The Past and Present Society

The Military Orders in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Spanish Society. The Institutional Embodiment of a Historical Tradition Author(s): L. P. Wright Source: Past & Present, No. 43 (May, 1969), pp. 34-70 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/650110 Accessed: 18/03/2010 14:05
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THE MILITARYORDERSIN SIXTEENTHAND SEVENTEENTH CENTURYSPANISHSOCIETY. OF A THE INSTITUTIONALEMBODIMENT TRADITION* HISTORICAL

THE SPANISH MILITARY ORDERS OF CALATRAVA, SANTIAGO, AND

Alcantarawere founded in the course of the twelfth century, after the example of the Knights Templar, with the task of supporting the Christian kings of the north of Spain in their struggle to wrest the Peninsula from the grasp of the infidel Arab population of the south. They soon acquired a considerable renown, and to their military activities was added an important subsidiary role as colonizers of the new lands they opened up, for as reward for their military successes they were generally granted estates with jurisdictional rights in the conquered territories. At the same time the Orders made a strong appeal to popular piety, and their fusion of the twin ideals of monasticism and chivalry offered a powerful inducement to private alms and donations as well. By the end of the middle ages, therefore, they had come to enjoy vast estates and revenues, and to exercise jurisdiction over large parts of Andalucia and Extremadura. By then, however, they had lost their major reason for existence. The Moors had, since the fall of Seville in I248, been confined to the kingdom of Granada, and by I492 this too was at last in Christian hands. The ReyesCatolicos, Ferdinand and Isabella, were quick to appreciatethe dangers implicit in such a concentration of wealth in private hands, and the Orders were one by one brought within royal control as
* The following abbreviationshave been adopted in the footnotes: (i) Archives and Libraries: AGI. Archivo General de las Indias, Seville. AGS. Archivo General de Simancas,Valladolid. AHN. Archivo Historico Nacional, Madrid. BM. British Museum, London, Deparunent of Manuscripts. BN. BibliotecaNacional, Madrid, Secci6n de Manuscritos. RAH. Real Academiade la Historia, Madrid. (ii) Other abbreviations: Est. Secci6n de Estado. leg. legajo. OM. Seccion de OrdenesMilitares. sig. signatura. I would like to thank ProfessorJ. H. Elliott for the help and advice that he has given me in the preparation of this article.

MILITARY ORDERSIN SPANISH SOCIETY

35

Ferdinand himself assumed their Masterships. Finally a Bull of Adrian VI in I523 ratified in perpetuity the incorporation of the Orders into the Crown.l Some writers pointed out that the Crown could not be Master of an Order2 much less of three at one time and it was a condition of the Bull of Incorporation that knights and religious persons be appointed to attend to the Orders' spiritual affairs. This diEculty was resolved by the foundation of the Council of the Orders,which was responsible for the day-to-day administration.3 The Council functioned at first in two chambers, one concerning itself with the Order of Santiago, the other with those of Calatravaand Alcantara, each with its own President. Philip II, in I566, caused the two sections to be joined together as a single Council, with a President, eight Councillors, all of them knights of one or other Order, a Fiscal, a Mayor,together with a number of subordSecretary, and a Contador inate officers.4 Some idea of the extent of the Council's responsibilities, and of the amount of property which it controlled, may be into gauged from the fact that of the twenty-eight corregimientos
1 There is no satisfactoryhistory of the Orders as a whole either before or after the incorporationinto the Crown. A good bibliographicalguide to the literatureon the Ordersis providedby Juan sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Pio Garcia y Perez, "Indicador de varias cronicas religiosas y xnilitaresen y Museos,iii, iv, and v (I899-I9OI). Espana", Revista de Archivos,Bibliotecas, The nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuryworks I have consulted appear generallyto be derivative,repetitiveof each other, and often inaccurate,though there is some material of interest in Jose Fernandez Llamazares, Historia de las Cuatro()rdenesMilitaresde Santiago, Calatrava,Alcantara Compendida y Montesa (Madrid, I862), Angel Alvarez de Araujo y Cuellar, Recopilacion Historica de las Cuatro (5rdenesMilitares (Madrid, I866), and a lecture read before the Real Academiade la Historia by Francisco R. de lthagon, (5rdenes Militares(Madrid,I 898). As for modernworks,there are one or two devotedto individual Orders, such as D. W. Lomax, La Ordende Santiago: II70-I275 The role of (Madrid, I965), and F. Gutton, L'Ordrede Calatrava(Paris, I955). is apparent from La Reconquista the Orders as colonizers in the Reconquista del Pais (Zaragoza,IgSI). The Bull of Incorporation Espanolay la Repoblacion itself may be found in Joseph Lopez Agurleta, BullariumEquestrisOrdinisS. de Spatha (Madrid, I7I9), pp. 475-8. Iacobz y Caballeriasde 2 Francisco Rades y Andrada, Cronicade las tres Ordenes Calatrava, Santiago,y Alcantara(Toledo, I572), Cronicade Calatrava,f. 83. s The best account I have come across of the origins of the Council of the Orders is contained in a Consultaof the Council to the king, dated 29 Aug. I7I3: RAH., Coleccion de Mateos Murillo, Miscelanea Historica,i, ff. 3I4-58. de las ()rdenesMilitares. AHN. See also J. Lopez Agurleta,Origendel Consejo OM., Libros Manuscritos,sig. I286 C. 4 Aurea Javierre Mur and Consuelo G. del Arroyo, Guia de la Seccion de A list, unfortunatelyincomplete Militares(Madrid, n.d.), pp. II3-4. Ordenes of the Presidentsand Councillorsof the Orderswho held officebetween I523 and y Castro,D 49, ff. I-8. The I67I, iS to be found in RAH., Coleccionde Salazar subordinateofficersof the Council are detailedin ibid., I 35, ff. 2g8-8v.

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which Castillewas dividedfor administrative purposes,twenty-two werewithdrawn fromthe jurisdiction of the ConsgoRealand placed whollyunderits jurisdiction.5 It is an interesting commenton the attitude of the Crown towardsthe Orders,that while they were independent their secularaffairs wereordered to be heardbeforethe royal judicialtribunals;whereasafter the Incorporation) aIl suits arisingon the landsof the Orders hadto go beforethe Councilof the Orders alone,andit wasspecifically forbidden for the royalaudiencias to hear them. The repetitionof this prohibitionthroughoutthe sixteenth andseventeenth centuries suggeststhatit waslittleheeded.s One reasonfor this may well have been the delays to which the Councilof the Orderswas subject,for in additionto these responsibilities,the Councilhad alsoto adjudicate andadvisethe kingon the proofssubmittedin connection with the grantof military habitos, to punishknightsand comendadores who failedto obey the Statutesof the Orders, andto make recommendations forallthe minorecclesiastical appointments in the Orders,and the offices dependentupon them.7 It was, in fact, a vast responsibility, and as AndresMendo, a seventeenth-century apologist of the Orders, remarked,quite comparable in scopeto that of the Councilof the Indies.8 A study of the MilitaryOrdersaftertheir incorporation into the Crownis one of the mostglaringomissions fromthe bibliography of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish social and economic history. A prominent Spanish historian hasindeedrecently remarked thatit is incredible andalmostscandalous thata phenomenon of such enormoussocial dimensionsshould not ever seriouslyhave been lookedat.9 Most of the earlyhistoriesof the Orders,like that of Rades y Andrada,l? are no more than chroniclesof the deeds of successive Masterswhich end with the royal assumptionof the administration of the Masterships, while those who attemptedto carry the story beyond the middle ages provide at best a mere catalogue of the militarycampaigns in which knightsof the Orders
5 BM.) MS. Cotton, Vesp. C VI, f. 7v. 6 Vicente de la Fuente, Historia Eclesiasticade

Espana, v (Madrid, I874),

puntualde todoslos Consejos Superiores . . . en la Cortede Espana. 8 Andres Mendo, De las (5rdenes Militares(Madrid, I68I), pp. I98-9. 9 Antonio Dominguez Ortiz, La Sociedad Espanola en el sigloXV1I i (Madrid

pp. 352-4* 7 BN. MS. 5972, f. IOOV: Gabriel Lobo Lasso de la Vega, Relacionmuy

I963), p. I98. Dominguez Ortiz is the only modern writer to have attempted to discuss the position occupied in Spanish society by the Orders after the incorporation, and this paper draws heavily on his work. 10 See note 2 above. Rades wrote what was the first and in many ways the most satisfactory history of the Orders, and all later writers owe a great deal to him, since he had access to many documents which have now disappeared.

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tookpart.ll Sincemenas diverse as Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba, the Gran Capitan,the conquistadores HernanCortesand Francisco Pizarro,Don Juan de Austria,the victor of Lepanto,the admiral Alvarode Bazan,Marquesde Santa Cruz, and CharlesV's great general,Antoniode Leyvawere all investedwith militaryhabitos,l2 historiesof this sort tend to be indistinguishable from historiesof Spainitself. Modernwriters,for their part,have ignoredthe later historyof the MilitaryOrders altogether. In a way this neglectof the Orders is not reallysurprising. With the fall of Granada and the completion of the Reconquista, they had fulfilled the primarypurpose of their foundation,while the royal annexationeffectively curbed their independentexistence. The "history" of the Orders, in the traditional narrative sense,was clearly at an end. In anothersense, however,the Incorporation markeda beginning. The Crownmight now no longerbe in need of private organizations for the raisingof armiesto fight the Infidel,but the Orderswereableto surviveinto a new era as something muchmore important: a primesourceof income,patronage, andprestige. Certainly their financial significance was clear enough to contemporaries.Martinde Azpilcueta, the distinguished economic writerand professor at Salamanca, arguedthat throughthe Mastershipsof the three Orders the kingof Spainwasthe greatest prelatein the world, after the Pope, so far as ecclesiasticalincome was concerned.l3 King Ferdinand himselfpointedout that the yield of the Masterships exceededthe revenuesof the kingdomof Naples.l4 Someideaof whattheseincomesin factamounted to at the beginning of the sixteenth century is givenby the Venetian ambassador, Vicenzo Quirini. He estimated the valueto the Crownof the Mastership of Santiago at 40,000ducats,thatof Calatrava at 3s,ooo ducats,andthat of Alcantara at 36Zooo ducats.l5 These Eguresundoubtedlyrose rapidlyas the centuryadvanced. A generation later, in Is33) the Italian humanistwriter, MarineoSiculo, put them respectivelyat
llA good example of this is Francisco Caro de Torres, Historia de las ()rdenesMilitaresde Santiago,Calatrava,y Alcantara(Madrid, I629), Book iii, ff. 84-I9I. l2Vicente Vignau and Francisco R. de Uhagon, Indice de Pruebasde los Caballeros que han vestidoel habitode Santiagodesdeel ano I50I hasta la fecha (Madrid, I9OI). 13 Martin de Azpilcueta Navarro, Tractadode las Rentas de los Beneficios Eclesiasticos (Valladolid, I566), f. 28v. l4Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, ii (London, I866), pp. II8-9: king Ferdinand tO Pedro de Quintana, 2 r May I 5 I3. 15 E. Alberi, RelazionidegliAmbasciatori Venetial Senato, ISt ser., i (Florence, I859), pp. 25-6*

