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The present work is a study of the relationship between astronomy and landscape focused on the orientation of Christian churches and chapels of the three main Manorial (Señorío) Islands of the Canarian Archipelago (Spain). These relatively wild and isolated island territories were subdued by Franco-Norman knights (Jean de Bethencourt and Gadifer de La Salle, in Lanzarote and Fuerteventura) and, later, by noblemen in the service of the crown of Castile (mainly Hernán Peraza "the Elder", in La Gomera) decades before the conquest of America (Gangui et al. 2016; Di Paolo et al. 2019). As a background to this study of orientations, we have the information provided by the texts of early Christian writers and apologists. These writings imposed that Christian churches should be oriented towards the geographical east, that is, towards the astronomical equinox. It is known that these prescriptions for the orientation of the temples were followed systematically throughout Europe, at least during the Middle Ages (González-García 2015).In this context, as an extension of previous works and a preliminary application of current developments (Muratore, Work in progress), our motivation is to carry out a comparative study between the three Canary Islands already mentioned and verify if the orientation patterns of the temples keep any relationship with each other, or with those of the churches of continental Europe. We are interested in exploring to what extent the indications of the early texts on Christian architecture were respected and to what degree the temples are eventually oriented following different alignments, for example according to pre-existing aboriginal traditions, ubiquitous on all these islands and very particularly in the region of the Tindaya mountain in Fuerteventura, perhaps due to a syncretism process. We are also interested in knowing if there exist religious constructions that are oriented towards points of the horizon on which the Sun rises on the day of the patronal feast of each temple, since that custom was found in several previous studies, despite not being backed by an epigraphic endorsement prior to the late Middle Ages. The analysis of the few cases in which this calendrical coincidence was verified in Lanzarote and La Gomera, is now increased with half a hundred churches that were measured in Fuerteventura. The fieldwork that supports our comparative study is based on the measurement of the precise location coordinates of most of the churches and chapels of the three islands considered, which amounts to about 120 measurements. In addition, for each church we measured its axis' azimuth and the angular height of the horizon in the direction to which the altar of the temple is pointing. The data thus obtained were then corroborated with digital terrain models often used in archaeoastronomical studies. Finally, for the study of the sample, we have employed various analyses, both statistical, as well as calendric and orographic, trying to find clues that would allow us to understand the different patterns of the orientations. Our preliminary results show that on all the islands, the pattern of double orientations is repeated, which contemplates the canonical tradition of orienting the altars of Christian temples within the solar range (pointing either eastward or westward). Cases also occur where it is possible to identify constructions whose orientation follows solstitial patterns, perhaps as imitation of aboriginal worship. But this double pattern also includes a high proportion of churches with orientations far from this range. An example is Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, both islands subjected to the same flow of the prevailing trade winds in the region, but each with its own characteristics. Another example is given by the particular orography of deep ravines of La Gomera, which determines the orientation of the temples located in those geographical accidents, a situation that does not seem to be repeated in the characteristic plains of Fuerteventura, that is, far from Tindaya and the Pico de Jandía located towards the south of the island. In our presentation, we will show how the combination of elements of the land- and sky-scape can, with a high degree of probability, offer a satisfactory explanation to the particular orientation of these insular centres of worship, which were built during the first decades after the European conquest. || References: // Di Paolo, A., Gangui, A., Belmonte, J.A. and Perera Betancort, M.A., Cuando la ortodoxia no es lo más relevante: el paisaje de La Gomera y la orientación de sus iglesias. Article submitted to Cosmovisiones (SIAC, Sociedad Interamericana de Astronomía en la Cultura), 2019. // Gangui, A., González-García, A.C., Perera Betancort, M.C. and Belmonte, J.A., La orientación como una seña de identidad cultural: las iglesias históricas de Lanzarote. Tabona: Revista de Prehistoria y Arqueología, 20: 105-128, 2016. //González-García, A.C., A Voyage of Christian Medieval Astronomy: Symbolic, ritual and political orientation of churches. In Stars and Stones: Voyages in archaeoastronomy and cultural astronomy. British Archaeology Reports, Int. Ser. 2720, edited by F. Pimenta et al., 268-275, 2015.

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