Note 1 — V COIMBRA, THOMAR, AND LEIRIA

I noted with interest that this castle of Ourem, and others of these vast hill-top strongholds, had the outer defences arranged similarly to those I have described in the chapter on the buried city of Citania; namely, that on the side of the hill, where attack was difficult or impracticable, the outer walls dipped far down the slope, whilst at the point where danger might be apprehended the three lines of circumvallation were comparatively close together. This arrangement of hill-top defences was evidently long pre-Roman in the Peninsula, and seems to have been adopted by the Romans and their Gothic successors.