The first stone was laid in 1158, but the church was barely finished when King Sancho I. died in 1211 and was not dedicated till 1220, while the monastic buildings were not ready till 1223, when the monks migrated from Sta. Maria a Velha, their temporary home. The abbey was immensely wealthy: it had complete jurisdiction over fourteen villages whose inhabitants were in fact its serfs: it or its abbot was visitor to all Benedictine abbeys in the country and was, for over three hundred years, till the reign of Cardinal King Henry, the superior of the great military Order of Christ. It early became one of the first centres of learning in Portugal, having begun to teach in 1269. It helped Dom Diniz to found the University of Lisbon, now finally settled at Coimbra, with presents of books and of money, and it only acknowledged the king in so far as to give him a pair of boots or shoes when he chanced to come to Alcobaça. All these possessions and privileges of the monks were confirmed by Dom João IV. (1640-56) after the supremacy of the Spaniards had come to an end, and were still theirs when Beckford paid them his memorable visit near the end of the eighteenth century and was so splendidly entertained with feastings and even with plays and operas performed by some of the younger brothers. Much harm was of course done by the French invasion, and at last in 1834 the brothers were turned out, their house made into barracks, and their church and cloister left to fall into decay--a decay from which they are only being slowly rescued at the present time.