lding. The roofs are all of panelled wood of the sixteenth
century except in the three vaulted apses, of which the central is
entered by an arch, which, rising no higher than the aisle arches,
leaves room for a large window under the roof. All the arches of the
aisle arcade spring from the simple moulded capitals of piers whose
section is that of four half-octagons placed together. In the

[Illustration: FIG. 26.

SANTAREM.

W. DOOR, SAO FRANCISCO.]

[Illustration: FIG. 27.

SE SILVES.]

clerestory are windows of one small light, in the aisles of two larger
lights, and in the apses single lancets. The great simplicity of the
building notwithstanding it can scarcely be as old as the thirteenth
century: the curious way in which the two lancet lights of the aisle
windows are enclosed under one larger trefoiled arch recalls the similar
windows in the church at Leca do Balio near Oporto begun in 1336, though
there the elliptical head of the enclosing arch is much less
satisfactory than the trefoiled head here used. The only part of the
church which can possibly have been built in the thirteenth century is
the central part of the west front. The pointed door below stands under
a projecting gable like that at Sao Francisco Santarem, except that
there is a five-foiled circle above the arch containing a pentalpha, put
there perhaps to keep out witches. The door itself has three large
shafts on each side with good but much-decayed capitals of foliage, and
a moulded jamb next the door. The arch itself is terribly decayed, but
one of its orders still has the remains of a series of large cusps,
arranged like the horseshoe cusps at Santarem but much larger. Above the
door gable is a circular window of almost disproportionate size. It has
twelve trefoil-headed lights radiating from a small circle, and
curiously crossing a larger circle some distance from the smaller.
Unfortunately the spaces between the trefoils and the outer mouldings
have been filled up with plaster and the lights themselves subdivided
with meaningless wood tracery to hold the horrible blue-and-red glass
now so popular in Portugal. Though Santa Maria dos Olivaes cannot be
nearly as old as has usually been believed, it is one of the earliest
churches built on the plan derived perhaps first from Braga Cathedral or
from the Franciscan and Dominican churches in Galicia, of a wooden
roofed basilica with or without transept, and with three or more apses
to the eas