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ECCLESIOLOGIST.

“Surge igitur et fac: et erit Dominus tecum."

No. CIII.-AUGUST, 1854.

(NEW SERIES, NO. LXVII.)

BATALHA.

A Paper read before the Ecclesiological late Cambridge Camden Society, at the Fifteenth Anniversary Meeting on Tuesday, June 20th, 1854. By the Rev. J. M. NEALE, M.A.

THE church to which I am about to call the attention of the society, Santa Maria da Victoria, at BATALHA, in Portuguese Estremadura, has been less visited by Englishmen than any other of those seven or eight prodigies of Christian art among which it claims a distinguished place: Cologne, and Amiens, and Milan, and S. Stephen's at Vienna, and Westminster, and Seville. The remoteness of its situation, and its difficulty of access, are sufficient to account for this neglect. But while, as a whole, it is perhaps inferior (except in size) to any of the churches I have named, in particular portions, if I am not mistaken, it may rival the greatest beauties that any of them possess, and may claim particular attention from us, because of the share which English influence had in its erection.

It has found, as every one knows, an enthusiastic describer in James Murphy, who, sixty years ago, astonished as much as he edified the worthy Dominicans, by the zeal with which he drew, measured, investigated documents, and made notes. No doubt it was in part owing to him that the Portuguese have been taught to regard Batalha with the veneration in which it is now held; for they have ruthlessly swept away churches of merit not much inferior, in order to replace them by classical buildings. All that could be done by diligence and perseverance, Murphy did. But it was impossible that, in the dark age in which he lived, he should have possessed anything like an intelligent appreciation of Christian art. Where he theorizes, he falls into mistakes which a beginner in ecclesiology would be ashamed to make; and the plan which he presented to the Government for the completion of the Capella

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Imperfeita, is as wretched a design as anything that ever proceeded from a Smirke or a Wyatt. In criticising this chapel, an erection of the latest Flamboyant, he thus describes its style :- The architecture in some parts is Arabian; in others absolute Gothic.' I do not wish to underrate his engravings, which are now lying on the table. It is wonderful that, in 1789, any architect could be found so enthusiastic in his admiration of Christian art, as to undertake a voyage to Portugal simply for the sake of investigating this building, and to spend thirteen weeks in sketching and measuring. But they utterly fail to give any true idea of Batalha; and there are gross and absolute blunders in many of them, which it is wonderful that any professed architect could have made. The letterpress of his description is mainly translated from the Portuguese account of Fr. Luis de Sousa, written about 1590; but in his "Travels in Portugal," the architect has added some observations of his own. Neither one nor the other account is of any great value; and I shall only avail myself of Murphy's measurements in this paper.

I have read with much more interest the historical memoir on the royal monastery of Batalha, by Dom Francisco de S. Luiz, the late Cardinal Patriarch, which is printed in the tenth volume of the Transactions of the Academia das Sciencias. Count Raczynski epitomises this in his Arts en Portugal, p. 225, &c., but without adding anything to the Patriarch's account. And having visited this wonderful church in two successive years, I am not sorry to have the opportunity of doing what in me lies to persuade others to see it for themselves.

It will be proper, in the first place, to say a few words on its foundation.

On the death, in 1383, of D. Fernando I., King of Portugal, there was, in point of fact, no successor to the throne. That monarch had indeed left a daughter, married to D. Juan I., King of Castile; but, by the fundamental laws of Portugal, she had lost her right of succession by that marriage. But his predecessor, D. Pedro, had left an illegitimate son, D. João, Master of the Military Order of Aviz. In the Cortes held at Coimbra to consider the question, the claims of this nobleman were put forward so strongly by his partizans, and the right of the people, under the existing circumstances, to elect a monarch was so forcibly urged by the great lawyer, João das Regras, that the Master of Aviz was unanimously chosen, and took the title of D. João I. The details of the war which followed between Castile and Portugal form no part of our subject. It is sufficient to say that, at length, on the 14th of August, 1385, the two armies met on the field of Aljubarrota. The Castilians, commanded by the King in person, have been variously reckoned at from thirty to fifty thousand; the Portuguese could only muster six thousand five hundred. The former had, moreover, the advantage of the position, occupying the west of the field, late in the afternoon of an August day, while the sun almost blinded their opponents: besides which, they had ten pieces of artillery, then