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60,000, 40,000,and4s,ooo ducats.l6 A thirdrelation, of I577, gives the annualyields as I20,000, 90,000, and 60,ooo ducats,l7a clear indication of the paceof inflation at this time. The landsof the Orders in themselves did muchto compensate for the loss of Crownlands alienatedin the later middle ages. They represented the most valuableconcentration of landedpropertyin Spain,situated, as for the mostparttheywere,at the southern limitof the sheep-migrating areas,some of the best pasturinglands in the country,and the veryvarietyof theirsourcesof incomewas a strong attraction. They thereforeconsiituteda perfect securityfor the loans contracted by the Habsburgmonarchs with Germanbanking firms. As earlyas I525 the MesasMaestrales, thoselandswhichhad once been the personaldomainsof the GrandMasters,were leased out to the Fuggers,in whosehandsthey remained, exceptfor a brief periodfrom I533 to I537, whenthe contract wenttemporarily to the Welserfamily.l8 As RamonCarande, the historianof CharlesV's finances, has remarked, it wouldbe impossible to exaggerate the farreachingimplications for the Spanisheconomyof the papal Bull sanctioning the royalassumption of the Maestrazgos.l9 But the landsof the Orderswerenot the only sourceof profitfor their new administrators.If the Crownhad to negotiateloans to enableit to pursueits imperial policies,it wasin no positionto reward its servants withdirectfinancial gifts. Titlesof honour,however, are an obviousfeatureof any societydependent upon monarchy, and as a resultof the Incorporation the disposition of the Orders' encomiendas and habitos fell into royalhands. This new mine of patronage was quickly exploited. It is easy to understandthe demand for encomiendas: they were territoriallordships,the jurisdictionand incomesof whichaccrued to each comendadorn and while their value was diminished by certaindues-notably subsidio, excusado, lanzas, and oftenthe maintenance of a localpriest20 theirobligations were in the mainslight. Eventhe annual periodof residence demanded16Lucio Marineo Siculo, Obrade las CosasMemorabiles de Espana(Alcalade Henares, I533), ff. 23v-4. 7 BM., MS. Cotton, Vesp. C VI, ff. 385-9. 18 Details of the variouscontractsfor the leasingof the propertyof the Orders may be found in Ranlon Carande, Carlos Vy sus Banqueros, ii, La Hacienda Real de Castilla (Madrid, I949), chap. 9; Modesto Ulloa, La HaciendaReal de Castilla en el Reinado de Felipe II (Rome, I963), chap. I8; and Hermann Kellenbenz, Die Fuggersche Maestrazgopacht (I525-42) (Tubingen, I967). 9 Carande,op. cit., p. 603. 20 A list of the encomiendas of the Orderof Santiagowith the dues incumbent upon them in I652 iS to be found in AHN., OM., Libros Manuscritos, sig. I340 C, f5. 346-84. Dues appear to have weighed much less heavily on the large encomienda than on the slnall one.

MILITARY ORDERSIN SPANISH SOCIETY

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and threein that of Alcantara, four monthsin the case of Santiago, be only two in that of Calatrava2l might withoutgreatdifficulty who couldclaimthattheirpresence avoided, for thoseCrownservants absolvedof even this at Courtwas alwaysrequiredwere frequently duty.22 therewere of the threeOrders, As against the I80 oddcomendadores de habito,knightswith no land or well over a thousandcaballeros income apartfrom a derisoryreal a day for their upkeep. What an habito inducedmen to go to the troubleand expenseof procuring gain, but somethingmore basicto was clearlynot hope of financial Spanish mentality. Hidalgufa andseventeenth-century the sixteenthwas that firstessentialqualitywhichformedthe basisof all nobility; withoutit, for was,in theoryat least,impossible entryintothe Orders the exclusivepreserveof personalmeritwas still widely considered could be elevatedand refined, sSidalguia the blood "likethe enamelworkin gold however,by the grantof knighthood, the valueof the gold, but adornsit jewellery, whichdoes not enhance lay in its and gives it greaterbeauty".24 The value of knighthood historicaltradition. From one point of view9 as we have seen, once Spainhadbeen won back werean anachronism MilitaryOrders from the Moors. But from another, they were anything but century, to forthey hadcome,as earlyas the thirteenth anachronistic, of enshrineall those qualitieswhich one regardsas so characteristic fervour, the GoldenAge: religious Spanishsocietyin its expansionist pursuitof honour,feats of armsin war, supportfor the ideal of the and purityof blood, and so nationstate, the twin cults of hidalguia
aristocracy.23

forth.25

pointedout that all these conceptsmaybe derived It is frequently which generateda traditionof the Reconquista, from the crusading and militantlyreligious, in its aristocratic, society predominantly
Andres Mendo, Op. Cit., p. 24I. Non-residence was frowned upon, however, by successive General Chaptersof the Orders,and penaltiesmight be imposed even upon those who were absent upon royal service. Cf. Pero Perez, "La Encomienda de Extremenos, iv (I930), pp. 233-4I Calatrava", Revistadel Centrode Estudios Politico Fajardo,Idea de un Prsncipe 23 For such views, see Diego de Saavedra Christiano (Antwerp, I677), Empresaxvii. The insistence of the Ordersupon nobility of blood is to be found in Francisco Ruiz de VergaraAlava, Reglay Apostol Santiago nuevosde la Orden y Cavalleriade el Glorioso Establecimientos (Madrid, I653), tit. i, cap. i, and similarlyin the volumes of statutesof the other Orders. del Espanol 24 Benito de PenalosaMondragon,Librode las CincoExcelencias (Pamplona,I629), f. 89. by Lomax, Op. Cit., pp. 88, 2I7, but 25 Such is the impressionleft particularly it is also implicit in all the accountsof the activitiesof the Ordersin the [niddle ages.
21 22

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aspirations.26Butwhatis notemphasized enoughis the factthatthe MilitaryOrders,survivingas they did right up to the nineteenth century, servedas anextantinstitutional embodiment of thathistorical traditionon whichthe sixteenthand seventeenth centuries,at least, modelledthemselves. The assumption of an habitoof one of the Orderswas by no meansan archaicritual:it was at once a proofof familynobleza and limpieza de sangre, and a first majorstep up the ladderof the Castilian noble hierarchy; an identification, in fact, of oneselfandone'sfamilywiththosearistocratic andchivalric concepts which custom,ratherthan law, renderedobligatory for the hidalgo class. The role of the MilitaryOrders,quite apartfrom their economic importance to the Crown,and to the comendadores whomthe Crown named,can thus be seen as one of socialorientation and definition. Gerdnimo Mascarenas, in the introduction to the I66I editionof the Statutesof the Orderof Calatrava, puts this pointvery clearlyin his description of the royal Councilof the Orders. "Its functionis to conserve the Spanish aristocracy, to keepunsullied the purityof noble families,to give honourto personswho meritit, to distinguish the illustrious from the commonherd,the noble from the base".27 In otherwords,it servedin principle to definea socialhierarchy basedon criteriaof birth ratherthan of wealth;to grantcertificates of noble ascendancy andof purityof blood. This is a themeto whichwe will have to recur later when we considerthe social standingof the knights,for it is preciselywhat made grants of habitosso eagerly soughtafterby the middlenobility,andthosewho aspired to join its ranks. It is at once apparent,however,that while the Military Orders had fulfilledthe immediate purposefor whichthey had been created,they remained an integralpartof the new age. Thoughno longerinvolvedcorporately in militaryor politicalaffairs, they were still a central element in a social system which they themselves reflected, andhadindeedhelpedto forge. The changed positionof the Orders was,perhaps naturally, slowto be appreciated by contemporaries.At the GeneralChapterof the Orderof Santiago held in Valladolid in I527, the kingwas presented witha paper"onthe littleuseof the Military Orders" whichsuggested that Spain now had no more need of these outmodedbodies of knights.28 The procuradores of the Cortesheld in Madridin ISSI
pp. 26 For 20-I.

example, J. H. Elliott, Imperial Spain

I469-I7I6

(London,

I963),

27Difinicionesde la Ordeny Cavalleria de Calatrava, conforme al Capitulo Generalcelebrado en Madridano 1652 (Madrid, I66I), p. I28. 28AGS., PatronatoReal, leg. 22, f. 33: "Parecerque se dio al E;nperador CarIosV" (I527).

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the Orders had beenfoundedand reminded the Crownthat although richly endowedto fight the Infidel, they were not doing so, and suggestedthat they be entrustedwith the defenceof the Mediterraneancoast againstthe piratesof north Africa.29 The Cortesof I576 went even further in attackingthe degeneratestate of the on the the establishment andthis timerecommended Military Orders, in whicheveryknightwould African coastof conventsof eachOrder, to live and servefor the spaceof threeyearsbeforehe be compelled that"theSpanish couldbe professed. By this meansit waspredicted Nobility will occupy itself virtuously, honourably,and after a Christianmanner".30The theme was, in fact, taken up again century by andmadeas littleimpression at the end of the following decline arbitrista writer,troubledalikeby the military an anonymous to a jointattackby Muley and by Spain'svulnerability of the Orders Ismailfrom Morocco,in alliancewith Louis XIV, who was himself alreadythreateningSpain from his footholdin Catalonia.3l The was of coursepastbeyondrecalleven by military gloryof the Orders and althoughthe annalistGeronimo the time of the Incorporation, Zuritatells how in the GeneralChapterof Santiagoin I509, King that the knightsof the Orderpush a suggestion Ferdinand approved into northAfrica,it need causelittle surprise forward the Reconquista thatthe planwas neverallowedto materialize.32 During the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies,therefore,the SpanishMilitaryOrdersat first sight amountedto no more than rigid instituordersof chivalry;but their apparently anachronisiic nonethelessaccordedthem a vital and developing tional structures of this paper attemptsto do is social role. What the remainder for the Ordersof this examinein rathermoredetailthe implications and function,and in so doing to offer dichotomybetweenstructure on the activityof the Ordersnot only within some tentativeremarks but in that of Spanish noble hierarchy, the contextof the Castilian societyas a whole. It is by no means uncommonto trace in institutionsa formal structure whichis in no way relatedto theiractualfunction. When
29

Reinosde Leony de Castilla,v (Madrid, I903), Cortesde los antiguos

c.

p.

543,

peticion
30

Actas de las Cortesde Castilla,v (Madrid, I865), pp. 33-5, peticion xv. sl The pamphlet is printed with an introductionby David Torra under the title Las (5rdenesMilitares y Marruecos(Tetuan, I954). 32 Geronimo Zurita, Anales de la Corona d.e Aragon, vi (Zaragoza, I652), f. 208. Suggestionsalong similarlines were frequentlymade howeverthroughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: cf. BM., Add. MS. 28434, ff. 2I-3; BN., MS. 94425 ff. I30-9; AHN., Est., leg. 7r6) Duque de Bejar to Marques de la Paz, 25 Aug. I732.

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such a discrepancy occurson a small scale it may be dismissedas absurdor merelyquaint;on a largescaleit may in the end only be resolved by revolution. The Orders did in fact eventuallyfall victimto the revolutionary upheavals of the nineteenth century5 when the tensions engendered by thisgrowing discrepancy became too great. Throughout the periodin question,however, they couldcontinueto be regarded indulgently as venerable archaisms. In principlethe Ordersstill retainedthe character which their namesuggests:that of religiousordersfollowinga monastic rule and devotedto the struggleagainst the Infidel. Theoretically they never ceasedto be just this yet at the sametime militaryhabitos were conferred upon childrenand new-bornbabies,33 as well as on older candidates whopetitioned forthemalleging meritsandservices which had little to do with the religiousends and natureof the Orders.34 In practice the smallnucleusof friarsattached to the convents of each Order aIone lived under the rigour of monasticdiscipline. The communal obligations of the knightscameto be of little importance, particularly afterPaulIII's Bull of I540 whichpermitted the knights of Calatrava andAlcantara to marry andto interpret theirsolemnvow of chastityin the sense only of conjugal chastity,a stateto whichof courseall Christians werein anycasebound.35 Now alsothe vow of povertywas fulfilledby presenting each year an inventoryof goods and possessions, under the pretence that the knight was only administering them, by permission of the Masterand in his name. By the latterhalf of the sixteenthcenturythis inventoryitself had become a mere symbol, a generalstatementwith no detailsof the propertyto which it referred,and its presentation no more than a formality.36Daily recitation of the canonical prayers became commutedto a few Paternosters and presence at Mass, which, togetherwith the obligationto confess and to communicate four
33 AHN., OM., Consejo de las (trdenes, Archivo Secreto, Series I, leg. 33, ff. 78, 8I, 82, 83, and others. 34 Petitions for habitosare to be found in every collection of Spanish state papers in such numbers as to make it impossible to list them. Petitioners would generallyput forwardthe servicesrenderedto the Crownby themselves their ancestorsand their relatives,and it is rareto find particular reasonsfor the request for an habitoratherthan any other pension or title. 35 The Bull is printed in I. J. Ortega y Cotes, BullariumOrdinisMilitiae de Calatrava(Madrid, I76I), pp. 5I4-7. The knightsof Ssntiago needed no such dispensation for they had always been permitted to contract marriage see Lomax, op. cit., pp. 90-3. Before xnarrying, knights of all three Ordershad to obtainleave from the king, apparentlyto ensurethat the future wife was of pure ancestry: BM., MS. Egerton 485, ff. II9V-20. 36 BMU MS. Harleian3476, f. 57; Andres Mendo, op. cit., pp. ISI-2; Ruiz de Vergara,op. cit., tit. v, cap. iv.

