Charola of Tomar was based on the type of Syria mosques, taste acquired by the knights of the Order of the Temple during the Orientals disputes, and for them applied in the West. It is a very rare sanctuary of the High Average Age that follows the archetype of the Omar Hermitage (Jerusalem), model equally applied in the Chapels of Eunate (Navarra) and Vera Cruz (Segóvia). At the beginning of the 16th century, Charola, the oratory of the Templars, was adopted as chapel-mor of the new temple that was beeing built at that time, the Convent of Christ.

D. Manuel, after 1510, commanded the decoration of the chapel-mor of the new Temple with sculptures, paintings and other elements. 

In the walls of Charola still subsists great painting series on wood, constituted by the panels the 'Entrance of Jesus in Jerusalem', the 'Order of the Centurion', the 'Resurrection of Lazarus', the 'Resurrection', the 'Ascension', the 'Baptism of Christ' (incomplete) and possibly the 'Confession of Saint Rita'.

Recently, in the attempt to restore these images, others where founded underneath.
 

Part of the Manuelin’s sculptures are attributable to the Muñoz master. Among them, we distinguish, a notable sculpture of polychromatic rock representing Virgin and St. John Evangelist.

It was here, in Charola of Tomar that was acclaimed King D. Afonso V, in the 10th September of 1438.