1 Travels in Portugal, p. 42.

2 E.g. the Coronation of S. Mary is omitted in the apex of the canopy of the western door: in the elevation of the north aisle, its easternmost window is made of three lights instead of one, &c.

called trons, the first ever used in the Peninsula. Under these circumstances, D. João, having confessed and communicated at the hands of D. Lourenço de Lourinhãa, Archbishop-Primate of Braga, made a vow that, if he were successful, he would found the most magnificent monastery ever seen in Portugal, and would dedicate it to S. Mary, on the eve of whose Assumption the battle was fought. The romantic details of the conflict would lead us too far from our subject. The Castilians were utterly defeated; with the loss of their great standard, the King's private chapel with its silver altar, (I have seen the latter in the sacristy of Guimarães,) and so dreadful a slaughter, that a year's mourning was ordered throughout the kingdom of Castile.

Having thus made good his claim to the crown, D. João married Philippa, eldest daughter of our John of Gaunt, who was then in Spain; and forthwith applied himself to the fulfilment of his vow. He chose for the site of his foundation a valley two leagues to the east of Aljubarrota, then called Canoeira, about a mile from the actual spot where the engagement commenced. The Dominicans persuaded him to appropriate it to their order; and the letters of donation were issued from the camp before Melgaço, in 1388. From that date the works were carried forward, more or less continuously, till 1515, when, as we shall see, they were given up for want of an architect. I have appended a list of the kings of Portugal, with the years of their accession during that period, in order to avoid the constant repetition of dates.1

The names of the architects, so far as the latest Portuguese researches have been able to discover them, are these. The list differs widely from that given by Murphy, but is based on documents to which he had not access:-1. Affonso Domingues, who died before Era 1440, A.D. 1402. The credit of having given the plan of the church lies between him and his successor. 2. David Aquet,2 Ouguet, Huguet, or Huet, for in all these ways is his name spelt. He is said to have been an Irishman, and his true name was probably Hacket. The date of his death is altogether unknown; but it seems next to certain that he did not give the plan of the founder's church, but erected one of its most beautiful portions, the chapel. 3. Martim Vasquez, who died before 1448. 4. Fernão d'Evora, who was alive in 1473. 5. Mattheus Fernandez, who died in 1515, and is buried by the west door of the nave. He it was that built the Capella Imperfeita, and also, as I shall have occasion to show, the great cloisters, which have not a rival in the world. 6. Mattheus Fernandez II., who, as we shall see, was not allowed, on account of his incompetency, to continue his father's work. 7. Antonio Gomez, who was alive in 1551; and 8, Antonio Mendez, who is mentioned in 1578. These two last seem only to have been master masons.

1 D. João I., 1385. D. Duarte, 1433. D. Affonso V. 1438. D. João II., 1481. D. Manoel, 1495. D. João III., 1521. D. Sebastião, 1557.

This architect is alluded to by Murphy in an "additional note" at the very end of his Description. On the testimony of José Soures da Silva, in his life of D. Joao I., he gives the credit of the whole edifice to Hacket, and adds that he lived at Vianna in Minho.

The whole building may conveniently be divided into five portions : 1, the original church; 2, the Capella do Fundador, at the south-west end of the south aisle; 3, the great cloisters and chapter-house on the north side of the nave; 4, the smaller cloisters and monastery itself, to the north of the great cloisters; 5, the Capella Imperfeita (called also the Capella de Jazigo, and the Capella de D. Manoel,) at the east end of the choir.

When thus, as it were, taken to pieces, the edifice, which at a distance seems a mountainous confusion of spires, pinnacles, pierced battlements, and flying buttresses, resolves itself into a very simple design. The original church was to all intents and purposes finished before 1416. It is cruciform, with a very short choir, that has no aisles, and two small chapels at the east of each transept. There are neither side chapels nor side altars to the nave; an arrangement which so remarkably contrasts with the usual Portuguese theory, and symbolizes with our own, as not improbably to be owing to the taste of Philippa of Lancaster, whom we know to have been consulted on the plan of the work. The queen who had influence enough to introduce the Sarum Breviary, must certainly have been able to decide her husband in favour of an English nave.