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times a year, amountedto no more than the universallay Catholic devotion.37 In the year of noviciate,after assumingthe habitobut before takingthe vows of profession,a period of residencein the him to the Conventwas expectedof the knight,in orderto introduce spell in the religiouslife, andhe was obligedtoo to servea six-month royal galleys, to give him militaryexperience.38But both these the galley service, were in practice obligations,and particularly the subjectof specialdispensation.39 frequently manytimesin andexpanded reprinted of the Orders, The Statutes conanuedto lay centuries, andseventeenth the courseof the sixteenth stress upon the obligations incumbent upon the knights and a short in fact publishedseparately Radesy Andrada comendadores. of his own Orderof whichboundmembers accountof the obligations and many other writers dwelt at length upon them. Calatrava,40 mayseem, thoughtheselists of dutiesandresponsibilities Impressive century,they one may doubtwhether,at least by the mid-sixteenth thatknightsneeded but a deadletter. It was ominous wereanything of their religious to be remindedso frequentlyof the implications whetherthe vows, andit wasin fact a frequentsubjectfor discussion membersof the Orderscould now in any sense be consideredas religiousat all. The Ordersof coursehad their defenders. Diego de la Mota, a of in the province of Santiago of the Order canonof Ucles (the capital of the ceremonyof character Castille)insisted on the ecclesiastical assumingthe habito. The vows were those of all other religious from them did not affecttheir orders,and individualdispensations concerned essentialnature.4lOntheotherhand,delaMotawasclearly were habitos thatmilitary at a numberof developments. He stressed to be bestowed neither as casual gifts, financialrewards,nor as
de Calatrava,tit. op. cit., tit. vii, caps.i and iv; Difiniciones 37 Ruiz de Vergara, iv, cap. i, and pp. 54I-52; BN., MS. 879: "Kalendariode la maneradel rezar de la Orden de Cavalleriade Aleantara". de Calatrava,tit. VII, 38 Ruiz de Vergara,op. cit., tit. v, cap. viii; Difiniciones cap. i. OM. 39 A number of exemptions of this sort are to be found in AHN., Consejode las (5rdenes,leg. I58, caja I. When the GeneralChapterof Santiago protestedin I652 at the excessive number of dispensationsfrom galley service the Couneilof the Orderspointed out that the money paid for such dispensations all went for militarypurposes,and was in fact of greaterbenefit than the service that was therebyexcused;AHN., OM., Consejode las ()rdenes,Archivo Secreto Series I, leg. I0, f. I2, Consultaof Council of Orders,29 July I652. que los Comenda40 FranciseoRades y Andrada,Catalogode las Obligaciones de la Orden. . . de Calatravatienenen priores,y otrosreligiosos dores,cavalleros, (Toledo, I57I). razon de su abitoy profesion en quese adviertecomose ha de 41Diego de la Mota, Tratadosobreunproblema Militares(Valladolid,I603), ff. 6-7V. el habitode las ()rdenes pretender

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PAST AND PRESENT

NUMBER 43

secularhonours,but only as fittingprizesfor those whose Christian actionsrenderedthem worthyof membership in the Orders.42 A long sectionof the workdeals with simony. Habitosmight not be givenin returnfor payment, nor in settlement of services performed, and de la Mota went so far as to considerin additionas simonythe assumptionof an habitofor the purpose simply of receivingan encomienda.43 The spiritual natureof military knighthoods was emphasized also by the bishop of Guadix,Martinde Ayala,in a pamphletwritten duringthe period of his auendanceat the Councilof Trent as a member of the Spanish delegation.44To counter the prevailing malaise in the Orders, whichhe diagnosed as a mixtureof ignorance and negligence,Ayala offered a succinct statementof what the religiousvows impliedfor the lives of the knights,in the form of alternate lists of actionsthat were obligatory and of those that were forbidden. Someindicaiion of the intellectual level at whichhe had to aimhis argument is provided by his justification of the inclusionof a remarkable Spanishtranslation of the Lord's Prayer:".. . Since a number,through theirfailureto understand the prayers they recite, showneitherenthusiasm nor devotionwhenthey do pray,it occurred to me that I might render the Lord's Prayerinto our common Castilian tongue,in view of the numberof timesit has to be said".46 Ratherthan endeavour to drawbackthe Ordersto their original spiritualnorms,other writersacceptedthe relaxation of their rules and tried to create a new raiionalefor them. In a work written presumably to justifythe secularization of the Orders, AndresMendo remarked thatin his viewthe knightscouldno longerbe considered as religious; farfromleadingthe life of religious orders"thetenorof life of the knightsis just that of the rest of the laityas regards ambition, occupation,recreation,day-to-dayconcerns,and indeed in every otherparticular, withoutany differences beingapparent".46A little beforethis, Alonso de Penafielhad writtenin even strongerterms. In his view, for example,it was not simonyfor habitos to be bought and sold, nor evenfor ministers to be bribedin order thattheymight put in a good wordfor a personinterested in obtaining one.47 The
42Ibid.,?I3

Ibid., f. g4v. Martin de Ayala, Compendio y Declaracion de lo queson obligados a guardar los Cavalleros de la Ordende Santiago(Milan, I552).
43 44
45Ibid.,ff. I6V-I7-

Andres Mendo, op. cit., p. 89. The Castilianversion of is work, from which all quotationsare taken,is in fact a long resumeof the author'sLatin text, De Ordinibus MilitaribusDisquisitiones (Salamanca,I657). 47 Alonso de Penafiel y Araujo, Obligaciones y excelencias de las tres ()rdenes Militares(Madrid, I643), cap. xi, ff. 84-8V.
46

MILITARY ORDERSIN SPANISH SOCIETY

45

vow of poverty, moreover, was no bar to the acquisition of property of all sorts, for without goods and money the knight would be unable to fight or to perform the acts of charity to which he was obliged.48 Penafiel's outspokenness is exceptional, but the very fact that the or the free acquisitionof propertywere discussed at all is sale of habitos sufficient indication that such things were in practice not uncommon. The majority of authors might vainly argue that the Orders were in fact true religious bodies, but the reality was obviously too apparent. When in I684 the Council of the Ordersasked that knights should not be included in a donative which fell on the owners of carriages,in view of their religious status, the couIlcil of Castille put forward a long to refute this pretension, showing that the present way of life Consulta of the Ordersin no way justified their being considered as exempt on these grounds.49 A foreigner might be expected to see such matters in a different perspective from a Spaniard, and most observers seem to have been under no illusion as to the true position. Barthelemy Joly, for example, was a French Benedictine who travelled in Spain at the beginning of the seventeenth century. He remarkedin his memoirs that the knights were really no more than wealthy marriedgentlemen, and estates, living comfortablyfrom the revenues of their encomiendas without having to soil their hands with any manual work. To add colour to his description, he quoted two current Spanish proverbs which poked fun at the sort of men who obtained the right to bear the y el insignia of the Order upon their tunics: "conla crus en lospechos (the Cross on their chests and the devil in their diabloen los hechos" (the Devil does not deeds) and "el diablono huyede todaslas cruces" flee from every Cross).5? lshe seigneurs depicted by Joly would in all probability have been of the Military Orders. In rich before they ever assumed habitos theory the knights had the right to be sustained from the estates of the Orders, but in fact, as we have seen, the amount set aside for their support remained fixed, despite inflation, at one reala day-I2,000 a year. This sum was so inadequatethat it was commonly maravedzs referredto as "the knights' bread and water", and in the end was not paid at all, the Crown appropriatingthe whole amount for its defence expenditure.5l In so far as the Orders offered financial rewards to
AHN., Seccion de Consejos Suprimidos,leg. 7I85: Consultaof Council of Castille, I0 July I684. Joly en Espagne, I603-4", ed. L. Barrau-Dihigo, 6?"Voyage de BarthElemy xx (I909), p. 589. RevueHispanique, Consultaof Councilof de Hacienda,leg. 83I-II40: 61 AGS., Consejoy Juntas Hacienda, II Oct. I66I see also Antonio Dominguez Ortiz, Politicay Hacienda de FelipeIV (Madrid, I960), p. 2I3, note 46.
49

48Ibid.,f.sI.

46

PAST AND PRESENT

NUMBER 43

their members, they did so through their encomiendas, some of which were indeed of considerableworth, though the number was naturally limited. The yearly incomes of encomiendas fluctuated to some extent, but the following figures, given in an early seventeenth-century relacion, can serve as a general indication:52
Order Santiago Calatrava Alcantara Number of Encomiendas 94
5I

Value (ducats) 308,889

I35,000 I I4,248

38

The encomiendas had suffered in both number and value as a consequence of the sales and alienationswhich CharlesV and Philip II had carriedout by papal licence, for the nominal purpose of rasing money for the defence of the Mediterraneanagainst pirates.53 The Orders were compensated for what they lost by the grant of juros,mostly on the revenues of the silk industry in Granada. The defence of the Andalucian coast might better have been served by refraining from crippling the majorindustry of the region by an insupportableburden of taxation, and in fact it is doubtful whether any interest was ever paid upon these bonds.54 It would appearthat about one fifth of all the encomiendas of the three Orders had been alienated by I600, and it was no more than a pious hope, therefore, for Philip II to charge his son with the restitution to the Orders of the properties which had been taken from them.55 In the course of the seventeenth centurythe value of those encomiendasthat remained seems to have declined further, whether on account of the general economic depression, or possibly through the devastation caused by the Portuguese rebellion in parts of Extremadura where many encomiendas were situated. At all events a relacion of I7I2 gives the following figures:56
52 This relacionsurvives in a number of copies, each with minor variations: BM., MS. Harleian 3569, ff. I85-204V; BN., MS. 7423, ff. I88-95; RAH., Coleccionde Salazary Castro,F 8, ff. I-24. 53 On the dismembermentof the property of the Orders, see Salvador de Moxo, "Las Desamortizaciones Eclesiasticas del Siglo XVI", Anuario de Historia del DerechoEspanol,xxxi (Madrid, I96I), pp. 327-6I; and Carande, op. cit., pp. 4II-7. Lists of properties alienated may be found in AGS., PatronatoReal, Libros de Copias,Libro I8, ff. 340V-2' and RAH., Coleccionde Salazary Castro,I 23, ff. 97-II2. 54 The revenues of the silk industry were alreadyearmarked for the salaries of the Captain General of Granada and his officials. See K. Garrad, The Causesof the SecondRevoltof theAlpufarras, I568-7I (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge,

BM., Add. MS. 25686, f. 226. 5B BN., Seccion de Libros Raros, R 23,888, no. 6: "Papeles de D. Luis de Salazar sobre las (5rdenes". It should be noted that the Calatravafigures include five tenencias in additionto the 5 I encomiendas of the seventeenthcentury relacionanalysedabove; six encomiendas of Santiago,however, do not appearin the later list.

I955), 55

i, p. I78.

