How many cloisters does the Convento de Cristo have? Eight are named, seven is sourced by nothing, and the operator publishes no total at all

The short answer: eight. Two independent sources enumerate eight cloisters by name and their lists agree, differing on one spelling. No source this site checked gives seven, which is the figure you will most often see repeated. And the body that runs the building — Museus e Monumentos de Portugal — publishes no total. The smaller numbers you will meet in official texts, five and two, are counts of a single building phase, not of the site.

Named by two sourcesEight

Sources giving sevenNone

Operator’s published totalNone

EarliestCemitério, 15th century

GrandestD. João III, begun 1557

Built acrossThe 15th to 17th centuries

The eight, named

The Portuguese cultural encyclopaedia states it flatly: “O conjunto final do convento possui oito claustros construídos nas várias campanhas de obras” — the final ensemble has eight cloisters, built across the various building campaigns. It then names them. The Portuguese Wikipedia names eight as well, with attributions, and English Wikipedia gives “a total of eight cloisters, built in the 15th and 16th centuries”.

Cloister	When	Who
Claustro do Cemitério	15th century	UNESCO credits Infante Dom Henrique; Wikipédia PT gives Fernão Gonçalves
Claustro da Lavagem	15th century	Henry the Navigator’s period
Claustro de Santa Bárbara	16th century	—
Claustro da Hospedaria	16th century	João de Castilho’s period
Claustro da Micha	16th century	João de Castilho’s period
Claustro dos Corvos	16th century	João de Castilho’s period
Claustro de D. João III, or dos Filipes	Begun 1557	Diogo de Torralva, completed by Filippo Terzi
Claustro das Necessidades, or das Necessárias	17th century	—

Eight rows, from two source lists that agree on every entry and differ only on whether the last is Necessidades or Necessárias. Dates are given to the century because the sources disagree about the years.

Why you keep reading “seven”

I do not know, and that is the honest position. What I can tell you is that this site went looking for a source for seven and did not find one. Not UNESCO, not the operator, not the Portuguese heritage authority, not the town council, not either Wikipedia, not the cultural encyclopaedia. Seven appears to be a number that travels between travel pages without ever having come from anywhere (the same problem, with a window count).

The two smaller numbers, and why they are not rival totals

You will also meet five and two in official texts, and both are real figures about real things. Neither is a total.

Five is the operator’s. Museus e Monumentos writes that under King João III the new monastic complex would have its quarters “organizadas em torno de cinco claustros” — organised around five cloisters. That is a description of one campaign of building, not of the site.
Two is the heritage authority’s, describing the construction of two cloisters during Henry the Navigator’s phase. Same problem: a phase count read as a total.

And the fact worth stating plainly, because most pages about this building quietly avoid it: the operator does not publish a total number of cloisters at all. There is no official answer to the question this page is named after. Eight is what the sources that actually count them arrive at, and this site says eight while telling you where the number comes from.

Weathered dark green shutters closed against a whitewashed wall in hard sunlight — Shutters and a whitewashed wall, photographed for this site. Not a wall of the convent — a picture of southern light and hard shadow, which is the thing that makes cloister arcades legible.

The one everyone photographs

The Claustro de D. João III, also called the cloister of the Philips, is the great classicising courtyard and the reason most people’s photographs of this building look like Italy. UNESCO describes facades “set into rhythm by a Serlian or Palladian ordering of two stories of Corinthian and Tuscan columns” and credits Diogo de Torralva with modifying it; other sources have Filippo Terzi finishing it later in the sixteenth century.

The sources agree on that much and disagree about when it started. One gives 1557, which is the date this site prints; another has Torralva replacing an earlier cloister by João de Castilho a couple of decades before that. This site carries the disagreement rather than choosing. What matters on the ground is that this is one of the parts of the site most often affected by the conservation work, and that the list of what is shut changes — which is why this site prints no such list and why you should ask before you travel for one particular courtyard (the current position).

Walking eight cloisters without losing your bearings

They are on different levels and they were built by different people for different purposes over three centuries, which is why the plan makes no sense to a visitor walking it cold. There is a washing cloister and a cemetery cloister and a cloister named after a loaf of bread. If you take one thing from this page onto the site with you, take this: the small dark ones are the working monastery and the big light one is the display. Both are the same building (how much time that takes).

Cheapest with a guide

Check dates for a guided walk-through

Free cancellation up to 24 hours before departure on most tours — book now, decide later.

Next: the round church at the centre, the window on the outside wall, and where the water came from.

Frequently asked questions

How many cloisters does the Convent of Christ have?

Eight. Two independent sources enumerate eight by name and their lists agree; a third gives eight as a total. No source this site checked gives seven, and the operator, Museus e Monumentos de Portugal, publishes no total number at all.

Why do some sites say the Convento de Cristo has seven cloisters?

This site could not find out. It went looking for a source for seven — UNESCO, the operator, the heritage authority, the town council, both Wikipedias, the cultural encyclopaedia — and none of them gives it. Seven appears to be a figure that circulates without an origin.

What are the eight cloisters called?

Cemitério, Lavagem, Santa Bárbara, Hospedaria, Micha, Corvos, D. João III (also called dos Filipes) and Necessidades, which one source spells Necessárias. They run from the fifteenth century to the seventeenth.

Which is the main cloister at Tomar?

The Claustro de D. João III, also called the cloister of the Philips: the great classicising courtyard with two storeys of Corinthian and Tuscan columns, begun by Diogo de Torralva in 1557 and completed by Filippo Terzi. It is also one of the parts most often affected by conservation work, so check before travelling for it.

Why do official texts mention five cloisters?

Because that five is a phase count. The operator describes the monastic complex built under King João III as organised around five cloisters, which is a statement about one campaign of building rather than about the whole site. The heritage authority’s two is the same kind of figure.