The Monks of War

by Desmond Seward

  The Ordensland fell to pieces. In 1562 one last victory was won in the style of Balke and Plettenberg: at Weissenstein, after a siege of five weeks, a young brother, Caspar von Oldenbock, with only 2,000 men beat off a Russian force of 30,000."17 But now, at the urgent request of the merchants of Reval, the Swedes occupied northern Estonia, while the Danes took the offshore islands. Gotthard gave up the hopeless struggle, ceding all lands of the Order to Poland at the Treaty of Vilnius in November, though he kept his title of Landmeister until 1562. Poles, Swedes, Danes and Livonians united to drive out the Russian tsar. The brethren were disbanded. Some departed sadly for Germany, others stayed, turning Lutheran and marrying, including Kettler himself, who retained the south-west of Livland, becoming Duke of Courland (now Kurzeme), a charming coastal province, which he held as an independent fief from the Polish king (which his descendants ruled until the eighteenth century). So perished the Ordensstaat, which has been described with some justice as medieval Germany's greatest achievement. The baneful rewriting of history by subsequent regimes has obscured the real motives of the Teutonic Knights. In no way were they protagonists of Treitschke's brutal 'Prussianism', let alone of the Third Reich's racial madness. No doubt much blood was shed but, even so, they were missionaries, not exterminators. So long as the pagans of the Baltic would accept their rule and become Christians, the Knights governed them decently enough. Crusaders who fought for another Outremer, in their own way they had sought to build a new Jerusalem. Indeed, their spiritual inspiration was so enduring that the Teutonic Order still survives today.

  IV

  THE RECONQUISTA

  1158–1493

  Spanish and Portuguese orders:

  Calatrava – Santiago – Alcántara – Aviz – Knights of Christ – Montesa

  To avoid confusing our warriors with that soldiery which belongs to the Devil rather than God we will now speak briefly of the life these Knights of Christ lead on campaign or in the Convent, what it is they prize, and why soldiers of God are so different from those of the world.

  Bernard of Clairvaux 'De Laude Novae Militae'

  8

  THE RECONQUISTA

  The Reconquista was Outremer's story in reverse, when Christian natives drove out Moslem invaders, though one which lasted eight hundred years. In Spain, military brotherhoods evolved by a long process, not being created to meet the needs of the moment as in Syria; yet their sonorous names – Calatrava, Alcántara and Santiago – were even more celebrated among Spaniards than those of the Temple or the Hospital. They were the perfected instrument of five centuries of warfare with Islam, given their final shape by the Templars' example.

  The Moslem invaders, Arab, Syrian and Berber, crossed the Straits of Gibraltar in 711; within five years they had conquered the whole peninsula, with the exception of a few barren mountains in the north. In 753 the Umaiyad, Abd al-Rahman, arrived in Spain to create a unified Cordoban monarchy whose northern frontier ran from the Ebro to the Tagus, from Coimbra to Pamplona. By the eleventh century five Christian kingdoms had appeared: Galicia (with Portugal), León, Castile, Navarre and Aragon, whose people lived in dread of razzias. Every year the Christian territories were devastated, crops burnt, fruit trees cut down, buildings razed, livestock driven off and the inhabitants herded back to the slave-markets. Those who escaped were cowed by ingenious atrocities, the victims' heads being salted as trophies to impress the caliph's unruly subjects. Yet the barbarous princes with their puny kingdoms never forgot they were rightful lords of Spain. The Reconquista was a holy war. The body of St James had been discovered in Galicia and, as Santiago Matamoros (St James the Moor Killer), came down from heaven to lead the faithful – his shrine at Compostella becoming the greatest centre of pilgrimage in Western Europe and his war a crusade long before the Franks marched on Jerusalem.

  'Castilian' conjures up patrician pride, but the first Castilians were rough pioneers who colonized the southern lands, protecting themselves by the towers from which their kingdom took its name. These were often refugee rebels, whose hunger for land constantly drove them further south. Naturally there was close contact between Moors and Castilians, and even today Arab traits are found in the Spanish character: dignity and courtesy, the sacred duty of hospitality, fantastic generosity, intolerance, an inability to compromise, and a ferocity which is not so much cruelty as indifference to physical suffering.

