Villar de Frades.
Towards the end of King João's reign a man named João Vicente, noting the corruption into which the religious orders were falling, determined to do what he could by preaching and example to bring back a better state of things. He first began his work in Lisbon, but was driven from there by the bishop to find a refuge at Braga. There he so impressed the archbishop that he was given the decayed and ruined monastery of Villar de Frades in 1425. Soon he had gathered round him a considerable body of followers, to whom he gave a set of rules and who, after receiving the papal sanction, were known as the Canons Secular of St. John the Evangelist or, popularly, Loyos, because their first settlement in Lisbon was in a monastery formerly dedicated to St. Eloy. The church at Villar, which is of considerable size, was probably long of building, as the elliptical-headed west door with its naturalistic treelike posts has details which did not become common till at least the very end of the century. Inside the church consists of a nave of five bays, flanked with chapels but not aisles, transepts which are really only enlarged chapels, and a chancel like the nave but without chapels. The chief feature of the inside is the very elaborate vaulting, which with the number and intricacy of its ribs, is not at all unlike an English Perpendicular vault, and indeed would need but little change to develop into a fan vault. Here then there has been a considerable advance from the imperfect vaulting of the central aisle at Batalha, where the diagonal ribs had to be squeezed in wherever they could go, although there are at Villar no side aisles so that the construction of supporting buttresses was of course easier than at Batalha: and it is well worth noticing how from so imperfect a beginning as the nave at Batalha the Portuguese masters soon learned to build elaborate and even wide vaults, without, as a rule, covering them with innumerable and meaningless twisting ribs as was usually done in Spain. In the north-westernmost chapel stands the font, an elaborate work of the early renaissance; an octagonal bowl with twisted sides resting on a short twisted base.
Matriz, Alvito.
Not unlike the vaulting at Villar is that of the Matriz or mother church of Alvito, a small town in the Alemtejo, nor can it be very much later in date. Outside it is only remarkable for its west door, an interesting example of an attempt to use the details of the early French renaissance, without understanding how to do so—as in the pediment all the entablature except the architrave has been left out—and for the short twisted pinnacles which somehow give to it, as to many other buildings in the Alemtejo, so Oriental a look, and which are seen again at Belem. Inside, the aisles are divided from the nave by round chamfered arches springing from rather short octagonal piers, which have picturesque octagonal capitals and a moulded band half-way up. Only is the easternmost bay, opening to large transeptal chapels, pointed and moulded. The vaulting springs from corbels, and although the ribs are but simply chamfered they are well developed. Curiously, though the central is so much higher than the side aisles, there is no clerestory, nor any signs of there ever having been one, while the whole wall surface is entirely covered with those beautiful tiles which came to be so much used during the seventeenth century.
In the year 1415 her five sons had sailed straight from the deathbed of Queen Philippa to the coast of Morocco and had there captured the town of Ceuta, a town which remained in the hands of the Portuguese till after their ill-fated union with Spain; for in 1668 it was ceded to Spain in return for an acknowledgment of Portuguese independence, thus won after twenty-seven years' more or less continuous fighting. This was the first time any attempt had been made to carry the Portuguese arms across the Straits, and to attack their old enemies the Moors in their own land, where some hundred and seventy years later King João's descendant, Dom Sebastião, was to lose his life and his country's freedom.
Tomb in Graça, Santarem.
The first governor of Ceuta was Dom Pedro de Menezes, count of Viana. There he died in 1437, after having for twenty-two years bravely defended and governed the city—then, as is inscribed on his tomb, the only place in Africa possessed by Christians. This tomb, which was made at the command of his daughter Dona Leonor, stands in the church of the Graça at Santarem, a church which had been founded by his grandfather the count of Ourem in 1376 for canons regular of St. Augustine. Inside the church itself is not very remarkable,[86] having a nave and aisles with transepts and three vaulted chapels to the east, built very much in the same style as is the church at Leça do Balio, except that it has a fine west front, to be mentioned later, that the roof of the nave was knocked down by the Devil in 1548 in anger at the extreme piety of Frey Martinho de Santarem, one of the canons, and that many famous people, including Pedro Alvares Cabral, the discoverer of Brazil, are therein buried.
In general outline the tomb of the count of Viana is not unlike that of his master Dom João, but it is much more highly decorated. On eight crouching lions rests a large altar-tomb. It has a well-moulded and carved base and an elaborately carved cornice, rich with deeply undercut foliage, while on the top lie Pedro de Menezes and his wife Dona Beatriz Coutinho, with elaborately carved canopies at their heads, and pedestals covered with figures and foliage at their feet. Beneath the cornice on each of the longer sides is cut in Gothic letters a long inscription telling of Dom Pedro's life, and lower down and on all four sides there is in the middle a shield, now much damaged, with the Menezes arms. On each side of these shields are carved spreading branches, knotted round a circle in the centre in which is cut the word 'Aleo.' Once, when playing with King João at a game in which some kind of club or mallet was used, the news came that the Moors were collecting in great numbers to attack Ceuta. The king, turning to Dom Pedro, asked him what reinforcements he would need to withstand the attack; the governor answered: 'This "Aleo," or club, will be enough,' and in fact, returning at once to his command, he was able without further help to drive back the enemy. So this word has been carved on his tomb to recall how well he did his duty.[87] ([Fig. 39].)
Tomb in São João de Alporão.
Not far from the Graça church is that of São João de Alporão, of which something has already been said, and in it now stands the tomb of another Menezes, who a generation later also died in Africa, fighting to save the life of his king, Dom Affonso v., grandson of King João. Notwithstanding the ill-success of the expedition of his father, Dom Duarte, to Tangier, Dom Affonso, after having got rid of his uncle the duke of Coimbra, who had governed the country during his minority, and who fell in battle defending himself against the charge of treason, led several expeditions to Morocco, taking first Alcazar es Seghir or Alcacer Seguer, and later Tangier and Arzilla, thereby uselessly exhausting the strength of the people, and hindering the spread of maritime exploration which Dom Henrique had done so much to extend.