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Order of Santiago

The Order of Santiago (Galician: Orde de Santiago, Spanish: Orden de Santiago) was founded in the 12th century, and owes its name to the national patron of Galicia and Spain, Santiago (St. James the Greater). Its initial objective was to protect the pilgrim of St. James' Way and to make the muslims of the Iberian peninsula step back.

After the death of the Grand Master Alfonso de Cárdenas in 1493, the Catholic Kings incorporated the Order to the Spanish Crown and the pope Adrian VI forever united the office of grandmaster of Santiago to the crown in 1523.

The first Republic suppressed the Order in 1873 and, although the Restoration was reestablished, it was reduced to a nobiliary institute of honorable character ruled by a Superior Council dependent on the Ministry of War, which was also extinguished after the proclamation of the second Republic in 1931.

The Order of Santiago, together with the Calatrava, Alcántara and Montesa, was restored as a civil association with the kingship of Juan Carlos I with the character of a nobiliary, honorable, and religious organization and it remains as such.

St. James' Cross

The Order's insignia is a red cross simulating a sword, with the shape of a Fleur de Lis on the hilt and the arms. The knights wore the cross stamped on the Royal Standard and white cape. The cross of the Royal Standard had a Mediterranean scalp in the center and another one at the end of each arm.

The three Fleurs de Lis represent the "honor without stain", which is in reference to the moral features of the Apostle's character.

The sword represents the chivalrous character of the apostle St. James and his martyr ways, since he was decapitated with a sword. It can also symbolize, in a certain sense, to take the sword in the name of Christ.

It is said that its shape originated in the era of the Crusades, when the knights took with them small crosses with sharpened bottoms to stick them in the ground and carry out their daily devotions.

Internal Organization

Prerequisites for entrance into the Order

In its beginnings, entrance into the Order was not difficult, but after mid-thirteenth century it became more complicated.

Once the Reconquest was finalized, the candidate that wished to join the Order of Santiago must have proved in his first four last names to be of noble descent by blood and not by privilege, whose proof must likewise refer to his father, mother, and grandparents. He also needed to prove, in the same way, that neither him nor his parents or grandparents had worked in manual or industrial labor.

People who were Jewish, Muslim, heretic, or converted Christian (or a mix of these), no matter how far removed it was, could obtain habit of the Order. This was also the case with any who had been or was descendant of someone who had been punished for acts against the Catholic faith, nor he who was or was decedent of an attorney, moneylender, notary public, retail merchant, or worked where they lived or would have lived from their trade, neither he who had been dishonoured, nor he who neglected the laws of honor and executed any act improper of a perfect gentleman, nor he who lacked the proper means by which to sustain himself. The prospect then had to live three months in the galleys and reside for a month in the monastery to learn the Rule.

Later the King and the Council of the Orders abolished a great number of these prerequisites.

The Convents

Another element that was important to the infrastructure of the Order of Santiago were the convents, both male and female.

Aside from the convents for friars of Uclés and San Marcos de Léon, the Order had other convents in Villar de Donas (Léon), Palmella (Portugal), Montánchez (Cárceres), Montalbán (Aragon) and Segura de la Sierra in Jaén.

In 1275, the Order also counted with six convents for nuns, who called themselves mothers superior. The wives and family of the friars could stay there when they went to war or died. The friars only professed conjugal chastity, but not everlasting, and because of this they could leave the convent and marry. The convents that are mentioned are: Santa Eufemia de Cozuelos (Palencia), founded in 1502; Convento de Sancti Spiritus of Salamanca, given to the Order in 1233; San Vicente de Junqueras (Barcelona), founded in 1212; San Pedro de la Piedra (1260), in Lérida; Santos-o-Velho (1194), in Lisboa and the Destiana (León). The convents of Membrilla (Ciudad Real) and the Mothers Superior of Madrid (1650) came after these dates.

Territorial Division

The Order was divided several provinces, with the most important ones being Castilla and León because of their number of properties and vassals. At the head of each province there was a Military Commander with their headquarters in Segura de la Sierra (Castilla) and Segura de León (León), respectively. The province of León was divided into two parties, Mérida and Llerena, and in each of them there were various encomiendas.

The most important internal subdivision of the military orders were called "encomiendas", which were local units directed by a knight commander of military order. The "encomienda" could place the headquarters or residence of the knight commander in a castle or fortress or in a small town and was the administrative or economic center in which the rents of the estate and properties relevant to that "encomienda" were paid and received; it was the habitual residence of the knight commander and some other knight.

Each "encomienda" had to sustain, with its rent, not only the knight commander and the other knights living there, but it also had to pay and arm a certain number of spears, that had to turn to the callings of his Master perfectly equipped to take part in those military actions that they wished to take on. All of them formed the armed retinue or army of the Order, which answered to the orders of its Master. The rents of land, pastures, industries, toll and right of way, along with taxes and tithe, constituted the revenue that helped maintain the Order. The revenue was allocated between rents of the respective "encomiendas" and rents of the sleepwalk board that financed the Master of the Order.