MII,ITARY ORDERSIN SPANISH SOCIETY

47

Order Santiago Calatrava Alcantara

Number of Encomiendas
88 56 38

Value in de vellon maravedis Net Gross

585642,624 39,833,I57 26,597,856 46,I7I,935 28,I26,97I 20,589,483

Equivalentin ducats Gross Net

I565380 I06,222 705928 I23,I25 75,005 54,905

Not till much later in the eighteenth century does one again begin to find figures approachingthose of the early seventeenth century. there were some which at the best of times Among the encomiendas brought in only comparativelysmall amounts - 500 ducats, or even less-which could hardly support a single individual once the various obligations to which the encomienda was liable had been met. In others, however, the rewards to be had were certainly inviting. The following table gives a break-down of the values of individual encomiendas as they were in the early seventeenth century:57
Value in ducats Up to 499 500 - 999
I,000 2,000 3,000 5,000 755?? I0,000 -

Santiago 4 9
32 I7 7 II 6 4

Calatrava
2

Alcantara 4
I2 7 3 4 6 2

4
20 I2 3 3 3 I

4,ooo -

I,999 2,999 3,999 4,999 7,499 9)999

and over

4 94

3 SI 38

yielded between one and three thousand The majorityof encomiendas ducats, while a few were worth considerably more than this: Socuellamos, in the Order of Santiago was worth I6,250 ducats, Manzanares, in that of Calatrava, I6,000 ducats, Herera, in that of Alcantara, 7702 ducats. Financial rewards, of course, were not everything. His biographer tells how in I529 Francisco de los Cobos, the royal secretary,was keen of Azuaga for the less to exchange his well-endowed encomienda mayorof Leon, "the valuable, but far more prestigious encomienda highest title a courtier could receive short of a patent of nobility".58 was of Los Cobos was fortunate; for many the grant of an ecomienda great economic importance, particularlyfor the younger sons of titled families who could have little hope of any ultimate share in the
These figures are taken from the relacioncited above, note 52. Hayward Keniston, Francisco de los Cobos Secretary of the Emperor Details of the exchangeare in AGS., CharlesV (Pittsburgh,I959), pp. I2I-2. Est. (Castilla),leg. I7-I8, f. 9.
57 68

48

PAST AND PRESENT

NUMBER 43

inheritance. Bernardino de Mendoza, for example, for many years Spanish ambassadorin Paris, was the younger son of the third count of Coruna, and had considerable financial problems until the king bestowed on him the encomienda of Penausende in the Order of Santiago.59 It was natural that at the time of a vacancy in an encomienda, there should gather large numbers of petitioners for it. Among these might be men and women of the highest social rank, for such could easily be the occasion for the development of bitter faction fighting. When the encomienda of Moratallabecame vacant in I6I2, no less than twenty-three candidates came forward, among them the Princess Doria, the counts of Fuentes de Aragon, Castellar,and Guzman, and the marquesesof Cerralvo,Sancino, and Ayamonte.60 The Crown characteristically extractedas much advantageas it was able from this source. It alreadyenjoyed direct revenue from various dues which fell on the encomiendas as a whole, and it took the incomes from any vacant encomiendas. In addition, however, some of the more wealthy encomiendas were from time to time grantedto members of the royal family. At the beginning of the eighteenth century a "Relation of the encomiendas which are granted with future succession to the Lord Infante Don Phelipe" listed four encomiendas of Santiago, five of Calatrava,and three of Alcantara, including four of the five encomiendas The Order of St. John of Jerusalemwas the one most affected by this policy, which in fact culminated in the virtual secularization of that Order under Charles III. Although even then the Castilian Orders did not escape, their encomiendas were in fact used for the most part for the reward of services and as a means of bestowing royal favour. Not infrequently encomiendas were held by women; although technically they could be consideredonly as administrators,and not as comendadores, this meant in practice that they enjoyed all the financial axldsocial advantagesofthe encomiendas without any ofthe (admittedly meagre) obligations to the Orders themselves that the comendador generally owed. A widow was frequently allowed to continue in possession of her late husband's encomienda,62 or she might well be granted an encomienda for the first time in the name of a younger son
mayores.6l

59 A. Morel-Fatio, Viii (I906), pp, 27-8.

"Don Bernardino de Mendoza", Bulletin Hispanique,

6?RAH., Colecci6n de Salazary Castro, I 26, ff. 65-8V. ffl AHN., Est., leg. 2605, f. 66. 62 Luis de Salazar y Castro, Los Comendadores de la Orden de Santizo, ed. Marquesde Ciadoncha(Madrid, I949) containsnvunerous examplesof this.

MILITARY ORDERSIN SPANISH SOCIETY

49

whom she had to support.63 In I7I2 more than one-fifth of the encomiendas of the Order of Calatravain Castille and Aragon were in the hands of women (I2 out of 56), as were 8 of the 38 encomiendas of Alcantara. 64 The high nobility seem to have enjoyed practically half the total number of encomiendas, and a considerablygreaterproportion of their total value. This is brought out clearly by the following tables, relating to the year I622, which show Erst the proportion of comendadores who came from the ranks of the dukes, counts, and marqueses, or their immediate families, and second, the proportion of the total value of the Orders' encomieszdas which these nobles held.65
NUMBERS OF ENCOMIENDAS IN NOBLE HANDS, I622 C)rder Number of

Santiago Calatrava Alcantara

Total

encomiendas 94 5I 38
I 83

Comendadores from titled families 38

26 I7

?'

4? * 4 50 . 9 44. 7 44
2

8I

VALUE OF ENCOMIENDAS IN NOBLE HANDS, I622

Order Santiago Calatrava Alcantara

Total

Value of all encomiendas

308,889 I35,000 II4,248 558,I37

Value of encomiendas in hands of nobles

I84,869 I02,2I4

?5O
59. g 75 .7 6I . 3 63 "9

70,o67
357,I50

The example of Calatrava in particular is quite striking: half the

encomiendas are held by nobles, yet these account in themselves for

over three-quarters of the total value. Obviously there was always the possibility, however remote, that any knight of the Orders might be lucky enought to achieve an encomienda, and it was perhaps for this reason that Santiago, the Order with the most encomiendas, was also
B3 RAH., Coleccion de Salazar y Castro, I >6, ff. 89-9V: "Memoriaque hizo el Sr. FranciscoGero. de Heredia de provisionesde encomiendascon beneficio de mugeres, ano I6I3"; BN., MS. 2693, ff. 57-8: "Relacionde encomiendasde la horden de Santiago que fuesen dado a personasno cavallerosde la horden, a rnugeresy a otros efectos diferentes". 64 BN., Seccion de Raros, R 23,888, no. 6. 65 These tables have been drawnup from the informationcontainedin BM. MS. Harleian 3569, ff. I85-204V (encomiendas and their values) and in AGS., Graciay Justicia,leg. 890 (encomiendas and naJnesof comendadores).

5o

PAST AND PRESENT

NUMBER 43

the Ordermost soughtafterfor habitos.66But in reality,for poorer hidalgos, soldiersor any but the most influential Crownservants, the chances of obtaining an encomienda of whatever valuewereslight. Only the most optimistic,or the most noble-blooded, can have entered the Orders withanydirectly materialistic motives. Caballeros de habito constitutedno special rank within the Castiliannoble hierarchy, butthey did havea distinctinstitutional character by virtue of the historical traditionwhich the Ordersembodied. It was this senseof self-identity, andin particular the guarantee of nobilitywhich was impliedin it, which gave the habito its placein the artistocratic cursus honorum. The intensityof the demandfor militaryhabitos, however, canonlybe understood in termsof a societywhichexcluded from its upper ranksnot only the base-born,but also the racially
suspect.67

In Spain there are two classes of nobility [wrote a contemporary]. One greater,which is hidalguia,and anotherlesser, which is purity of blood, the class which we call Old Christians. And althoughthe possessionof hidalguia is more prestigious, it is much more disgraceful to lack purity of blood, because in Spain we hold a convnon peasant of pure ancestry in greater esteem than an hidalgo of dubious origins.68

The MilitaryOrderswere one of the principalcommunities in Spaindevotedto the preservation and continuance of the statutesof purityof blood,whichsoughtto excludefrompositionsof influence all who might have any trace of Jewishor Moorishblood in their veins. When the archbishopof Toledo, Juan Martinez Siliceo, introduced his own limpieza statutein the Cathedral Chapter the decisiveimpulseto the generalacceptance of limpiesa as an essential
?sThe list of knights of the Orderof Santiago(note I2 above) containssome naInes; the correspondingvoluxnefor the other two Orders (Madrid includes 3,886 membersof the Orderof Calatrava and 2,I I8 of Alcantara together less than half the Santiago total. The Council of the Orders tried to introducesome system of rotationbetween the three Ordersin the concession of habitos;one such plan is printed by Jose Gomez Centurion,"Desproporcionalidad en la concesion de mercedes de habitos entre las tres ?5rdenes de Santiago,Calatrava y Alcantaraen I674 y I703", Boletinde la Real Academia de la Hzstorsa, lx] (I9I2), pp. 449-452. 67 The remarksmade here in connection with the idea of limpiezade sangre are necessarilyvery lisnited. For a wider treatment the tW0 basic works are Antonio Doniinguez Ortiz, La Clase Social de los Conversos en Castilla en la Edad Moderna (Madrid, I956), and Albert A. Sicroff, Les Controverses des Statuts de "Puretede Sang" en Espagnedu XVe au XVIIe Siecle (Paris, I960). Recent work is well summarizedby Dominguez Ortiz in "HistoricalResearch on Spanish Conversos in the last fifteen years", CollectedStudies in honourof AmericoCastro'seightieth year, ed. M. P. Hornik (Oxford, I965), pp. 63-82. 68 BN., MS. I3043, f. II7V: "Papel que di6 el Reyno de Castilla a uno de los Senores Ministros de la Junta diputada para tratarse sobre el Memorial presentadopor el Reyno a Su Magestadcon el libro del PadreMaestreSalucio."
I3,000 I903)

MILITARY ORDERSIN SPANISH SOCIETY

SI

qualification for officeand honour followingway:

he explainedhis actionin the

The principalreasonwhich has moved me the Arehbishopand my Chapterto make the said Statute is that it is well known and attested that in the three Ordersof Knighthoodthat there are in Spain, of which our Lord Emperoris general and perpetualAdministrator,no person may be admitted who is not an Old Christian.69

Withthe Orders so intimately connected witha conceptnowblessed by the Primal See of Spain, the pressureto obtain an habitowas overwhelming. The Orders couldnotwithstand thepopular demand. Grantsof habitos becameso widespread thatbeforelong the situation was reachedwhere suspicionfell automatically on the nobilityand limpiezaof any family which did not hold one. The habitoput automatically not onlyits possessor, but his familyanddescendants as well, beyond all such suspicion,and the acquisitionof an habito thereforecame to hold supremeimportance for the three or four thousandfamilieswho formedthe middleranksof the hidalgo class. For the high nobility,whose positionno one would dare to call in question,and for the commonpeople,the matterdid not ever arise. But for the massof middlinghidalgos the pursuitof an habitomight wellbe an obsession, the sourceof innumerable worries, expenses, and conflicts, the endof alltheiractivities. Habitos werevaluable not onlyto the manambitious forhis personal fortune. They were also commonlysoughtafter as dowries. The necessity to place one or more daughtersin society through an advantageous marriage wasan acuteworryfor thosewhoseown social positionwas matchedby no corresponding fortune. If the future husbandcouldbe temptedby the offerof an habito, however, a good match would be more or less assured. A list of those who had peiitionedthe Crownforhabitos in MarchI646, contains seventy-nine persons,fifteenof whomaskedfor the habito as a marriage poriionfor their daughters.70In I660 what appearsto be only one of several attempts on the partof the KingandCouncilof the Orders to stopthe concession of habitos as dowries foundshapein a RoyalDecree,7lbut in practice this can havehadlittle effect,so greatwasthe demand for habitos to be given for this purpose. All that couldbe done was to
69 BN., MS. I3267, f. 27gv: "Sobre el Estatuto de Limpieza de la Saneta Iglesia de Toledo". 70 AGS., Graeia y Justicia, leg. 890: "Relaeion de personas que suplican a VM les haga mereed de Havito de las tres OrdenesMilitares euyas memoriales VM me ha snandadoremitir" (3I Mar. I646). 71 AGS., Est. (Espana),leg. 4I27: Royal Decree, Madrid, 25 Aug. I660.

