When people speak of military religious orders, they think at once of the Holy Land. But in the Iberian peninsula, during the centuries of the Reconquista, a family of local orders arose that played an enormous role in the history of Spain and Portugal. Some of them, when the Templars were suppressed, directly took up their inheritance.
An internal frontier
Between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries the Christian kingdoms of the peninsula expanded southwards at the expense of the Muslim territories of al-Andalus. It was a moving frontier of castles, villages to be resettled and seasonal campaigns. The Templars and Hospitallers were present, but rulers preferred to rely on orders tied more directly to the crown and to the land.
Calatrava: the abandoned castle
In 1158 the Templars handed back the fortress of Calatrava to the king of Castile, believing they could not defend it. Raymond, abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Fitero, offered to hold it with his own monks and armed volunteers. From this initiative the Order of Calatrava was born, approved by Pope Alexander III in 1164 and linked to the Cistercian order.
The knights of Calatrava followed a rule inspired by that of the monks of Cîteaux, with religious vows and duties of prayer. Their emblem became a red cross with arms ending in fleurs-de-lis.
Santiago: the sword and the shell
The Order of Santiago was founded in 1170 at Cáceres and approved by Alexander III in 1175. Its patron was the apostle James, whose shrine at Compostela was the goal of one of Christendom's most important pilgrimages.
Compared with other orders, Santiago had a remarkable feature: it admitted married knights, who were asked for conjugal chastity rather than celibacy. Its emblem was a red cross shaped like a sword, the so-called cross of Santiago.
Alcántara and the other orders
The Order of Alcántara grew out of a community of knights known as San Julián del Pereiro, active in the kingdom of León. In 1218 it received custody of the town of Alcántara, from which it took its name, and it too was affiliated to Calatrava and the Cistercians.
| Order | Origin | Kingdom | Emblem |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calatrava | 1158 | Castile | Red fleury cross |
| Santiago | 1170 | León and Castile | Red sword-cross |
| Alcántara | 12th-13th century | León | Green fleury cross |
| Montesa | 1317 | Aragon | Plain red cross |
| Christ | 1319 | Portugal | Red cross with inner white cross |
The Templar inheritance: Montesa
When the Templars were suppressed in 1312, the pope ruled that their property should go to the Hospitallers. In the Iberian kingdoms, however, rulers objected, fearing they would strengthen an international order that was already too powerful. Special solutions were found.
In the Crown of Aragon, King James II obtained from Pope John XXII in 1317 the foundation of a new order, based at the castle of Montesa in the kingdom of Valencia. The new order received the Templar and Hospitaller properties in that territory and had ties with Calatrava.
The Order of Christ in Portugal
The Portuguese case was even more significant. King Denis obtained from John XXII, with the bull Ad ea ex quibus of 1319, the creation of the Order of the Knights of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to which the Temple's property was transferred. Several former Templars joined it. Its seat, after an initial period at Castro Marim, was established at Tomar, in the old Templar castle with its famous rotunda.
In the fifteenth century the administration of the order was entrusted to Prince Henry, known as the Navigator. The order's revenues helped to finance voyages along the African coast, and its cross appeared on the sails of Portuguese caravels. Here the continuity with the Templars is real and documented, but it concerns property, people and places, not initiatory secrets.
From crusade to court
With the end of the Reconquista in 1492, the Spanish orders lost their military function. The Catholic Monarchs and then their successors obtained from the papacy the perpetual administration of the grand masterships, which passed to the crown. The orders thus became honorific institutions, with requirements of nobility and "purity of blood" for admission, and their habit became a mark of social prestige.
What these orders tell us
The history of the Iberian orders helps to correct an overly romantic image of medieval knights. They were religious institutions, but also instruments for governing territory, bound up with the strategies of rulers. Their symbolic value, which does exist, comes from the idea of a consecrated life spent on the frontier, in a place of passage between different worlds.
In short
- The Iberian military orders arose on the frontier of the Reconquista between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries.
- Calatrava emerged in 1158 from a Cistercian initiative after the Templars abandoned the fortress.
- Santiago, founded in 1170, admitted married knights.
- Montesa (1317) and the Order of Christ (1319) received the property of the suppressed Templars.
- After 1492 the grand masterships passed to the crown and the orders became honorific.
