{"id":291,"date":"2013-06-14T14:17:38","date_gmt":"2013-06-14T14:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lisbonstopover.com\/?p=291"},"modified":"2015-07-19T22:22:04","modified_gmt":"2015-07-19T22:22:04","slug":"tomar-the-last-templar-stronghold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisbonstopover.com\/?p=291","title":{"rendered":"Tomar, The Last Templar stronghold"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Panorama:\u00a0Castle of Tomar\u00a0with the\u00a0Convent of Christinside. The citadel with the\u00a0keep\u00a0is seen in the centre of the image and the round church (with a bell-tower) is to the right.<\/p>\n

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The castle of the Knights Templar of Tomar was built by\u00a0Gualdim Pais, provincial Master of the\u00a0Order of the Temple, around 1160. Later in that century, the castle was chosen as the headquarters of the order in Portugal. The castle of Tomar was part of the defence system created by the Templars to secure the border of the young Christian Kingdom against the\u00a0Moors, which at the time (mid-12th century) corresponded approximately to the\u00a0Tagus\u00a0river.<\/p>\n

The famous round church (rotunda<\/em>) of the castle of Tomar was also built in the second half of the 12th century. The church, like some other templar churches throughout Europe, was modelled after the\u00a0Dome of the Rock\u00a0in\u00a0Jerusalem, which was believed by the\u00a0crusaders\u00a0to be a remnant of the\u00a0Temple of Solomon. The\u00a0Church of the Holy Sepulchre\u00a0of Jerusalem may also have served as model.<\/p>\n

According to Christian chroniclers, the castle of Tomar resisted in 1190 the attacks of caliph\u00a0Abu Yusuf al-Mansur, who had previously taken other Portuguese strongholds to the South. A plaque near the entrance of the castle church remembers the feat.<\/p>\n

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The Templar order was suppressed throughout most of\u00a0Europe\u00a0from 1312\u20131314, but in Portugal its members, assets, and partly its membership were transmitted to the\u00a0Order of Christ, created in 1319 byKing Dinis. The\u00a0Order of Christ\u00a0moved to Tomar in 1357, which became its headquarters.<\/p>\n

One of the most important Grand Masters of the Order was\u00a0Prince Henry the Navigator, who ruled the Order from 1417 up to his death in 1460. Prince Henry gave great impulse to the pioneering Portuguese expeditions during the\u00a0Age of Exploration. In the Convent, Prince Henry ordered the construction of various cloisters and other buildings. He also sponsored urban improvements in the town of Tomar itself.<\/p>\n

Another important personality related to the Order was\u00a0King Manuel I, who became Master of the Order in 1484 and King of Portugal in 1492. Under his reign there were several important improvements in the Convent, specially the addition of a new\u00a0nave\u00a0to the round church and its inner decoration with paintings and sculptures.<\/p>\n

The successor of Manuel I,\u00a0King John III, demilitarised the order, turning it into a more religious order with a rule based on that of\u00a0Bernard of Clairvaux. He also ordered the construction of a new cloister in 1557, which is one of the best examples of\u00a0Renaissance architecture\u00a0in Portugal.<\/p>\n

In 1581, after a\u00a0succession crisis, the Portuguese Nobility gathered in the Convent of Christ in Tomar and officially recognised\u00a0Philip II of Spain\u00a0(Philip I of Portugal) as King. This is the beginning of the\u00a0Iberian Union\u00a0(1581\u20131640), during which the Kingdoms of Portugal and Spain were united. The aqueduct of the Convent was built during the Spanish reign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Panorama:\u00a0Castle of Tomar\u00a0with the\u00a0Convent of Christinside. The citadel with the\u00a0keep\u00a0is seen in the centre of the image and the round church (with a bell-tower) is to the right. The castle of the Knights Templar of Tomar was built by\u00a0Gualdim Pais, provincial Master of the\u00a0Order of the Temple, around 1160. Later in that century, the castle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[49,50,47,48],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisbonstopover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisbonstopover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisbonstopover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisbonstopover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisbonstopover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=291"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisbonstopover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3694,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisbonstopover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions\/3694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisbonstopover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisbonstopover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisbonstopover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisbonstopover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}