52

PAST AND PRESENT

NUMBER 43

insist that the future husband at least be named, rather than that the grantbe made a completely open one. 7 2 In the same way, a child could hardly be given a better start in life than to have an habitoconferred upon him at an early age. The officialage of entry into the Orders, fixed in the early Constitutions at sixteen, was reduced after the incorporation of the Orders into the Crown. Now it was permissible to assume the habito without actuallyprofessingor taking any vows, at the age often, or in the case of Santiago, only seven.73 Even this minimum requirement was frequently broken. Habitoswere commonly given to very young children, and cases like that of the infant son of Rodrigo Calderon, Philip III's unscrupulous favourite, granted the dignity of an habito when he was not yet oneyear of age, need causeno particularsurprise.74 Once the Orders had so obvious a social function to fulfil, it was inevitable that they should attempt to close their ranksto all who were rsotofthe most unimpeachablesocialrespectability. One can see from the Constitutions approved by successive General Chapters of the Ordershow the entry requirementswere graduallytightened, until by the early seventeenth centllry hidalgoblood was demanded of the parents and grandparentsof the claimantto an habito; his ancestryhad to be free from all trace, however remote, of Jewish or Moorishblood; his pedigree similarly was not to contain victims of the Inquisition, whether penitenced or condemned, nor those who had pursued base occupations; while he himself had to be of legitimatebirth and to enjoy popularesteem. 75 At the same time the rigour of the proofs necessary to ascertainthese qualities, which were insisted upon before an habito could be conceded, was also increased. Only two sets of papers relating to proofs survive for the period before I5I8, the rest having perished in a fire at Burgos, where for a time they were stored.76 But such evidence as there is, suggeststhat up to the middle of the sixteenth century these inquiries were fairly rudimentary, being limited to the
72AHN., Seccion de Consejos Suprimidos, leg. 4444, f. I48: Consulta of Council of Castille, 26 Sept. I67I; leg. 4445, f. 76, idem., IO June I672; and severalothers. 73 Ruiz de Vergara,op. cit., tit. I, cap. vii; Difiniciones de Calatrava, tit. VI, cap. Vii. 74 Lviis Cabrerade Cordoba, Relaciones de las cosassucedidas en la Corte de Espana (Madrid, I857), p. 267. Calderon had good reason for wishing his sons to enter the Orders in view of his own highly suspect ancestry. See Marcel Bataillon, "Don Rodrigo CalderdnAnversois", Bulletin de la Classe des Lettres et des SciencesMorales et Politiques,AcademieRoyale de Belgique,
xlv (I959), pp. 595-6I6@ 76 Ruiz de Vergara, op. cit., tit. I, caps. i, ii, iii, iV, V; Difiniciones de Calatrava, tit. VI, cap. i. 76 Vignau and thagon, Caballeros de Santiago,p. Xii.

MILITARY ORDERSIN SPANISH SOCIETY

53

of the collectionof evidencefroma few witnessesas to the hidalguia wastakenin the form by whichevidence pretendent. The procedure apparently by speciallyappointedinformants of writtendepositions the scope did not beginuntil aroundI540. Fromthen on, however, grewenormously. Extensive of these investigations and complexity were expensesshot up; passions evidencewasrequired; documentary were as pettyjealousies mightwellbe suborned excited;andwitnesses 77 unleashed. weremadeso severe, forentryintothe Orders Oncetherequirements the numberof doubts and queriesthat could arise over eligibility rose sharplyas well. Under Philip III the many habitos naturally on generally andnot despatched, of the Orders in the Council detained that andpetitions of somefaultin the proofs,led to complaints account the severityof the inquiriesshouldbe relaxed. When he wrotein held habitos thattherewerefifty-four I603, Diego de la Motareported in this way,whichwasthe sourceof manygrievances up in the Council de Cordobain throughoutthe provinces.78The annalistCabrera of the statutes modification for a general to the demands I6I4 referred source of of limpiezade sangre,arld he mentionedas a particular detained in the Council.79 of the Orders the manyAlabitos complaint not unnaturally forhabitos of petitions number growing The rapidly on the partof thosewhowerealready of the ranks metwitha stiffening knights,and who did not, for obviousreasons,wish to see the old it was too prestigeof the Ordersbecomedebased. Alreadyperhaps how in his youth writingin I6I7, recalled late. Suarezde Figueroa, a wholevillagewouldstandin aweshoulda knightof oneof the Orders beat would practically pass through. "The peasantsin particular go by". Now, themselveson the chest if they saw the Comendador were however,such respectwas a thing of the past. Knighthoods at and not a few knightsmen of no substance muchmorenumerous, all.80 turning pointforthe Orders. The reignof PhilipIV wasanimportant societywasnowat its height,yet paradoxiin Spanish Theirinfluence whichhadgainedthat forinstitutions callythis wasto provedisastrous positionpreciselythroughtheir exclusivecharacter. Moreoverthe
77 Some interesting general renzarkson the conduct of the inquiries are pp. 73-9. containedin Domingues Ortiz, La Clase Social de los Conversos, 78 Diego de la Mota, op. cit., f. I49. Some of the msny petitions 79 Luis Cabrerade Cordoba, Op. Cit.) p. 56I. addressedto the Crown asking for the speedy despatch of habitosdetained in the Council Inay be found in AHN., OM., Consejo de las ()rdenes, Archivo Secreto, Series I, leg. 3I. (MadridI6I7), p. 443, quoted 80 ChristovalSuarez de Figueroa,El Passagero Espanola,I, p. 202. Dominguez (5rtis, La Soczedad

54

PAST AND PRESENT

NUMBER 43

periodof nationalemergency afterI635 whichmadeapparent to the world thattheprestige of Spain wasonlya shadow, incidentally gavethe lie also to the prestigeof the Orders within Spain. They embodied a glorious military tradition, but no longerweretheirmembers willing or evenableto fightin defenceof theircountry. Prestige wasall that the Orders hadhadto justifythemselves for overa century; oncethat mythwasexploded, therewasnothing leftonwhichto rebuild. It was inevitable that the accession of the new monarch shouldbe heraldedwith a good deal of anticipatory rumour. Many different hopesandaspirations wereraised briefly, butit wasfairly soonapparent thattherewasto be no realchangeof direction. The Orders wereno exception. In I62I despatches for 30 habitos weresentto Flanders to reward deserving members of the Spanish army,anddoubtless alsoin an endeavour to silencethose criticswho pointedout the incongruity of honoursin essence militarybeing given so regularlyto mere courtiers.8l Courtiers, however,were not exactlyneglectedeither. Two yearslater,while the law of the threeactospositivos was being promulgated in order to facilitate thetaking of proofsofpurityof blood, the Councilof the Orders wasmaking representation to the kingover the prodigality with which habitos were granted.82 The Councilof the Orders wasopposedfromthe firstto eventhe degreeof relaxation in the limpieza statutes impliedin the law of the actos positivos. The intention ofthis law,issuedasa Pragmatic by PhilipIV on Io February I623, was to renderimmunefrom furtherinvestigation any family whichhadsuccessfully hadits ancestry testedthreetimesin eitherthe Military Orders, the ColegiosMayores, the Inquisition, or the Cathedral of Toledo.83 The Council,however,saw this as opening the floodgatesto a torrentof unsuitable and unworthy applicants,84 and in fact it nevercompletely put the law into effectsinceit always insistedthatatleastoneofthe actos positivos submitted musthavebeen obtained in the Councilitself.85 Whatever the attitudeof the Councilof the Orders,however,the kinghadto reward his servants somehow. In a letterto the President of his Councilof State, Philip explainedthe positionin terms that
81 Dominguez Ortiz, Op. Cit., I, p. 203. 82 BM., MS. Egerton 332, f. 2I I, Consultaof Council of Orders,5 July I623; ff. 2I2-5V, Consulta, n.d. On the Decree of the c4ct0s positivos, see Sicroff, op. cit., pp. 2I6-220. 83 The Pragmaticis printed in Novisima Recopilacion de Leyes, Lib. XI, tit. xxvii, ley 22. 84 The protracted argumentbetween king and Colmcilof the Ordersover this

may be followed in the series of Consultascontainedin AHN., OM., Consejo de las ()rdenes, leg. 6275, caja I. 85 AHN., Seccion de Inquisicion, leg. 5I0, f. 29.

MILITARY ORDERSIN SPANISH SOCIETY

55

could hardly be simpler. "Without reward and punishment no monarchy can be preserved. Now rewardsmay be either financialor honorific. Money we have not, so we have thought it right and necessaryto remedy the fault by increasingthe number of honours".86 Membershipin the Ordersthereforecontinued to rise. The following table shows the number of habitosof the Order of Santiago alone, despatchedin each five-yearperiod from I52ItO I660:87
I52I-25 I526-30 IS3I-35 I536-40 I54I-45 I546-50 I55I-55 I556-60 I56I-65 I566-70 45 I07 I36 79 94 48 23 80 II3 87 I57I-75 I576-80 I58I-85 I586-90 I59I-95 I596-I600 I60I-09 I606-I0 I6II-I5 5I 6I 90 79 87 I06 I04 I22 I64 I6I6-20 I62I-25 I626-30 I63I-35 I636-40 I64I-45 I646-50 I65I-55 I656-60 I68 5I5 459 308 464 542 424 360 I97

These figures speak for themselves. In I557 the Order of Santiago contained 242 knights, and in I572 only 22I.88 The opening of the seventeenth century saw the first big increasein the membershipof the Orders; by I625 there were I,459 knights in the three Orders, 957 of Santiago, 305 of Calatrava, and I97 of Alcantara,89a figure way above anything known before. This was nothing, however, in comparisonwith what was to come. The Conde Duque de Olivares, whose all-pervadinginfluence enabled him to cast aside such restraints of the Orders up for sale with as had prevailed hitherto, put habitos the same blithe disregard for public opinion as he had shown in 90 introducing into Castille the Portuguese marranos. was so open and unconcealed that even the The sale of habitos Olivares' chief apologist, does not trouble to author of the Nicandro, deny it, but contents himself with justifying it, arguing that in fact were given only to men who would in any event have merited habitos them, and who could properly be rewardedin no other way 91 At the was one of the beginning of the war with France, the sale of habitos
86AHN., Est., Coleccion Vega, xix (Papeles Varios), sig. 859 D: king to President of Council, II Aug. I625. de Santiago. 87 Figures derivedfrom Vignau and lBhagon,Caballeros y Castro,I 34, ff. 79-80, and 8gv-go: "Nomina 88 RAH., Coleccion de Salazar de la Orden de Santiago". lists of knights of the 89 AGS., Consejo y Juntas de Hacienda, leg. 440-6I4: Military Orders. 90 On this, see Dominguez Ortiz, Politica y Haciendade Felipe IV, part II, chap. 3. ff. 6v-7v: "Nicandro,o Antidoto contralas calumniasque 91 BN., MS. II004, la ignoranciay embidia ha esparcido por deslucir y rnancharlas heroycas e inmortalesaccionesdel Conde Duque de Olivares".

