The Four Christian Military Orders of Spain

The reconquest of Spain from the Moors is due to the four Great Christian Military Orders, for, without their inspiring aid, king or queen would have been powerless. The most ancient was the Alcantaras, 1156; its decoration, or badge, was a green lily-shaped cross; the second, Calatray, 1158, distinguished by a red lily-shaped cross; the third, the Order of St. James of Compostella, or Santiago, founded in 1170, distinguished by a red cross in the form of a sword; the fourth, that of Montessa, replaced the Templars in 1317. To the first three, after the fall of Toledo, is ascribed the steady progress of the Christian arms in subsequent centuries. The most honorable and opulent of these Orders, sanctioned by separate bulls from the Pope, to oppose the enemies of the Christian faith and to punish those who disturbed public peace was the Order of St. Jago, or Santiago. The wealth and power of this Order became so great that the Grand Master was second only in authority to the King; the King, who was a member of the Order, being obliged by his vows to obey the Grand Master. When the Conquest of Grenada deprived the Knights of St. Jago (St. James) of the enemies against whom their energies had been so long directed, their religion furnished them with another object, in defence of which they next employed all their zeal. The other Orders followed their example, so that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries we find the Knights of the Holy Orders of Spain professedly the champion Knights of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, devoting their lives to maintaining the honors due to the Virgin Mary.