  Al-Andalus could be united only by a despot. In 1031 the caliphate broke up into taifas (small city-states) and within a few years the military initiative had passed to the Christians, who took Toledo, the ancient capital of the Visigoths, in 1085. The taifa princes played a last card and asked the Berber 'Almoravids' (al-murabbitun – 'those who gather in the fortress to wage the holy war') to rescue them. This fanatical sect, which had united the barbarous Saharan tribes, came quickly and al-Andalus was added to its empire. Ribats were set up – fortified 'monasteries' where tribesmen performed ascetic exercises and fulfilled the religious duty of holy war; their border patrols, the rabitos, became as dreaded as the razzias of the caliphs. The Christians none the less managed to hold the frontier of the Tagus. Within two generations the Almoravids succumbed to Spanish wine and singing girls, but again 'Ilfriqiya' came to the rescue. The Berbers of the Atlas mountains had formed another sect, the 'Almohads' (almuwahhidun – 'unitarians'), who also saw holy war as a religious duty, their caliphs always going into battle with an entourage of fakirs. In 1147 Abd al-Moumin invaded al-Andalus; more Berbers were brought in and the cities re-fortified. Christian Spain was once more menaced by a united Andalusia.

  In the decade after 1130 the Templars founded many preceptories. Even before that date the Hospital had set up several houses, but these were concerned only with hospitaller work and dispatching money and supplies to their Syrian brethren. When Alfons, lo Batallador, died in 1134, he left his kingdom of Aragon to the Templars, the Hospitallers and the Canons of the Holy Sepulchre. The Poor Knights were installed in the royal palace at Sanguera, and obtained many castles. No doubt they were aided by the Count of Barcelona, Ramón Berenguer IV, a Templar confrère. In 1143 the Poor Knights were given a great stronghold at Monzon, while in 1146 they established headquarters at Punta la Reyna, but they were less powerful in Castile. They had a castle in Portugal at Soure as early as 1128, setting up outposts in the wild country near Pombal and Ega.

  The Hospitallers also established themselves. In 1148 they acquired the port of Amposta at the mouth of the river Ebro, which became the headquarters of their Aragonese brethren. Four years later they founded the Castellany of Amposta (later moved to Saragossa), 'Castellan of Amposta' being the title borne by future Priors of Aragon. Yet, if heavily fortified, Amposta was an embarkation point for the Holy Land rather than a frontier stronghold. In Castile by contrast the Hospitallers held exposed border castles such as Olmos from 1144 and Consuegra in La Mancha from 1183 – the district around Consuegra becoming known as the 'Campo de San Juan'. In Portugal too they played a frontier role, building a fortress at Belver on the north bank of the Tagus in 1194. Nevertheless, the Hospitallers' real concern was Outremer and they could not pay sufficient attention to the Moors. The Reconquista required a native solution.

  Armed brotherhoods had long existed in Christian Spain. At first these hermangildas were little more than small bands of local farmers. Later, however, emulating the Almohad rabitos, they acquired a quasi-religious character and their members may have taken certain vows such as temporary celibacy and an oath to protect Christians. The hermangildas undoubtedly contributed to the rise of purely Spanish orders.

  Toledo, the Castilian capital, was protected by mountains, but between this range and the Sierra Morena, which guarded Córdoba, lay the open plains of the meseta. Razzias could gallop swiftly over the tableland and attack Toledo without warning. It was essential to hold an advance post on the far side of the Montes de Toledo. The fortress of Calatrava (Qalat Rawaah, 'the castle of war'), sixty-five miles south on the marshy banks
of the upper Guardiana, was ideal. The Emperor Alfonso VII captured it in 1147, the year of the Almohad invasion, entrusting it to the Templars. Later, rabitos grew more formidable and the brethren began to doubt whether they could hold the castle. In 1157 rumours that African generals were planning an advance finally decided the Poor Knights, who informed Sancho III that they were evacuating Calatrava.

