Ceramic Flooring from the Cistercian Abbey of Santa Maria de Alcobaça, Portugal (13th and 14th Centuries)

This paper discusses the 13th-century mosaic floors from the chapels of the church of the Abbey of Santa Maria de Alcobaça. These mosaics follow the formal European Cistercian model, but are unusual in several aspects of their decoration, namely due to their tin and turquoise glazes. An examination of the technology employed in the production of the mosaic floors from the Abbey supports the hypothesis that they were produced locally. It is further argued that these mosaics provide an important strand of evidence through which the introduction of tin glaze on the Peninsula and in north-western Europe can be examined. Continuities in other aspects of the mosaics’ decoration are then discussed (e.g. the incised line technique), linking these floors to architectural and design features from other civic and religious buildings throughout Portugal.