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Here, as in the royal tombs at Coimbra, Manoelino and renaissance forms have been used together, but here the renaissance largely predominates, for even the cusping is not Gothic, although, as is but natural, the general design still is after the older style. Though very elaborate, these tombs cannot be called quite satisfactory.
Farther up the Tagus at Abrantes, in the church of Santa Maria do Castello, are some more tombs of the same date, more than one of which is an almost exact copy of the princes' tombs at Batalha, though there is one whose arch is fringed with curious reversed cusping, almost Moorish in appearance.
The four large three-light windows are the same in design and detail, and were no doubt executed when the chapels themselves were built. They have traceried heads with early types of cusping of about the same date as, or a little later than, the rose window in the east gable; but they are certainly thirty or forty years earlier than those of the lady-chapel.
The eight piers of the lantern are made up of a great number of shafts with a moulded angle between each. The capitals are covered with two tiers of conventional vine-leaves and have octagonal, not as in the church square abaci, while the arches are highly stilted and are enriched with most elaborate cusping, each cusp ending in a square vine-leaf.
Jacques, I think, on the whole is the finer church of the two, and remarkable for the florid ornament of its spandrels, and for the elaborate, pendent cusping of the soffits of its arches features that lend it an almost barbaric magnificence that reminds one of Rosslyn Chapel. Liege, built as it is exactly on the edge of the Ardennes, is far the most finely situated of any great city in Belgium.
The niches contain ribbed vaults, and are cinquefoil, with feathered cusping, and their hoods are prolonged so as to divide the members of the upper tier into pairs; while from the sides of these hoods, from the buttresses, and from the curve of the doorway, thin strips of stone, adorned with knobs that distinctly add to the effect, are carried up to the cornice, along which runs a row of shields bearing traces of colour.
The capitals of columns, the cusping of windows, and the ornaments were seldom repeated, but varied according to the taste of the craftsman. Very high finish was seldom attempted, the marks of the chisel often being left showing in the stonework. All this gave a warmth and exuberance of life to a fine Gothic building that makes a classical building look cold by comparison.
Here the ends of the side aisles are, now at any rate, quite plain, but in the centre there is a very elaborate doorway with a large rose-window above. It is easy to see that this doorway has not been uninfluenced by Batalha. From well-moulded jambs, each of which has four shafts, there springs a large pointed arch, richly fringed with cusping on its inner side.
Here and there in the rich colour were introduced medallions, representing apparently scriptural scenes, and at the top of each light, under the cusping, was a coat of arms. The head of the middle division formed the centre of the whole scheme, and seemed to represent a shield of silver-white crossed by waving sea-green bars.
In the view in Bentham, dated 1767, are represented lancets glazed and blank, exactly similar to those in the triforium on the north. The windows are all lancets, without any cusping. Their grouping is specially effective. In the centre, in the lowest stage, are three broad lancets of equal height, divided by shafts, and with deep mouldings, and with two sets of dogtooth all round.
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