Spanish military orders: Difference between revisions

Scenes of the Reconquista by the military orders. Monasterio de Uclés, Cuenca

The Spanish military orders are a set of religious-military institutions which arose in the context of the Reconquista, the most important are arising in the 12th century in the Crowns of León and Castile (Order of Santiago, Order of Alcántara and Order of Calatrava) and in 14th century in the Crown of Aragon (Order of Montesa); preceded by many others that have not survived, such as the Aragonese Militia Christi of Alfonso of Aragon and Navarre, the Confraternity of Belchite (founded in 1122) or the Military order of Monreal (created in 1124), which after being refurbished by Alfonso VII of León and Castile took the name of Cesaraugustana and in 1149 with Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona, are integrated into the Knights Templar. The Portuguese Order of Aviz responded to identical circumstances, in the remaining peninsular Christian kingdom.

During the Middle Ages, like elsewhere in the Christianity, in the Iberian Peninsula appeared native Military orders, who, while sharing many similarities with other international orders, also these had own peculiarities due to the special peninsular historical circumstances marked by the confrontation between Muslim and Christians.

The birth and expansion of these native orders came mostly at the stage of the Reconquista in which were occupied the territories south of the Ebro and Tagus, so their presence in those areas of La Mancha, Extremadura and Sistema Ibérico (Campo de Calatrava, Maestrazgo, etc.) came to mark the main feature of the Repoblación, in large areas in which each Order, through their encomiendas, exercised a political and economic role similar to that of manor feudal. The presence of other foreign military orders, such as the Templar or the Saint John was simultaneously, and in the case of the Knights Templar, their suppression in the 14th century benefited significantly to the Spanish.

The social implementation of the military orders between the noble families was very significant, extending even through related female orders (Comendadoras de Santiago and others similar).

After the turbulent period of the Late Medieval Crisis, in which the position of Grand Master of the orders was the subject of violent disputes between the aristocracy, the monarchy and the favourites (infantes of Aragon, Álvaro de Luna, etc.); Ferdinand II of Aragon, in the late 15th century managed to politically neutralize to obtain the papal concession of the unification in the person of that position for all of them, and its joint inheritance for its heirs, the kings of the later Spanish Catholic monarchy, that administered through the Royal Council of the Military Orders.

Gradually lost any military function along the Antiguo Régimen, the territorial wealth of the military orders was the subject of confiscation in the nineteenth century, being reduced these thereafter to the social function of representing, as honorary positions, an aspect of the noble status.