  A Cistercian abbot, Ramón Sierra, from the Navarrese monastery of Santa María de Fitero, was in Toledo on business, accompanied by the monk Diego Velásquez, a nobleman and a friend of Sancho. The abbot went to the king and offered to defend Calatrava. There was no alternative; in 1158 the castle and its lands were given to the community of Fitero, King Sancho exhorting the community to defend them from the pagan foes of Christ's Cross. Ramón immediately transferred all his monks to Calatrava, preaching a crusade. He was joined by many Navarrese soldiers, and Diego Velasquez organized laymen and brethren into an effective fighting unit, compiling a simple rule. From a ribat garrisoned by monks and an hermangilda Calatrava was transformed into the first commandery of an entirely new type of military order.1

  When Ramón died in 1164 Calatrava had still not been attacked. The choir monks elected a new abbot, but the knights and lay brethren chose a Master, Don Garcia. The monks withdrew to Cirvelos, though Diego stayed, recruiting secular priests to serve as chaplains, while Frey Garcia swore to observe the Cistercian rule and asked Cîteaux to affiliate his brethren to the white monks.2 Cîteaux responded favourably, accepting thesefreyles of Calatrava into full communion as true brethren, not just as confrates, Abbot Gilbert expressing pleasure that they were 'not soldiers of the world, but soldiers of God'. The same year a bull of Pope Alexander III gave them canonical status as a religious order.

  9. An early Knight of Calatrava

  The basic organization of the Knights of Calatrava was complete within twenty years, though its constitutions were not finalized until the fifteenth century. The mother house was staffed by freyles clerigos, who prayed for success in battle, but the normal Commandery contained twelve caballeros freyles and a chaplain. The election of the Master resembled a Cistercian abbot's, with a certain flavour of the Visigothic war-band. When he died, his lieutenant, the Grand Commander (Comendador mayor), summoned all knights and chaplains to Calatrava within ten days to choose a successor. The new Maestre was raised on high and given the Order's seal, sword and banner, while his freyles sang the Te Deum. Then, after swearing loyalty to the King of Castile, he was seated on the magistral throne to receive his brethren's homage amid the pealing of bells, after which there was a High Mass in thanksgiving. As Calatrava was attached to Morimond in Burgundy (the mother house of Fitero), like any dependent priory of white monks the latter's abbot confirmed each Maestre's election, performing an annual visitation. The Maestres' headquarters were in one of the larger commanderies, the castellan of Calatrava being the third great officer, the Clavero, who was assisted by a Sub-Clavero and an Obrero, the latter a kind of quartermaster responsible for the house's maintenance. Next came the Order's senior clerical officer, the Grand Prior, supported by a Sacrista or procurator. Always a French Cistercian from Morimond, as heir to Ramón, the Grand Prior wore a mitre and carried a crozier, residing at Calatrava, where he held a chapter of the house's freyles clerigos each day. These lived a life almost indistinguishable from the white monks', using the Cîteaux breviary.

  Their habit was a hooded white (later grey) tunic. That of the caballeros was shorter than that of the clerigos, to facilitate riding. On active service knights wore a long sleeveless mantle like a Templar's, but with no cross, and sometimes a fur-lined cloak. Armour was always black. Indoors both freyles and clerigos donned the full habit of a Cistercian choir monk, including his 'cowl', a pleated over-tunic with wide sleeves.3 Professions were made to the Prior, later to the Master 'as though he were abbot' after a year's novitiate, who 'clothed' the brethren; there was a single vow of obedience in which those of chastity and poverty were implicit. Each brother was constantly reminded of a Christian's seven obligations, 'comer, bever, calcar, vestir, visitar, consolar, enterrar' (to feed, give drink to, shoe, clothe, visit, console the sick, poor or afflicted and bury the dead). Meat was eaten only three times a week, and such offences as fornication were punished by flogging. Silence was kept in chapel, refectory, dormitory and kitchen, while every caballero recited the psalter ten times each year. However, knights sometimes sang the whole office with the chaplains, and after 1221 were allowed to sit with the choir monks in any monastery of the Cîteaux obedience, entering refectories and 4 chapterhouses forbidden to lay brethren. On campaign they recited a specific number of 'paters' and 'aves'.

