and the arches are of unrivalled boldness and beauty of proportion. Some of the windows have kept pieces of fine old stained glass among much modern stuff. In the Chapel of the Founders are the tombs of the Master of Aviz, João I, of his wife Philippa of Lancaster, and of their sons, Pedro, Enrique, João, and Fernando (the Infante Santo), whose untimely fate probably hastened the death of his brother, King Duarte, whose tomb is in another chapel of this church. The king was equally unwilling to give up Ceuta, for the surrender of which Prince Fernando had remained hostage, or to be responsible for his brother’s death. It was only two years after King Duarte’s death at Thomar in 1438 that the Infante’s sufferings in a Moorish dungeon ended. They were borne with a patience and intrepidity which made of him a true principe constante. His story is told in the Cronica do Infante Santo D. Fernando, by Frei João Alvarez. It is poetic justice that this splendid building should unite in death these five brothers who were as talented and as mutually affectionate as they were ill-fated—if fortunate implies long life rather than fine character or high deeds accomplished. Alcobaça for the most part scorns the Manoeline style and the church of Batalha is as purely Gothic. Its cloisters, however, and Unfinished Chapels (Capellas Imperfeitas) are the very flower of Manoeline. This strange style, typical of Portuguese restlessness and longing for new things, was introduced in the age of Portugal’s great discoveries and partly under Oriental influence. However inartistic its general effect, in details it is often beautiful, and always interesting as commemorating Portugal’s naval glories and the new animals, plants, shells, etc., found beyond the seas. The many minute designs, as well as the cryptic “Greek” inscriptions (really French: Tant que seray lealte faray) of these arches in the Unfinished Chapels are full of interest. The first view of Batalha gives an impression of greyness; but, nearer, the lower part is found to be built of stone originally snow-white, which changes to the most varied hues of yellow and grey as time and weather mould and stain it. With keen regret must travellers leave Batalha to take their way along the white road between pines to Alcobaça or Leiria.

Thomar.

A longer tramp or drive going East from Leiria takes one to Thomar in the very heart of Portugal, unless one goes by train to Payalvo, a few kilomètres from Thomar on the other side. The town and its river may have exchanged names since the ancient Nabantia apparently had a river called Thomar, whereas the river’s name is now Nabão. The site of Nabantia is supposed to be occupied now by the Church of Santa Maria do Olival, the oldest church of the Templars in Portugal, built by Gualdim Paes, one of the heroes of legendary feats of arms in the reign of the first King of Portugal. If in parts of the interior of Batalha the Manoeline style is seen in all its glory, in the Convent of Thomar it is the outside walls that display it in a way so bold and magnificent as to silence the carpers. It may be said that it is magnificent, but that it is not art: yet it was well that in at least one great building the outer walls should bear silent witness through the centuries to Portugal’s great achievement. Chain and grummet and rope, coral from distant seas, flowers and plants and birds from tropical lands, anchors and even—a conception as strange as its execution was happy—great bellying sails in stone, represent the story of those ships (ships of a few score tons)

Que foram descobrir mundos e mares.

The Convent contains a succession of cloisters and architecture of many centuries, the original Church of the Templars being of the twelfth century, when Affonso I relied on their strong right arms to force back the Moors mile by mile to the south. Indeed, the building is a perfect wilderness of courts and corridors. Gualdim Paes is not the only hero of these now deserted halls, for Prince Henry the Navigator was Grand Master of Thomar for over forty years, till his death in 1460, and devoted the greater part of the revenues of the Templars to further the cause he had most at heart—the extension of Christianity into lands and seas unknown. The view from the terrace is of surpassing beauty, and it seems a pity that there is no one living here permanently to enjoy it. The gently sloping hills are covered with every variety of green, from the grey of olives to the dark leaves of orange-trees. On the other side there is a view of Thomar beneath the Convent, a most curious town, of bare discomfortable look by reason of its angular buildings, steep towers and spires, severe mediaeval churches and clean streets of cobbles without side pavement. Its paper mills flourish, so that it does not stand aloof from modern industry and progress, but its inhabitants maintain an old-fashioned pride in themselves and their town.

Coimbra.

Coimbra lies some sixty miles due north of Thomar, on the other side of the Serra de Louzã, westernmost offshoot of the Serra da Estrella. Its look is far less grey and stern than that of Thomar. Most of its buildings are whitewashed, and a few washed in pink or yellow, so that the old cathedral stands out like a great mass of rock from among the tier after tier of houses that cover the steep hill above the Mondego. Indeed, it is the exterior of the Sé Velha that is chiefly remarkable, in its massive and imposing grandeur. Coimbra has many other fine old buildings set among its serried houses. The University or Schools (Paços das Escholas) stands at the very top of the town, its clock-tower pointing skyward. Students in their long black coats, white ties, and flowing gowns (capas), bareheaded even in July, when the summer term ends, are to be seen everywhere in the narrow streets or along the river and famous walk under the poplars (the Choupal). The Faculty of Theology is now abolished, but they may study mathematics, philosophy, philology, medicine, and especially they study law as a preliminary to a political career. They enter the University younger than is usual at an English University and remain longer—about eight years. The University with its spacious quadrangles, fine halls, and library, is surrounded by a view of valleys, hills and river such as surely no other University in the world can boast. The Mondego is one of the most beautiful rivers of Northern Portugal, the land of transparent rivers and streams flowing over granite and tinged by no taint of soil. Close to the Mondego across the bridge is the remnant of the old convent of Santa Clara. It is now a farmhouse and the fine capitals of its pillars between which the oxen have their stalls are now but a few feet from the ground, so great is the volume of sand carried down by the cheias of the river. It flows so mansamente, clear and gentle, but owing to the rockiness of its bed has no elasticity, and a few hours of heavy rain suffice to turn it into a huge rushing torrent. The new Mosteiro de Santa Clara is built high above the level of the river, and the Quinta das Lagrimas stands some way from its banks. Here the Fonte dos Amores flows from a rock of ferns and flowers through a rough cross-shaped channel of stone, the iron-red stains of which are supposed to mark the place where Inés de Castro was murdered in 1355, a date hardly less celebrated in Portugal than that other fifty-five of the great Lisbon earthquake four centuries later. All these buildings are on the left bank of the river among a lovely orchard-country of orange, cherry, and pomegranate. The principal building in Coimbra itself after the Sé Velha is the Mosteiro de Santa Cruz, which was built in the twelfth century, and contains the tombs of Affonso and Sancho, the first two Kings of Portugal. Its church is much later, built by Marcos Pires in the sixteenth century. He was also the architect of the Convent’s Manoeline “Cloisters of Silence.” But Coimbra as a whole seen from the green Mondego or from the Mosteiro de Santa Clara beyond it, is a work of art, and both the town and surrounding country deserve a far more prolonged study than they usually receive.

Striking Positions.

It is in the strip of country between Tagus and Mondego that Portugal has massed her most famous and beautiful buildings, and the hurried traveller can thus within a space of about a hundred miles see Belem and Cintra and Mafra, Alcobaça, Batalha, and Thomar, Santarem, Leiria and Coimbra. But Portugal possesses a hundred other towns and towers so splendidly situated as to need little art for their beauty’s heightening. What can be finer, for instances at random, than the position of Palmella or of Covilhã, or high-perched Guarda, or Louzã, or the castle of Melgaço, or the ruins of the monastery of Crato, the early home of Nun’ Alvares, or of the castle of Almourol on its Tagus islet, the site chosen by the Romans and the castle famous in the adventures of Palmeirim of England.

Minho.