A thirteenth-century postern leads into the _compás_ or square formed by the convent, a graceful fourteenth-century tower, and the ancient palace of the Castilian monarchs, now a school. The church, built by St. Ferdinand in 1279, is of the usual cruciform plan. It is stern, simple, very pure Gothic, despite the restorations and alterations effected in successive ages. The nave is inaccessible to strangers, and is reserved exclusively to the nuns, who may be seen, through the screen, assisting at the offices in their grandly carved stalls. We loiter in the transept, and notice the lofty lantern over the crossing, and the revolving pulpit from which St. Vincent Ferrer is said to have preached, though the date of its construction (1560) may be discerned carved upon it. The chancel, with its green tapestries woven with gold--the gift of Philip the Handsome--is flanked on either side by two chapels, but our interest centres in the nave, of which we can only obtain a glimpse through the grille. The tombs facing us are those of the founders, Alfonso VIII. and Eleanor Plantagenet. The conqueror of Las Navas is shown on a relief, enthroned, handing the charter of the abbey to the first abbess. To the right of these tombs lies Queen Berenguela, mother of St. Ferdinand; and farther back in the aisles are the sarcophagi of thirty-six members of the royal house of Spain, among them the ‘Emperor’ Alfonso VII., Sancho I., Enrique I., and Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy. Anne of Austria, daughter of the great Don John, was the last princess entombed within these venerable precincts. Unapproachable by visitors is the chapel of Santiago, wherein is preserved an effigy of St. James, which by means of some hidden mechanism could place the crown on the royal brow and confer the accolade of knighthood. The remarkable Moorish fabric, generally believed to have been a trophy of the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, is hung in the nun’s choir, but a replica may be seen hanging in the chancel. A detailed description of this interesting relic is contained in Riaño’s _Spanish Arts_. Amador de los Rios rejects the tradition that this was the Almohade standard, and thinks it was the curtain or flap of the Amir’s tent, taken in the battle. Riaño goes farther, and opines that it was an offering made, not by Alfonso VIII., but by the eleventh monarch of that name. Adopting this theory, it remains probable that the fabric was one of the spoils of war, for the character of the texts from the Koran woven upon it are a sufficient proof that it could not have been worked by Moorish weavers under Christian direction.