56

PAST AND PRESENT

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faculties with which the count of Castrillo was empowered when he was left in charge of the government in Madrid.92 Ippolito Guidi, the ambassadorof the duke of Modena, was writing in I643 that it was so commonplace for habitos to be sold in Madrid, that an old retainer of Count Fulvio Testi was now to be seen proudly displaying the cross of Santiago upon his chest.93 The story may well be apocryphal, and undoubtedly the majority of habitosstill went to persons well qualified to assume them. It was an unfortunate story, however, from the point of view of a social hierarchy, the upper reaches of which were concernedto preserveand fortify their position; a hierarchy, moreover, still deeply affected by renaissance ideas of nobility as a hall mark of both personal merit and ancient lineage.94 Olivares had already shocked traditionalorthodoxy by declaring in a meeting of the Council of State that the statutes of limpieza were unjust and impious "against all law, divine, natural, and human",95 and his own blood was notoriously suspect.96 It is hardly surprising, therefore, that under his rule grave suspicions came to be voiced at the apparent subversion taking place within the Orders. The writings of satirists and moralists alike bear ample witness to popular alarm.97 Meanwhile the tranquility of the royal conscience was assured by the customaryjuntasof lawyers and theologians. Penafiel describes the situation.98
His Majestydecided that three hundredhabitosshould be conferred,each for a certain sum in silver, so that the resultantyield might help to defray the expenses of the war irl Cataloniaand Poralgal. Before His Majesty issued the necessarydecree, however, he assembledjuntas of distinguishedlawyers who rnet together with many learned theologians to debate the matter, and to safeguardHis Majesty's conscience. They ruied that His Majesty might distribute the habitosto his vassals for a silver payment, without incurring the sin of simony, and His Majestythereuponresolvedto execute the project.
92 AGS., Est. (Espana),leg. 4I26: I64I; BM., MS. Egerton 332, f. 238 : of Orders, I2 May I642.

king to Geronimo de Villanueva, I Nov. Count of Castrilloto Secretaryof Council

93 Carl Justi, Diego Velazquezund sein 3'ahrhundert, ii (Bonn, I888), p, 234 and note. 94 MarcelBataillon, }2rasme et l'Espagne (Paris, I937), second Spanishedition, Erasmoy Espana (Mexico, I966), iS the essential work on the reception of renaissance humanist ideas in sixteenth-century Spain. Interesting for its remarkson the humanists'view of nobility is Fritz Caspari,Humanism and the Social Orderin TudorEngland(Chicago, I954). 95AGS., Est. (Inglaterra),leg. 2849: Consulta of Council of State, I Nov.

I625. 9 6 Julio CaroBaroia,La Sociedad Criptofudia en la Cortede FelipeI V (Madrid, I963)5 P 4? 97 Julio Caro Baroia, Los 3?udios en la Espana Modernay Contemporanea, ii (Madrid, I96I), pp. 355-7. 98 Penafiel, op. cit., f. 88.

MILITARY ORDERSIN SPANISH SOCIETY

57

were sold varied, but in relation to the The price for which habitos prestige of the oice, it was not high. A Jesuit news-letter of I639 bestowed as pensions or reported: "Every day there are many habitos to rewardservices rendered, and so frequently are they sold at a figure that this might be reckonedas the customary of I8,000 or 20,000 reales price of them".99 Pellicer's news-sheet for I2 November I64I, gave a little more information on what happened:
being at such a desperatepitch, His Majestyhas been pleased Circumstances with provision to order My Lord Count of Castrilloto dispose of 500 habitos, that the proofs be conducted at court by common repute, among persons of quality who deserve them, who shall contribute in cash stlch a sum as is equivalentto the value of the grant.l??

Clearly the distribution of hundreds of habitosand the relaxation made in the procedurefor investigatillgthe qualities of the candidates, reduced now to a mere formality, could only combine to produce a devaluation of the prestige of honours once so prized. As over so much of western Europe at this time, the "inflation of honours" was removing much of the dignity attached to them.l?l There were naturally many people who were concerned that this should not happen. In I643 it was firrillyreassertedthat the proofs should be made in the places of origin of the pretendants.102 for habitos Going to Madrid or to some other large city was an obvious way to escape the petty jealousies of a small community, and to hide any defects of ancestry that these might uncover.l03 The Orders had therefore to insist that necessary inquiries should not be limited to those who came into contact with the pretendant in the capital, who might well be quite ignorant of his family background. Other reforms were also in the air. Scarcelyhad Olivaresretired from oice should not be given in return for than the king ordered that habitos loans or other services to the Treasury, and that the concession of should also be stopped in respect of those who hitherto had habitos been granted them for serving, or for raising men to serve, in 104 Catalonia. With the summoning of a General Chapterof the Ordersin s652the first such meeting for nearly thirty years, despite the statute to the
100 Josef Pellicer y Tobar, "Avisos Historicos", reprinted in Antonio xxxii(Madrid, I790), p. I62. Erudito, Valladares,Semanario Past and 101 Lawrence Stone, "The Inflation of Honours, I558-I64I", no. I4 (Nov. I958), pp. 45-70, relates specificallyto the English court, Present, but contains much of obvious relevancetoo to the Spanish experience. xvii, pp. 34-5. Espanol, Historico 102 lfiIemorial ii, pp. 376-7. ffudios, 103 See Julio Caro Baroja,Los 104 RAH., Coleccion de Pellicer, vol. xxvi, ff. s36v-7.

xv (Madrid, I862), Espanol, Historico 99 Memorial

pp.

257-8.

PAST AND PRESENT

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effectthata Chapter wasto be calledeverythreeyears- hopeswere revivedthat something furthermightbe done to halt the downward trend.l05 Discussioncentredon how habitos might be restoredto theirold dignity,through reinforcing the proofsof nobility andpurity of blood. The most notoriousabusescertainlydo appearto have beeneliminated, but it wasclearly farfromeasyto pull back,oncethe appetitesof wealthyand influential aspirants to membership in the Ordershad been whetted. The customof concedinghabitos to the procuradores of the Cortesfor theirservices,for example, was already well-established.l06Whoeverhad occasionto lend any mannerof service to theCrown orto thecommunity, however modestit mightbe, considered himselfentitledto be honoured for it with a knighthood, andnot infrequently he wouldactually obtainone. The Crown itself foundit hardto refrain fromutilizingso cheapandeffective a wayof rewarding its servants. In I652n for example,aftera popularrevolt in Seville, many loyal citizens confidentlyexpectedto have their assistance in quellingthe riotrecognized andrewarded withthe grant of an habito. In the end, the Cardinal Archbishop Pimenteldrewup a list of thirty-twonames which he submittedto the Councilof Castille,who in turn selected thirteenof the most deservingand bestowedhabitos uponthese.l07 The prestige of the Orders mightbe dilutedby strength of numbers, but it could not by this means ever disappear. What Olivares attemptedto do in addition,however,was to use the Ordersas a sourceof men and of moneyfor war purposes,and in so doing he extinguished for ever the lingeringnotion that they still contained corporately some measureof militaryprowess. An habitomightbe givenas a reward for the manwho raiseda givennumberof men for the royalarmies at his owncost,l08 but the chiefconcern of the Conde Duquewasto secure the personal military service of allthe aristocracy,
105 Interestingpapers relating to this Chapterare containedin AHN., OM. Libros Manuscritos,sig. I340 C- BN., MS. 7I7- and BM., Add. MS. 28437. 106 This is apparentfrom a summaryinspection of the Consultas de Gracia expedients issued by the Camara de Castilla for the concession of various positions and ofiices. They are to be found in AHN., Seccion de Consejos Suprimidos, legs. 4407-4742. As early as I525 procuradores were petitioning for habitosbefore they returnedto their localities:AGS., Est. (Castilla),leg. I3, f. 69. 107 AHN., Seccion de Consejos Suprimidos,leg. 7I62, f. 25 (Royal Decree, 26 July I652), and f. 29 (Consultaof Councilof Castille,28 Aug. I652); Antonio Dominguez Ortiz, "Documentos sobre el motin de la Feria en I652", Archivo Hispalense) nos. 2I-2 (I947), pp. 69-93. 108 For example AGS., Guerra Antigua, leg. I329: Consulta of yunta de Execucion,I0 July I640; leg. I374: idem., IS Mar. I64I; leg. I379: Consultaof unta de Coroneles) I9 June I64I; and several more.

MILITARY ORDERSIN SPANISH SOCIETY

andin particular of theknights of the Military Orders .l 09 Repeatedly, knightsweresummoned to servein person,or at leastto appointand pay a proxyto servein theirstead,ll?but the regiment whichwas so assembled was starved of provisions, suffered heavy desertions, particularly on the part of the knightsthemselves, and was defeated by Frenchforces near Leridain OctoberI642. Admittedly it was able to recoupits forces sufficiently to play an effectivepart in the later campaigns, includingthe recapture of Barcelona; but by this stage it was not a companyof knights at all, but merely one of mercenaries paid by the knightsto fight in their name. It is an interestingand ratherpathetic commentaryon the ideals of the MilitaryOrdersthat even these paid mercenarieshad to submit themselves at this critical stagein Spain's military fortunes to the same inquiriesas to birth and ancestry as characterized the admission of new knights,beforebeing allowedto takeup arms.lll If Olivareshad at root a pressingneed to use the revenuesand resources of the Orders in a time of national emergency,the favouritism and corruption which markedout the reign of the last Austrianking had little such justification. Under Charles II it would appearthat habitos were no longer openly sold, though this does not by any meansimplythat their concession reverted to more orthodox criteria. Rarely now does there seem to be even the pretence that habitoswere bestowed as a reward of true merit. Amongthe mass of petitionsfor habitos directedto the Councilof Castille,the reasonsput forwardto justifythe requestsare diverse andoccasionally bizarre. Someaskedfor an habito for havingfought bullsin localfiestas;ll2 for othersit wasenoughthat theirfathershad servedas treasurers of millones or in other positionsin the administration.ll3 Many were content simply with detailingthe services lent in the past by their ancestors. Petitionswere passedon in the same way by the Council of the Indies in favour of relatores, treasurers, alguaciles mayores, andothercolonial officials.ll4 Hitherto
109 For full details see Antonio Dominguez Ortiz, "La Movilizacion de la Nobleza Castellana en I640", Anuario de Historia del DerechoEspanol, xxv 110 E.g. BM., Add. MS. 2I439, f. 77: Orderof Philip IV that the knights of Calatravaserve on the frontiers of Spain, 30 Jan. I640. Other instances are given by Dominguez Ortiz in the articlecited in the previousnote. 1ll BM., MS. Egerton 332, f. 24I: "Calidadesque han de tener los hidalgos que han de ser admitidosparaservir en el batallonde Cavalleriade las Ordenes en lugar de los Comendadores y Cavallerosdellas", 3I Dec. I642. 2 AHN., Seccion de Consejos Suprimidos,leg. 4444, ff. 99, I00. 3 Ibid., f. I47; leg. 4445, f. 50; and many others. 114 AGI., Seccion de Gobierno,Indiferente(General),leg. 788, containsmany such examples.
(I955), pp. 799-823.

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Orders for petitions had gone directly to the Council of the these considered was it but they were now so numerous that consideration, the through instance first the for them to be channelled in advisable rejected body This vetted. be could where they de Castilla, Camara had no greater good number of them out of hand, but others which a of discriminacriteria merit it accepted, with no very clear intrinsic Order of the of habitos reserve tion. There were attempts to to the entry allowing while service, military for men with Santiago or distinction two Ordersto those who merited it through family other not is practice in effective service,ll5 but how far these were political purpose of the all clear What is certain is that the characterand at had become Orders Military the in knighthood of institution venerable perverted. completely Orders served as It has been argued already that the Military From this poiIlt Spain. Age Golden of amirror of the social ideals the reasons for ofview it is perhaps even more interesting to discover they might be which for might be withheld than those whichhabitos never granted were which habitos to conferred. The papers relating and a great Orders, the of Council the of Archive in the Secret remain from conclusions dealof work would be necessaryto draw any general Dispensations accessible. more them. Other sources, however, are difficulties in grantedby the Papacy make clear the most frequent might, for example, whicha would-be knight might find himself. He he status by royal privilege rather than by blood; enjoy his hidalgo blood his that or birth might discover that he was of illegitimate or perhaps contained some trace of a Jewish or Moorish ancestor; of the position the most interesting in view of the light it sheds on the that discover might he Orders within contemporary society, was pursued, ancestors, his of one or he, occupation or profession that considered unworthy of the prestige of knighthood. is impossible The number of dispensationsgrantedin differentyears however, are, there as figures Such to ascertain with any certainty. the from evident is as expect, might one what conform well with table opposite, page 6I.ll6 between, but a Dispensations under Philip II were few and far to power coming the With successor. his steady rise is evident under as proportion, all of of Olivares,the number of dispensationsrose out

f. IOI: Royi Order, I (9-29-5-5949), 115 RAH., Varios de Historia, volume 4 Sep. I692. de de las 6rdenes, leg. 6275, caja 2: "Memoria 116 AHN., OM., Consejo y suplir defectos para obtener el Breves de Su Sanctidaden razon de dispensar Coleccion de Salazar y habito de la Orden de Santiago". See also RAH., Castro,135, ff. 132-3.