We will suppose ourselves to have entered the west door. The ecclesiologist who does so for the first time towards evening, when the faults of the building are to a great degree hidden, will probably think it the most imposing cathedral he has ever beheld. The total exterior length, however, reckoning from the extreme points, is only 416 feet, which is about that of Worcester; the interior length of choir and nave only 266 feet; the height to the apex of the nave vaulting is 90 feet. The nave has eight bays. The immense height of the pier arches (they reach an altitude of 65 feet) almost atones for the want of a triforium. Though there is now merely a low rail to the choir, a tolerable rest for the eye is afforded by the multifoliation of the choir-arch, thus distinguished from the other crossing arches. The piers themselves are exceedingly simple, and in their first general effect (though not in their mouldings) give the idea (as do all Portuguese buildings of the same date) of transitional work. They are of two orders, with circular shafts, square base, and square flowered cap. To me this is a convincing proof, that neither the Stephen Stephenson, to whom Murphy seems disposed to attribute the nave, nor David Hacket, nor any other Englishman, could have given the original design. There could be no reason, in that case, why, in a church which was so widely to depart from authorized Portuguese models, Portuguese details should have been introduced so entirely, and as it were so naturally. It would require an overpowering degree of external evidence to overthrow such internal testimony. The windows, both of the clerestory and the aisles, are of three lights. The latter are most deeply recessed, the chamfer being frittered away in a series of commonplace orders, which give a heavy and not pleasing effect. The tracery also is poor and small; it should have extended much lower, in order to maintain its just analogy with the proportions of the window. The vaulting is good and plain. This is

almost all the description which the extreme simplicity of the nave requires.

I proceed to the transepts. The north window is an inelegant lancet, filled in with that kind of tracery which is so common in the belfry windows of Somersetshire churches. The south window, of three lights, is occupied in the same way; the true head-tracery being, like that in the nave windows, squeezed up towards the apex. The transepts have a clerestory to the east only. The chapels, two to the east of each transept, are all similar: triapsidal; the two central ones with an eastern lancet; the two exterior ones with two lancets on the external sides. The first to the north is dedicated to S. Barbara; the next, to N. S. do Rosario. Here was the tomb of D. Isabel, queen of D. Affonso V.: it is now destroyed. The first in the south transept is to N. S. do Pranto: here was the tomb of D. João II. According to the infernal system which always has been, and I suppose always will be, adopted by the French expeditionary armies, it was not only destroyed, but the remains of the monarch were exhumed, and cut in pieces. The portions that could afterwards be discovered were buried under the miserable wooden case which at present exists there. The south chapel, dedicated to S. Michael, is the burying-place of the distinguished family of the De Sousas.

The choir is painfully short, consisting of a pentagonal apse and two bays only. At the east end are two tiers of five lancets each; the two exterior lights in the lower tier being filled with stone tracery, I suppose for the sake of ventilation. The clerestory of the choir resembles that of the nave, except in the greater length of its windows. The whole of its fittings are in the most wretched modern taste. Before the altar is the high tomb of D. Duarte, son of the founder: and his queen, D. Lianor. It is somewhat awkwardly inserted in the middle of the steps to the sanctuary; so that the foot of the monument is on a level with the sanctuary floor. The effigies were much injured by the French. D. João especially directed that no one should be buried in the choir; why his injunctions were thus violated, I know not.

I must now speak of the horrible Vandalism perpetrated (and I am sorry to say still perpetrating) in the windows. First let me describe the glass as it was. That I might be able to do so with the more accuracy, on the second afternoon that I was there, in May last, I held a kind of court of inquiry; and as I was believed to come with some degree of authority, information was very willingly given. The various accounts tallied pretty exactly with each other, and, so far as it goes, with the general description of Murphy. The subjects of the windows were scenes from the history of the Old and New Testament. The New Testament began with the Annunciation and Visitation, (which still exist,) in the north light of the lower tier of the apse windows; thence they were carried on into the south aisle of the nave, running from east to west; from thence into the south clerestory of the nave, running from west to east; back into the upper tier of apse windows, crossing backwards and forwards from south to north, and ending in a middle light. The effect of this latter arrangement is not altogether good; the centre of the upper lancet-i.e., the most conspicuous place

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