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Dom Gualdim Paes, Dom Diniz and Dom Manoel two on each buttress.
Thomar has already been seen in the twelfth century when Dom Gualdim Paes built the sixteen-sided church and the castle, and when he and his Templars withstood the Moorish invaders with such success.
This led to a quarrel with Dom Gilberto, the English bishop of Lisbon, which was settled in 1150, when Dom Gualdim Paes, the most famous member the order ever produced in Portugal, was chosen to be Grand Master. He at once gave up all Santarem to the bishop, except the church of São Thiago, and received instead the territory of Cêras some forty or fifty miles to the north-east.
In a previous chapter the building of a church at Thomar by Dom Gualdim Paes, Grand Master of the Templars, has been mentioned. Of this church and the castle built at the same time, both of which stood on the east or flat bank of the river Nabão, nothing now remains except perhaps the lower part of the detached bell-tower.
There on the banks of the river Nabão, on a site famous for the martyrdom under Roman rule of Sant' Iria or Irene, Dom Gualdim built a church, and began a castle which was soon abandoned for a far stronger position on a steep hill some few hundred yards to the west across the river.
The Palace of the Walis was soon granted by him to Gualdim Paes, the famous grand master of the Templars, and was held by his successors till it was given to Dom Diniz's queen, St. Isabel.
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