The Templar capital of Europe — the Convento de Cristo fortress-monastery built by the Knights Templar in 1160, the Manueline window that is the most complex Gothic stone carving on earth, and the Templars' last refuge when every other country expelled them
Tomar is a small city (40,000 population) in the Ribatejo region of central Portugal, on the Nabão River, 140km north of Lisbon. The Convento de Cristo (the Convent of Christ — a UNESCO World Heritage Site, 1983) sits on the wooded hill above the city: a complex of eight cloisters, multiple churches, and the original 12th-century Templar headquarters, begun in 1160 when the Knights Templar were given the fortified site by the King of Portugal in exchange for military assistance against the Moors. The most extraordinary architectural element of the Convento de Cristo is the Manueline Window (b…
The Templar fortification at Tomar was built in 1160 on a hilltop overlooking the Nabão River valley as part of the Portuguese Christian kingdom's defensive line against the Moorish kingdoms of al-Andalus to the south. The 12th-century Charola (the original circular Templar oratory, modeled on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem — the round-church form being the Templar architectural signature throughout Europe) is the oldest surviving building of the complex, now embedded within the later Gothic and Manueline building phases. After the Templar dissolution (1312) and reorganization…