the city, under the command of the _wālis_ of Badajoz, Seville, Jaen, Cordova, and Xeres. The Christian and Mohammedan armies met in battle on September 12th; the latter were defeated with immense loss, and were pursued by the Templars for three days; the _wālis_ of Cordova and Jaen were killed; and on October 18th the city of Alcacer do Sal surrendered, and its gallant defender, Abu-Abdallah, in admiration of the valour of the Christians, consented to be baptized. In this expedition the king took no part; he was more bent upon filling his treasury, a tendency which soon brought him again into conflict with the Church. His chancellor, Gonçalo Mendes, who had inherited the policy of Julião, and the chief officers of his Court, Pedro Annes, the Mordomo Mor or Lord Steward, and Martim Fernandes, the Alferes Mor or Grand Standard-bearer, encouraged him to lay hands on the great estates of Estevão Soares da Silva, the noble and learned Archbishop of Braga. Pope Honorius III. at once espoused the cause of the archbishop, excommunicated the king, and laid an interdict on the kingdom, in order to force Affonso to make restitution to the archbishop and to expel Pedro Annes and Gonçalo Mendes from his Court. Affonso refused to submit, and he was still under the interdict of the Church when he died on the 25th of March, 1223. This avaricious monarch had devoted himself to increasing the wealth and power of the Crown; to this must be attributed not only his quarrels with his brothers and sisters and with the Church, but the great constitutional measures which distinguish his reign. It was for this purpose that he summoned the first Portuguese Cortes to assent to his law of “mortmain,” and despatched the first “inquiracão geral” through the kingdom to examine on oath into the titles of all holders of landed property by sworn juries of inhabitants of the vicinity, a proceeding exactly similar to the commissions sent by Henry II. to inquire into cases of “mort d’ancestor” and “darrein presentment.” Yet the reign of this irreligious and excommunicated king was marked by a revival of religion in Portugal. Sueiro Gomes, one of the earliest followers of S. Dominic, was a Portuguese, and was sent by his master to found branches of the order of preaching friars in his native land, and though in every way checked by Affonso, he made much progress in all the great cities and towns. Far greater was the success of the Franciscan friars, who were introduced into Portugal by Donna Sancha, one of the king’s sisters, who had taken the veil and was canonized in 1705, and for whom Queen Urraca built two splendid convents at Lisbon and Guimaraens. The order took deep root, and its fame was sealed by the martyrdom of the five friars sent by S. Francis of Assisi to Morocco, whose bodies were brought to Portugal by Dom Ferdinand, the king’s brother, and were buried at Santa Cruz in Coimbra, where they were covered by the most sacred shrine in Portugal.