[Illustration: PRINCIPAL FAÇADE OF THE IGREGA DOS JERONYMOS AT BELEM. (PRESENT STATE.) (_After a Photograph._)]
The latter years of Sancho's reign were signalized by his quarrels with his bishops and the Pope, and naturally enough since the Pope was Innocent III. This struggle bears a close resemblance to the contest between Henry II. of England and the Pope a few years before, and also possesses an importance of its own. The main points were that Sancho insisted upon priests accompanying their flocks to battle, and in making them amenable to the civil courts. These ideas seemed monstrous to Pope Innocent III., who sent legate after legate to demand Sancho's withdrawal of these claims and the payment of his tribute to the Holy See. But Sancho had in his chancellor, Julião, a great statesman, who had been the first Portuguese to study the revival of Roman law at Bologna, and who had learnt broad notions there as to the extent of the Papal authority; and he in the king's name asserted the supremacy of the royal power in everything, and even his right to resume the estates held by the Church in Portugal. Pope Innocent declared these notions to be heretical, but the king supported his chancellor, who in return took every opportunity to support the royal authority. The lower clergy of Portugal were not unwilling to comply with their sovereign's demands, and the military orders stood by him as a valiant crusader; his chief difficulty was with his bishops, and especially with the wealthiest among them. The bishops of Lamego, Viseu, Lisbon, and Guarda were all poor, the latter not even possessing a cathedral or a palace in his newly established see; but the Archbishop of Braga, and the bishops of Oporto and Coimbra were ecclesiastical princes disposing of vast revenues, and it was with them that King Sancho quarrelled. His quarrel with the Bishop of Coimbra is worth noting, as affording evidence of the superstitious disposition of even a crusading monarch in those times, for it arose about a so-called witch, whom the king insisted on keeping in his palace. His contest with Martinho Rodrigues, Bishop of Oporto, is far more complicated, but need not be related at length. It is enough to say that the bishop offended not only the king, but his chapter and the people of his city, and that he was eventually shut up in his palace and besieged there for five months. When he made his escape he fled to Rome, and Pope Innocent III. forthwith placed the kingdom of Portugal under an interdict. For a time, Sancho supported by his chancellor and by the inferior clergy, who refused to obey the interdict, paid no attention to the Pope, and went on building towns and castles, notably those of Celorico and Linhares; but at last in 1210, feeling that his health was declining and that he was about to die, he made his submission, received the Bishop of Oporto back into the kingdom, and paid the Pope one hundred marks of gold. He then retired to the convent of Alçobaça, where he died on March 26, 1211, leaving a reputation as a warrior and a statesman second only to that acquired by his father.