ys are good late Gothic, what can be said
of the western? Here the fancy of the designer seems to have run quite
wild, and here it is that what have been considered to be Indian
features are found.

It is hard to believe that Joao de Castilho, who nowhere, except perhaps
in the sacristy door at Alcobaca, shows any love of what is abnormal and
outlandish, should have designed these extraordinary details, and so
perhaps the local tradition may be so far true, according to which the
architect was not Joao but one Ayres do Quintal. Nothing else seems to
be known of Ayres--though a head carved under the west window of the
chapter-house is said to be his--but in a country so long illiterate as
Portugal, where unwritten stories have been handed down from quite
distant times, it is possible that oral tradition may be as true as
written records.

Now it is known that Joao de Castilho was working at Alcobaca in 1519.
In 1522 he was busy at Belem, where he may have been since 1517, when
for the first time some progress seems to have been made with the
building there. What really happened, therefore, may be that when he
left Thomar, the Coro was indeed built, and the eastern buttresses
finished, but that the carving of the western part was still uncut and
so may have been the work of Ayres after Joao was himself gone.[116]
This is, of course, only a conjecture, for Ayres seems to be mentioned
in no document, but whoever it was who carved these buttresses and
windows was a man of extraordinary originality, and almost mad fancy.

To turn now from the question of the builder to the building itself. The
large round buttresses at the west end are fluted at the bottom; at
about half their height comes a band of carving about six feet deep
seeming to represent a mass of large ropes ending in tasselled fringes
or possibly of roots. On one buttress a large chain binds these
together, on the others a strap and buckle--probably the Order of the
Garter given to Dom Manoel by Henry VII. Above this five large knotty
tree-trunks or branches of coral grow up the buttresses uniting in rough
trefoiled heads at the top, and having statues between them--Dom Affonso
Henriques,

[Illustration: FIG. 55.

THOMAR. CONVENT OF CHRIST. S. DOOR.]

[Illustration: FIG. 56.

THOMAR. OUTSIDE OF W. WINDOW OF CHAPTER HOUSE UNDER HIGH CHOIR IN
NAVE.]

Dom Gualdim Paes, Dom Diniz and Dom Manoel--two on each buttress. Then
the buttress becomes eight-sided an