ORDERSIN SPANISH SOCIETY MILITARY

6I

THE ORDER DISPENSATIONSFROM THE ENTRY REQUIREMENTS OF PAPAL OF SANTIAGO, I558-I657 633 I 2 I608 I583
I558 I559 I560 I56I I562 I563 I564 I565 I566 I567 I568 I569 I570 I57I I572 I573 I574 I575 I576 I577 I578 I579 I580 I58I I582 I I 2 I584 I585 I586 I587 I588 I589 I590 I59I I592 I593 I594 I595 I596 I597 I598 I599 I600 I60I I602 I603 I604 I605 I606 I607 I I I I I 2 I I I 2 I I609 I6I0 I6II I6I2 I6I3 I6I4 I6I5 I6I6 I6I7 I6I8 I6I9 I620 I62I I622 I623 I624 I625 I626 I627 I628 I629 I630 I63I I632 3 I 4 2 I 2 3 5 8
2

I 4 4 I 6 5 5 I0 6 I4 I5 6 I 2

I -

634 I I635 I636 I637 I638 I639 I640 I64I I 642 I 643 I 644 I 645 I 646 I647 I648 649 I 650 I I65I 652 I I653 I654 I655 I656 I657

4 2 4 I7 7 9 I2 IZ 7 8 2 9 6 s 8 3 2 4
-

2 4

in largenumbersto raisemoneyfor the war were conferred habitos rebellions andPortuguese withFrance,andafterI640 for the Catalan which for faults ancestral or personal aswell.ll7 An analysisof the following: the shows granted were dispensations
Philip II Lack of nobility Illegitimacy Pursuit of base office Impurity of blood Noble status by royal privilege only
Total 2

Philip III
22 23

Philip IV
II7 2I

Total 7?
4

5 3 I0

I4I 49

3
I I 50

67
-

3
208

4 268

since the These figures are not as revealing as they might be, occupation, manual a of Pursuit categoriesare not altogetherdistinct. of nobility; for example, might well be described simply as lack position by their enjoyed who hidalgos those of number the moreover, properly men some and small, privilege and not by blood seems unduly general same this under included be also of this category may in fact IV the Philip under that however, significant, perhaps is heading. It
given above on page 55 The table should be read in conjunctionwith that Santiagoover the same of Order the in granted habitos of numbers the showing
117

period.

be faults of nobility should of dispensations given for cent), per 44 percentage against as III (56-25 higher than under Philip per cent noticeably occupations, a mere 6 low for given five fold dispensations over while his successor have risen formal of Philip III should under subject under the Impurity of blood was rarely on behalf of those 32o2per cent. to invariably and when it was, it was dispensation, with the blood of Jews families Those Moorish antecedents. with as we have seen, rigorously Jews in their veins were, from other similar closed converted or were from the Orders, as they formal exception to this was a barred only The in Spain. communities of the descendants of the made by Philip III in favour thirteenth dispensation bishop of Burgos in the In D. Pablo de Cartagena, criticism.ll9 saintly of which raised a storm privilege have a to century,ll8 radical antecedents seem many others of dubious practice, impossible as it was for any the Ordersby various subterfuges,to be completely sure.l20 entered inquiries, however thorough, from one or other of the genealogical for dispensing the face of Generally the initiative was taken by the king, in Orders. Orders the of the requirements of entry Council the part of the or less open opposition on known. The habitowon by the more well are of examples of this Some was the outcome only general Julian Romero Francisco distinguished In I624 the admiral II's personal intervention.l2l Philip IV in recognition of his Philip by habito an awarded was Ribera force ten times de battle with a Turkish running over one three-day heroic were very extensive and of the Council superior. The informaciones the only for of his witnesses were finally examined, hidalguia hundred the to as for lack of proof grant the deny to necessary brief Orders pressure which led to the VIII; but the mother. It was only strong and granted by Urban in ofdispensation being requested that no mention be made Council, his of defiance of in result a insisted, only as king that it had been issued habito the of the of title formal example the Perhaps the best special papal dispensation.l22 su familia de
118

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y Alvar Garcia de Santa Maria Francisco CanteraBurgos, del Consejo de las (Madrid, I952), pp. 280-4. Conversos ff. I90-I: "Representacion 332, por el qual se Egerton MS. Pontificio BM., Breve 119 inconvenientes del Cartagena los de Burgos el obispo manifestando (:)rdenes de D. Pablo de descendentes los a concede a pesarde ser confesos". Baroja,Los dios, ii, obtenerhabitosmilitares are provided by Julio Caro examples of number A 120 5. Romero(Madrid, I952), part iv, sections 4 and Antonio Marichalar,3tulian see are in AHN., OM., details full habito For 121 relating to Romero's no. 72I3. papers The Santiago, de I4-5. I pp. en la Orden y Poggio, para el ingreso de Pruebas to Jose Wanguesnert Expedientes Introduction p. Xii. Duro, I905), (Madrid, dpoca 122 Cesareo Fernandez su Diaz Pimientay El AlmiranteD. Francisco

MILITARY ORDERSIN SPANISH SOCIETY

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necessity for royal intervention in order to secure an habito is that of Diego Velazquez. The red cross of Santiagowhich the artistproudly displays on his tunic in his self-portrait in Las Meninas was the outcome of a long sequence of obstruction and delay on the part of the Council of the Orders. The legend attached to this painting-that on its completion Philip himself seized the brush and added the cross to the artist's chest, saying that this was all that was necessary to render it a masterpiece must unfortunately be rejected: the formalities attending the grant of the habito date frorlltwo years after the work was finished. But the essence of the story is true, in that it highlights the direct royal responsibility for the conferring of the knighthood.l23 These particular instances are naturally welldocumented, but they could doubtless be repeated of many other less famous men. The impression one gains is that, in general terms, the hierarchyof the Orderswas intransigentso far as entry was concerned. When the rules were bent in any way, royal influence was usually not far to seek. If in the General Chapter of I652 it was conceded that dispensations on behalf of men with distinguished military service might be sought and granted more readily, this was only because of the opposition raised by the widespread grants of habitos to lawyers, administrative officials, and courtiers. Once one began to reassert the military nature of the Orders, it was hard not to concede that in the case of soldiers certain defects of genealogy might necessarily have to be overlooked. The argument is apparent in a paper dated 3 August I653, directed to the king by the Council of the Chapterof the Order of Santiago.l24 Among the points it made were the following:
The Orderof Santiagoand its knightshave alwaysenjoyedenormousprestige, but since the year I600 . . . its rules have been relaxedin all mannerof ways a situation worthy of the closest attention of Your Majesty and your great wisdom in looking to a remedyfor it, since both as King and Masteryou owe it to honour and favour the Order. The Council of the Chapter therefore asks: That no habitoof this Orderbe concededto anyonewho is not clearlyreputed
123 There is naturally a large literature on Velazquez and his habito. The proofs, which took II3 days to conduct, are printed by G. CruzadaVillaamil "Informacionesde las calidadesde Diego de Silva Velazquezpara el habito de la Orden de Santiago", Revista Europea,ii (I874), pp. 39-43, 80-4, I05-I0 275-8, and 402-6. Additional information is provided by Francisco R. de ldhagonin two articles: "Diego Velazquezen la Orden de Santiago",Revistade Archivos,BibliotecasyMuseos,iii (I899), pp. 257-7I; and "Nuevos documentos referentesa Diego Velazquezen la Orden de Santiago",ibid., vii (I902), pp.5769. The legend of Las Meninasis discussedby CarlJusti, op. cit. 124 BN., MS. 7I7, ff. 203-I4: "E1Consso del CapituloGeneralde la Ordende Santiago representa lo que tiene por combeniente se disponga para mayor beneficio della".

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to be a gentleman of pure ancestry, or in possession of a rich estate with which to lend lustre and honour to the Order, as was invariablythe case in the time of Philip II; he had secret inquiries made as to the characterand backgroundof every pretendentbefore concedingthe habito,taking care that no honour or award be made to anyone whose proofs did not show him worthy of them . . . with the exception of soldiers whose valorous services and exploits themselves enhance their blood. This honour, establishedfor the rewardof militaryvalour,is no more than their due. That Your Majesty be pleased to refrain from bestowing the favour of an habitoon any of your servantswho does not enjoy the rank of knight in the royal household, nor on any of your ministers' servants who is not of this rank. Militaryhonourswere establishedfor militarymen; the rewardsof study for those who aspiredto judicialor administrative posts. Nonwadays the position is so distortedthat not only do oidores have the greaterprestige,but they also hold the nlajorityof the habitosand encomiendas which were not intended for them at all, with the result that there are few such oices that they have not appropriatedfor themselves. Only a few years ago there were no administrators,other than the membersof the Councilof the Orders,enjoyingthese positions; if these last were promoted to membership of the Council of Castille, they were at once recognizableby their habitos. Now, however even the alcaldesde cortecan aspireto the same honour .... It is not right that soldiers cannot share in honollrs designed for themselves, while these men are enjoying the benefit of them. Generosityin bestowing mercedes of this sort has advancedto such a point that even the solicitorsof the Councils hold habitosand the Colegiosare full of them, a development which has resulted in a fall in the esteem in which they were held in formertimes That His Holiness should not be asked to grant dispensationsfrom the entry requirementswhich the knights of this Order have to fulfil, since they are unnecessaryand give rise to a lack of esteem for the Order, on which they reflect little credit. The only exception that may be made is in respect of soldiers. If their deeds and services are as fine as those of Julian Romero who was dispensed from the lack of nobility in his farnily,they may be held to warrantspecial favour. But they must not have any trace of Jewish or Moorish blood, nor have any ancestor who has been penitenced by the Inquisition, in conformitywith the relevant statute. A new statute should be Inadeto the effect that no dispensationsbe given at all other than to those who have served ten years in the war. In any event nobody should be able to receive dispensations for more than one fault, in order to fulfil the requirementsfor entry.

The manwho chosenot to confessto anydefectsin his ancestry, in the hopethathe mightbe fortunate enoughto be granted a dispensation,hadnecessarily to seekalliesamongthe witnesses arld informants. This might indeed be advisableiil any event, for who knew what consequences malice,or simplya badmemory, mighthave. No lessa personthanthe bishopof Cuzcowrotein I636, advising his nephew, who was a candidate for an habito,to securefriendlywitnesses. He should take good care to rewardthem in advance,suggestedthe bishop,whopromised to let his nephewhavea suitable sumof money for this purpose.l25 On the other hand, there was always the possibilityof admittingthe faults in one's pedigree,and appealing
125

MemorialHistoricoEspanol,xviii (Madrid, I864),

pp.

XiV-XVi.

