On the top of one lies King Pedro with his head to the north, on the other Dona Inez with hers to the south; both are life size and are as well wrought as are the smaller details below. Both have on each side three angels who seem to be just about to lift them from where they lie or to have just laid them down. These angels, especially those near Dom Pedro's head, are perhaps the finest parts of either tomb, with their beautiful drapery, their well-modelled wings, and above all with the outstretching of their arms towards the king and Dona Inez. There seems to be no record as to who worked or designed these tombs, but there can be little or no doubt that he was a Frenchman, the whole feeling, alike of the architectural detail and the figures themselves, is absolutely French; there had been no previous figure sculpture in the country in any way good enough to lead up to the skill in design and in execution here shown, nor, with regard to the mere architectural detail, had Gothic tracery and ornament yet been sufficiently developed for a native workman to have invented the elaborate cuspings, mouldings, and other enrichments which make both tombs so pre-eminent above all that came before them.[74] These tombs, as indeed the whole church, as well as the neighbouring convent of Batalha, are constructed of a wonderfully fine limestone, which seems to be practically the same as Caen Stone, and which, soft and easy to cut when first quarried, grows harder with exposure and in time, when not in a too shady or damp position, where it gets black, takes on a most beautiful rich yellow colour.
These tombs, beautiful as they are, do not seem to have any very direct influence on the work of the next century: it is true that a distinct advance was made in modelling the effigies of those who lay below, but apart from that the decoration of these high tombs is in no case even remotely related to that of the later monuments at Batalha; nor, except that the national method of church planning was more firmly established than ever, and that some occasional features such as the cuspings on the arch-mould of the door of São Francisco Santarem, which are copied on an archaistic door at Batalha, are found in later work, is there much to point to the great advance that was soon to be made alike in detail and in construction.