De Leão a Portugal: a Ordem Militar de Santiago

The knights' confraternity created in Cáceres by Fernando II, in August 1170, had a different fortune from other peninsular brotherhoods of the same kind. Unlike these, it did not lose importance, nor was it absorbed by more powerful institutions. It became a religious militia through its association with the archbishop of Santiago on 12 February 1171, in an agreement that placed the confraternity under his protection. Its existence and rule was later consecrated by Rome, which made it an institution of the Universal Church. This paper resumes the circumstances under which the brethren were invested in the kingdom of Portugal, which occurred even before the recognition of the order by the Holy See, as well as the role they played in defending the kingdom's borders and in the fight against Muslims in the 12th and 13th centuries. The analysis does not forget, however, that the order had a hierarchical structure, with its central structures in León, and later in Castile, and which moved men and resources between the different kingdoms. The problems that these transfers posed did not affect the assertion of the monarchs' authority, at least until the end of the 13th century, when the brethren separated from their headquarters in Castile and created a provincial mastership, subject to the king's will and confined to the borders of the kingdom of Portugal.