Is one of the few European monuments that has managed to preserve
intact an entire group of mediaeval buildings and its church is the
largest early Gothic construction in Portugal. The history of its
foundation in 1153 recounted in the eighteenth century azulejo panels
that line the walls of the Sala dos Reis (Kings' Hall). As we ''read''
the story of these panels, we learn that D. Afonso Henriques, the first
king of Portugal, promised St. Bernard his lands in Alcobaca if he
managed to capture Santarem from the Moors, which did in fact happen in
1147. The statues of the Kings of Portugal - from D. Afonso Henriques to
D. Jose I (in the eighteenth century) - stand on baroque consoles
around the walls of the room. In the centre is a cauldron that is said,
according to legend, to have been taken from the Castilians at the
Battle of Aljubarrota.
The building of the monastery began in
1178, as did the building of the abbey of Clairvaux, the headquarters of
the Cistercian Order in France. Alcobaca is thus connected to the great
civilising project that the white- habited monks began there: the
public school, which was begun in 1269, and the use of the land for
farming purposes, providing a genuine agricultural training ground, the
fruits of which are still visible today.
The monastery's sturdy
looking facade is an eighteenth century reconstruction in the Baroque
style. All that remains from the original Gothic front is the main
doorway. Above this is a narrow Renaissance balcony added in the
sixteenth century, which supports the statues of the four cardinal
virtues - Fortitude, Justice, Prudence and Temperance.
On each
side of the doorway are two statues, one of St. Benedict and the other
of St. Bernard, standing on consoles and covered with profusely carved
canopies. These lend a certain lightness to the building, contrasting
with the heaviness of the baroque decoration of the facade and bell
towers. The feeling that the visitor gains from looking at the
monastery's exterior is one of an imposing grandeur that has been
gradually added on by time and other ideals and contradicts the profound
simplicity that marked the rules of the Cistercian Order.
This
is quite different from the emotions that you will feel on entering the
church. Here, the huge space, devoid of any ornamentation, will envelop
you in a feeling of spirituality. Notice how the columns and pilasters
have been cut away at a certain height, a feature which is typical of
Cistercian churches, allowing the three choirs - the monks, the sick and
the lay brethren - to occupy the nave more comfortably. In the spacious
north transept is the extremely beautiful and profusely carved tomb of
Ines de Castro, on which lies the reclining figure of the dead Queen.
This is matched in the south transept by the tomb of her beloved, D.
Pedro I. The rose at the head of the tomb tells the story of the love
that this king bore for Ines de Castro, a young and beautiful
lady-in-waiting to his wife. D. Pedro and D. Ines had several children
and these represented a threat to the independence of the Portuguese
crown, since the only son of Pedro and Constanza, who was the legitimate
heir to the throne, was of frail health. D. Pedro's king and father,
Afonso IV, therefore ordered Ines to be killed and his son would later
wreak the cruelest of vengeance upon her murderers.
To the
right of the tomb is a chapel-altar which houses a beautiful terra-cotta
tableau, made in the seventeenth century by the monks of Alcobaca and
depicting the death of St. Bernard. On the opposite side is the royal
pantheon, built in the eighteenth century and housing the tombs of a
number of queens and princes from the first dynasty.
The
chancel is surrounded by an elegant ambulatory with nine chapels. The
tenth of these is now the entrance to the sacristy, which is reached
through a beautiful door framed with Manueline-Renaissance motifs carved
into the stone and attributed to the sculptor Joao de Castilho. Rebuilt
after the 1755 earthquake, the sacristy ends in an octagonal
chapel-reliquary, containing numerous relics from the baroque period in
Alcobaca.
Returning to the nave, there is a door on the left,
which the monks used to enter the cloister that is named D. Dinis. The
beautiful garden of the cloister is surrounded by four galleries
supported by Romanesque-Gothic arches surmounted by tracery circles,
each one with a different pattern. The second storey was built in the
reign of D. Manuel I in the sixteenth century.
The first
gallery in the Cloister of D. Dinis contains the door to the Chapter
House. After this comes the parlour, one of the few rooms in the
monastery where the monks could talk, which led to the large medieval
dormitory and the cells of the Abbot and Prior. The next room, also
known as the Monk's Room, was used in the last few centuries as the
monastic storeroom and wine cellar. This space provided access to the
huge eighteenth century kitchen, into which the river had been diverted.
Returning once more to the cloister, you will find the Renaissance
Lavabo that served the spacious Refectory, itself a magnificent example
of architectural planning, whose most distinctive feature is the
staircase leading to the pulpit.
From the square in front of
the monastery, off which lead three staircases decorated with original
baroque pinnacles, there is a view of the old castle, that vigilant and
watchful sentry that stood guard over the immense estates of the
monastery of Alcobaca.
Text provided by the Portuguese Tourist Office
http://www.manorhouses.com/unesco/whalco.html
