re, contains the main altar. Such are Fontenay near Monbart and
Furness in Lancashire, and even Melrose, though there the church has
been rebuilt more or less on the old plan but with a wealth of detail
and size of window quite foreign to the original rule. In the other, a
more complex type, the transept may have a western aisle, and instead of
a plain square chancel there is an apse with surrounding aisle and
beyond it a series of four-sided chapels. Pontigny, famous for the
shelter it gave to Thomas-a-Becket, and begun in 1114, is of this type,
and so was Clairvaux itself, begun in 1115 and rebuilt in the eighteenth
century. Now this is the type followed by Alcobaca, and it is worthy of
notice that, as far as the plan of choir and transept goes, Alcobaca and
Clairvaux are practically identical. Pontigny has a choir of three bays
between the transept and the apse and seven encircling chapels;
Clairvaux had, and Alcobaca still has, a choir of but one bay and nine
instead of seven chapels. Both had long naves, Clairvaux of eleven and
Alcobaca of thirteen bays, but at the west end there is a change, due
probably to the length of time which passed before it was reached, for
there is no trace of the large porch or narthex found in most early
Cistercian churches.

The church is by far the largest in Portugal. It is altogether about 365
feet long, the nave alone being about 250 feet by 75, while the transept
measures about 155 feet from north to south. Except in the choir all the
aisles are of the same height, about 68 feet.

The east end is naturally the oldest part and most closely resembled its
French original; the eight round columns of the apse have good plain
capitals like those found in so many early Cistercian churches, even in
Italy;[52] the round-headed clerestory windows are high and narrow, and
there are well-developed flying buttresses. Unfortunately all else has
been changed: in the apse itself everything up to the clerestory level
has been hidden by two rows of classic columns and a huge reredos, and
all the choir chapels have been filled with rococo woodwork and gilding,
the work of an Englishman, William Elsden, who was employed to beautify
the church in 1770.[53] Why except for the choir aisle, and the chapels
in choir and transept, the whole church should be of the same height, it
is difficult to say, for such a method of building was unknown in France
and equally unknown in Spain or Portugal. Possibly by t