Journey to Portugal by José Saramago

The traveller is on the road to Montemor-o-Novo. In Alcácer do Sal he visited the churches of Our Lord of the Martyrs, built in the thirteenth century by the Order of Santiago, and of St Mary, within the castle walls. That's the one belonging to the martyrs, with its powerful buttresses, an architectural piece of general merit of which much more could be said. Among the items of greatest note are the chapel dedicated to St Bartholomew and a second Gothic one, where the tomb of the order's first Commander is displayed. There above it, the church of St Mary is looked after by an extremely old lady, though less deaf than she appears, with an ironic twinkle in her eyes which swiftly hardens as she slyly inspects the tip she quickly slips into her pinafore.

But her complaints have a ring of authenticity: the church is in a sad state of neglect, its statues removed, even the altar cloths vanished never to return, and she thinks the priest, perhaps in order not to have to climb back up the steep slope, prefers his ministry down on the plains and has taken all the prized items there with him. Fortunately, it was unfeasible for him to loot or carry off the porches so well suited to the primitive architecture of the building, still less its beautiful Romanesque capitals. The traveller still has his doubts whether such ancient items would excite the interest of a modern cleric.