The Order of Calatrava was founded in 1157 by Don Diego Velazquez who was a Cistercian monk based at the Monastery of Fitero in Navarre. Velázquez persuaded his Abbot, Ramón Sierra, to permit a group of monks to form themselves into a military confraternity to defend this strategically crucial town from Islamic attacks. It would be a mistake to suppose those rough medieval warriors sought in the cloister only a comfortable asylum after a dangerous career. It was the other way around, as in Calatrava, those who had been monks became knights and monastic life was really a warfare.
Calatrava was a castle recovered from the Muslims in 1147 by the King of Castile Alfonso VII. Situated on the extreme southern borders of Castile, this conquest was more difficult to keep than to make, at a time when neither standing armies nor garrisons were known. It was this deficiency that the military orders intended to supply through their vow of perpetual war against the Muslim. Alfonso VII had recourse to the Templars first, but after a vain attempt to defend Calatrava they abandoned it. So, Alfonso’s successor, King Sancho III of Castile, granted the Cistercian monks the town in 1158.
The Order of Calatrava was confirmed as a military order through a Papal Bull given by Pope Alexander III on September 26, 1164. This placed the knights under the Cistercian rule but autonomous from the Cistercian Order itself, but its teachings provided them with an ideal of religious-military life, giving the Order unity and a strong sense of discipline and purpose.
As the Order acquired greater possessions in Castile, disputes emerged between different groups of knights. Meanwhile the Cistercians themselves tried to reassert their authority over the Order, demanding successfully in 1187 that the Master of the knights only be elected with the approval of the Cistercian Abbot of Morimond, in Burgundy. The early years saw rapid growth, with estates being acquired in Navarra in 1163, Portugal in 1175, and Aragon in 1179.
The Knights of Calatrava’s first military services had been brilliant, and in return for the great services they had rendered they received from the King of Castile new grants of land, which formed their first commanderies. They had already been called into the neighbouring Kingdom of Aragon, and been rewarded by a new landed estate. But these successes were followed by a series of misfortunes, due in the first instance to the unfortunate partition which Alfonso had made of his possessions, and the consequent rivalry which ensued between the Castilian and Leonese branches of his dynasty. On the other hand, the Moors of the Iberian Peninsula, wishing to recover their lost dominions, called to their aid the Moors of Africa, thus bringing on the new and formidable invasion of the Almohades. The first encounter resulted in a defeat for Castile.
In the disastrous battle of Alarcos, the knights were overpowered and, in spite of splendid heroism, were obliged to leave their bulwark of Calatrava to the Muslims in 1195. A year later Don Diego Velazquez died. The knights then proceeded to elect a new Grand Master. By a compromise, the master of Alcañiz was recognized as second in dignity, with the title of Grand Commander for Aragon. The scattered remains of Calatrava had meanwhile found a common shelter in the Cistercian monastery of Cirvelos, and there they began to repair their losses by a large accession of new knights. They soon felt themselves strong enough to erect a new bulwark against the Muslims at Salvatierra, which they kept for fourteen years. But in the course of a fresh invasion of the Almohades, Salvatierra, in spite of a desperate defense, shared the fate of Calatrava in 1209.
Pope Innocent III asked foreign crusaders to help the Iberian Christians. The first event in this holy war, now a European one, was the reconquest of Calatrava in 1212, which was given back to its former masters. In the same year the famous victory of Las Navas de Tolosa, in which King Alfonso VIII of Castile and King Sancho VII of Navarre thrashed the Berber Muslim Almohads, thus marking the decline of Muslim domination in Western Europe. Having thus recovered possession of the stronghold, and resumed the title of Calatrava in 1216, the Order moved to their new quarters of Calatrava la Nueva in 1218, eight miles further south, extending thus the border of Castile. In 1221 the Order of Monfrague was merged into that of Calatrava.
From this new stronghold the Calatrava Knights’s influence spread throughout the Peninsula as new orders sprang up, such as Alcantara in the Kingdom of Leon and Avis in Portugal, both under Calatrava’s protection and the blessing of its Grand Master. This spirit of emulation, spreading among all classes of society, marks the climax of Iberian chivalry. It was then that Ferdinand III the Saint, King of Castile dealt a mortal blow to the Muslim power in 1235, conquering their capital city, Cordoba, which was followed by the surrender of Murcia, Jaen, and Seville.
By this time Calatrava had lands and castles scattered along the borders of Castile. It exercised feudal lordship over thousands of peasants and vassals. Thus, more than once, we see the order bringing to the field, as its individual contributions, 1200 to 2000 knights, a considerable force in the Middle Ages. The Order of Calatrava also enjoyed autonomy, which meant they were independent in temporal matters and acknowledging only spiritual superiors like the Abbot of Morimond and the pope. These authorities interfered, in consequence of a schism which first broke out in 1296 through the simultaneous election of two Grand Masters, Garcia Lopez and Gautier Perez.
Garcia Lopez appealed to the Pope Boniface VIII who referred the case to the Disciplinary Assemble at Cîteaux, where Lopez was reestablished in his dignity in 1302. But later Garcia Lopez resigned over a quarrel with his lieutenant in favor of Juan Nunez. These facts sufficiently prove that after the fourteenth century the rigorous discipline and fervent observance of the order’s earlier times had, under the relaxing influence of prosperity, given place to a spirit of intrigue and ambition.
By the 15th century royal encroachments began in the election of the Grand Master. In 1443 the King Juan of Castile persuaded some of the knights to depose their Master, Ferdinand de Padilla, and elect Alfonso of Aragon, natural son of the King of Navarre. Although Padilla resisted he was killed in an accident and Alfonso was elected unopposed. In the late 18th century the Order of Calatrava had revenues of 180,000 scudi per year. But its profits were confiscated in the nineteenth century and by the time of King Alfonso XIII the duties of the knights were primarily honorific.