MILITARY ORDERSIN SPANISH SOCIETY

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directly to the king, the one man who could set aside the rules laid down by the Orders and their Council, and the one man also with some interest in rewardingservices rendered in his name. To the possible defects of birth and ancestrythat any person seeking an habito might have, there was added a further potential stumbling block: that of base office. Manual occupation was, as we have seen, incompatible with nobility, and as such with the assumption of an habito. The criteria adopted by the Order of Santiago at Toledo in IS60 for "low and vulgar offices" were those of silversmith and painter, if these occupationswere pursued as money-makingactivities, shopkeeper and moneylender, embroiderer, stone-cutter, inn or tavern keeper, scribe (other than one of the royal scribes), public attorney,or any other pursuits similaror inferiorto these.l26 Doubts frequently arose with regard to borderline activities, which might or might not be regarded as "oficios viles y mecanicos", and lively polemics were sometimes the result. Was a midwife, for example, prejudicing her own and her descendants' nobility by performing her duties?127 More important,what of such persons as artists, members of the liberal professions, notaries, secretaries, or merchants? This last category was the one which caused most trouble. In the Spanish ports, and particularlyin Seville and Cadiz, it was common to find well-known families who took advantageof the new opportunities presented by the economic expansion of the sixteenth century to engage in overseas trade and speculative enterprise. The example of foreign merchants,and above all the Genoese,l28settling in Spain after the opening up of the New World market, produced a natural desire to share in this profitable field. Scruples at sullying one's hands in vulgar trade were forgotten. The Crown, for its part, could not afford to stand in the way of domestic enterprise, and in any event it was much men who were usually best able to loan money to the Treasury when required. If the Crown's bankers wanted habitos in return, then it would not be politic to refuse them. Appearances, of course, had to be kept up. When in I6I5 the proofs were taken in connection with the habito of Calatravaconferred upon Jorge Fugger, the German banker, the leading question was obviously the one that inquired whether he or his ancestors had ever dedicated themselves to trade or lent money at interest. The bishop of Augsburg, one of the witnesses, skilfully side-stepped the issue by
Ruiz de Vergara,op. cit., tit. I, cap. v. B1M.,MS. Egerton 343, ff. I3-6V. It was concluded that she was not. 128 On the Genoese, see particularly Ruth Pike, Enterpriseand Adventure: The Gencwese in Seville and the Opening of theNew World(Ithaca, I966).
1 26 127

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Fugger that he neither knew nor had heard it said, that declaring or had merchants, his father or his grandfather, had been himself, in any were had they dealings money for their own profit. What lent or prince other any with not and alone, with the king of Spain case To and were thereforenot a matter of public concern.l29 individual, difficulties, and to establish a uniform rule, a papal future any avoid Orders the was obtained in I622, which extended to all the brief commercial on prohibition the that effect of Santiago, to the statute to the small applied not to large-scaleentrepreneurs,but only activity or common money-lender.l30 shopkeeper more implacable It was clear that the power of money was much within Spanish dominant less no certainly and that of nobility, than can do and (Money society. "El dinero todo lo puedey vence" is a (Money caballero" es dinero conquereverything) and "El them turned Quevedo before long proverbs were popular gentleman) poems: "Poderoso into a refrain for one of his most celebrated gentleman).l3l powerful a Don Dinero"(Mr. Money is caballero/es aristocracyby the into ascended who Typicalof the mentality of those in which the way the is blood their than rather virtueof their wealth the Order enter to moneyednobility of Burgos attempted tenaciously refused had which Order one the ofSt. John of Jerusalem. This was in its firm remained it and Constitutions its to relax the rigidity of repeatedly were aristocraticexclusiveness. The bankers of Burgos II to send to the spurned,despite letters which they persuadedPhilip upon them, and kindly more look to Masterof the Order asking him in dispensing Santiago of Order the of to follow the example mercaderes.l32 occasionallyfrom the blanket prohibition upon few could boast The Order of St. John stood firm, and only a very of Burgos inhabitants The it. in the precious honour of professing to rest therefore had Peninsula the of cities and the other prosperous drop quietly might which content with the Spanish national Orders, t lelr more lnconvenlent requirements. to assume habitos The time when noble merchants found it easiest I 626 the Council In reign. was apparentlythe first half of Philip IV's
* *

I656 (Madrid, I926), Luis MarcinezKleiser, Guia de Madridpara el ano P. 36. de las ()rdenes, leg. 6275 caja I. The Brief itself 130 AHN., OM., Consejo de Ortegay Cotes, BuilariumOrdinisMilitiae de Joseph Ignatio in nlay be read 70-I. pp. I759), (Madrid, Alcantara (Madrid, y Frasesproverbiales de Refranes 131 Gonzalo Correas, Vocabulario snay be found in Espanolg Parnaso El from poem, Quevedo's 85. p. I906), lxix (Madrid, I877), pp. 93-4. de AutoresEspanoles, Biblioteca pinceladasdel vivir burgalesen los dias de 132 Ismael GarciaRamila,"Tipicas cxxxv (I954), pp. I43-50. antano",Boletinde la Real Academiade la Historia,
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of Statedebateda new constitution proposed by the Catalans which would enabletheir nobilityto engagein trade without prejudicing their chancesof obtainingmilitaryhabitos.l33One of the members, D. Duartede Portugal, voicedthe general feelingin making the usual distinction betweenthe entrepreneur whomadehis moneyfromtrade, yet employedunderlings to do the routinetransactions fiorhim, and the smallmanwho of necessityhad directlyto engagein buyingand sellinghimself. Assuminghe was of good birth,the firsttype could aspire to an habito; under no circumstances could the second. Anothermember of the Council,D. Pedrode Toledo,pointedto the real crux of the matter:
In Genoa trade is the general way of life and means of livelihood, just as in Extremadura and Ledn grazingand wool are. What is so generalcannot be forbidden, for it is not sixnply trade as such, but an essential method of distributingindividual wealth.

Trade was clearly a vital factor for Spain's continuanceas an imperialpower, and it could not be dismissedas vulgar moneymaking. When in I630 an habitowas granted to the powerful Seville businessman Tomas Manarafor his son Miguel, a child of threeat the time, D. MelchorMaldonado, one of the witnessesand himselfthe Treasurer of the Casade Contractacion declared that:
. . . Although it is true that the said Tomas Maiiarais a businesssnanwith a valuablestakein the Indies trade,there is no questionof his being a merchant, nor does this witness believe that he can be consideredas pursuing any base office, in the sense in which the term is used in this interrogatory,since it is clearthat in this city other gentlemenof much worth who hold habitos in the Military Orderspursue similaroccupations.

Otherwitnessescited in supportof this observation the habitos held by the merchants Adriande Legasco, Simon Freus de la Fuente, Julio Cesar Escayoli,Juan de Cordoba,Luis Ponce de Sandoval, Fernando de Saavedra andothers,not to mentionthe dukeof Medina Sidoniaandothernoblelordswhotookpartin the sametrade,withno thoughtthatit mightdetract fromtheirpersonal honour.l34 Afterthe Chapter of I6525 however,moresubtletywas calledfor. Pedro Lopez de San Roman, a citizen of Seville, of considerable wealth,obtainedan habitoof the Orderof Santiago. The Marques de Tabara,Presidentof the Councilof the Orders,summonedhim shortly afterwards,however, and accused him of deceiving the
133 AGS., I626.

Est. (Inglaterra),leg. 2849: Consulta of Council of State, 2I

OCt.

l34Manuel Gomez Imaz, D. Miguel Manara: algunos datos referentesal insigne fundadorde la Santa Caridadde Sevilla (Seville, I902), pp. 4I-2.

Council by not revealing that he was a brokerin the Seville a merchant in the Indies Lonja and trade. Pedro Lopez replied that he was an Old Christian of hidalgo ancestry in all four grandparents' that his merchantstatus was lines, and no obstacle, since his no other difficulty. He genealogypresented added, perhaps unwisely in the many of those who did wear event, that the habito could not in fact boast such an impeccable ancestry as his. His nothing, for he was stripped of protests seem to have availed him his habitoand imprisoned appeareda very bad and "which excessive punishment''.l35 Merchantswere not of course the only class to come ofthis nature,though they do provide a good example acrossproblems of an theeconomic importance of which was matched by no occupation, social corresponding position. The holders of some proscribedoffices would hardly think in terms of enteringthe ownefforts had apparently Ordersin the first place, but otherswhose lifted them out of the pariicular rank in which their fathers or their grandfathers had lived, might well feel that their new social position justified their so doing. An example, innkeeper, for would be unlikely to petition for an hnibito; an artist, on the other hand, might well do so. The example of Velazquez has already been mentioned in a different context, but it has its place too in the wider setting of the struggle of the artist to be recognized as a of a liberal profession and member not merely as a manual order labourer. to achieve his habito In it was in the end necessary for Velazquez to subscribe to the fiction that he for the king's pleasure.l36 For painted not as a profession but only similar Olmo had to suffer severe setbacks reasons the sons of D. Jose del before assume habitos of Santiago, for their rivals finally being allowed to were quick to allege that in acting as the royal architecttheir father was labouringwith his hands. The Council pointed out the lack of rank of the pretendants, but fortunately for them, Charles II, a few days before his death, gave the order for the necessary despatches The primitive Rules of the to be issued.l37 Orders contain no dispositions connection in with nobility, blood or that such requirements were in occupation, though it would appear practice These exclusions only begin to appear exacted from an early date. formally in the Difiniciones and Establecimientos of the sisteenth century as a symptom of the transformation of the Orders into institutions of social discriminalS5 Dominguez

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Ortiz, La SociedadEspanola, i, p. 208 (citing Barrionuevo, Avisos, ed. A. 36 See above, note I23. Paz y Melia [Madrid, I892], ii, p. 203).Jeronimo de 137 JuanCatalinaGarcia,Biblioteca deEscritores de la Provinciade (Madrid, I899), pp. 373-7. Guadalajara

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tion.l38 Such a codification was necessary if the Orders were to isolate themselves as a distinguished and highly respected sector of the Spanish aristocracy,but this they could not ever be: royal policy and popular pressure served alike to enlarge their membership and to take away the force of their statutes, by dispensing from any that provec lnconvenlent. As time went on, the Orders were revealed as a chimera. They were religious bodies which owed no greaterreligious obligations than any other secular institution. They professed military aims and were unwilling to fight even in defence of their country at a time of national peril. And in addition, they set themselves up as the arbiters of social acceptability, and ignored even their own criteria for judging this. Their position, in fact, was wholly anachrotiistic but then the social concepts which they embodied, and the society which they mirrored, were equally anachronistic. The Orders became honorific orders of chivalry in an age in which notions of honour and chivalry were of immense importance.l39 They served as a means of authenticatingnoble ancestry for a generationwhich set its standards by such criteria.l40 If there were absurdities in the way the Orders continued to function, it is because they attempted to give force to attitudes and ideals, themselves in a sense absurd, which were basic to the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century mentality. The Orders can be regarded as a microcosm of Castilian society in its rise as well as in its decline. The peculiar circumstances which had given birth to the Orders had in fact given birth also to those forms of Castilian life which emerged dominant at the end of the middle ages. It has become almost a historical cliche to assert that somewhere in the psychological background to Spanish imperialism there lurks a crusading tradition, handed down through the long wars
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138 Thus the Regla de la Ordende la Cavalleriade Senor Santiagodel Espada (Valladolid,I527) begins tentatively to insist on hidalguiaand limpieza(tit. I, cap. i). In successive editions of the Statutes of this and the other Ordersthe phraseology becomes stricter and more rigid. The Order of Alcantarahad securedpapalconfirtnation of its own limpiezastatuteas earlyas I483 (Bullarium, 139 Americo Castro,"Algunasobservaciones acercadel concepto del honor en los siglos XVI y XVII", Revista de FilologiaEspanola) iii (I9I6), pp. I-50, and 357-86, contains snany ideas on the Spanish attitude to honour, which was closely connectedof coursewith the whole problemof limpieza. 140 See for example Penalosay Mondragon,op. cit., Excelencia IV: "Among the Spaniardsis to be found a more ancientnobility than exists in other nations, for they still conserve the blood of their first ancestor Tubal and in order to achieve honour and lordship, they performthe bravestof deeds". pp. 24I-2)e

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of the Reconquista,l4l and certainlyHabsburgSpain was alwaysa nationacutelyawareof its own historical past. Whatmorenatural, therefore, thanto see in the survival of the Orders, the primeembodiment of the militaryand religiousnorms of medievalSpain, the essentialintellectual link betweenreconquest and conquest,crusade and empire. At everystage Spanishsocietyinfluenced, and was in turn influenced by, the institutionof the MilitaryOrders. Gonville and CaiusCollege, Cambridge L. P. Wright

l4lAn excellent brief account of this "tradition of conquest" is given by J. H. Parry, The SpanishSeaborne Empire(London, I966), pp. 27-37. For the Spanish backgroundto the conquest and settlement of the New World, see especiallyJ. M. Ots Capdequi,El Estadoespanolen las Indias,4th edn. (Mexico,
I965).