  A chapter general was held at Calatrava, at Christmas, Easter and Pentecost, when all caballeros were bound to attend and receive the sacraments. Each commandery was inspected annually by a knight and a chaplain to ensure that the rule was kept and fortifications maintained. These commanderies, manned by twelve experienced freyles, served as a blockhouse for their district, all able-bodied fighting men rallying to the commander in times of danger. In 1179 a commandery was founded in Aragon, at Alcañiz, to fight the Moors of Valencia. This became one of the Order's great houses, with many chaplains, and its conventual life resembled that at Calatrava.

  Shortly after Abbot Ramón began his great enterprise, a hermangilda near Cáceres had offered its services to the Canons of St Eloi in León for the protection of pilgrims travelling to Compostella. About 1164 the knights of Cáceres were given Uclés to defend on the Castilian frontier south of the Guardiana, and in 1171 the papal-legate, Cardinal Jacinto, presented them with a rule, while Alexander III recognized them as the Order of St James of the Sword in 1175.5 By 1184, when their first Maestre, Frey Pedro Fernández de Fuente Encalato, was killed during the siege of Cáceres, the new brethren had made rapid progress. In Portugal they received several castles from Sancho I, including Palmela, and later acquired lands in France, Italy, Palestine, Carinthia, Hungary and even England. Alfonso IX, 'el Baboso' (the Slobberer), endowed it with a tenth of all money coined in León. There were five Grand Priors for León, Castile, Portugal, Aragon and Gascony. The priors of Uclés and San Marcos (León) were mitred, ranking as abbots.

  Santiago based its rule on St Augustine's, evolving a structure of remarkable originality. Canons looked after the spiritual welfare of the knights, who took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience,6 while canonesses tended pilgrims in separate guest-houses and hospitals. Each commandery contained thirteen brethren, representing Christ and His Apostles, as did the Great Council, the 'Trezes', all celibate commanders who elected the Maestre; in chapter these wore the black habit of their canons. What made Santiago so unusual was its incorporation of married knights, not just as familiares or confreres, but as full members who gave up their patria potestas and whose goods and families became technically part of the Order.7 At certain times of the year they made retreats in the commanderies and during Lent and Advent slept apart from their wives, but otherwise lived a normal married life.* Knights wore a white habit with a red cross on the shoulder, the bottom arm of which resembled a sword blade. This distinctive cross, the espada, was nicknamed the Largetto or Lizard. The Santaguistas' ferocious motto was 'Rubet ensis sanguine Arabum' (May the sword be red with Arab blood) and they appropriated the old battle-cry, 'Santiagoy cierra Españo' (St James and close in Spain!).†

  Before 1170 a small hermangilda was operating on the Leonese frontier 'in the jaws of the Saracen'. This brotherhood, 'the Knights of San Julian de Pereiro', would one day become the Order of Alcántara. The brethren's historians afterwards concocted a legend that it was an earlier foundation than that of Calatrava; a certain Suero Fernández Barrientos came from Salamanca in 1156 to San Julián (about twenty-five miles from Ciudad Rodrigo), where a hermit showed him a site for a fortress, his ambition being to save his soul by fighting Moors, but soon after he was killed in battle. Certainly the brotherhood existed a decade later.8 In 1176 their le
ader, Frey Gómez Fernandez, was granted lands by Ferdinand II of León, and Pope Alexander recognized them as an Order with the right to elect a prior. Frey Gómez received the title of Maestre in 1183 from Lucius III. By 1187 the 'Sanjulianistas' had placed themselves under the protection of Calatrava, developing similar constitutions, though their prior was elected and was not a Cistercian. Brethren were divided into caballeros and clerigos, wearing a plain white habit.

  The Portuguese 'brethren of Santa María' claimed to have been founded by the first king of Portugal's brother, Dom Pedro Henriques.9 There is evidence that a hermangilda of this name guarded the open plains of the Alemtejo province in 1162. Four years later the brethren obtained a house at Évora, a hundred miles south of Lisbon, adopting the Benedictine rule suitably modified by a Cistercian abbot, João Zirita. But although the brethren took the title 'Knights of St Benedict', their inspiration was from Cîteaux, and they accepted the Abbot of Tarouca's visitation. Later they too came under Calatrava's control, copying its constitutions. However, Évora was so weak that King Afonso returned it to the Templars, who in 1169 were promised a third of any land they might conquer. Through this grant they obtained their famous stronghold at Thomar.10

  The military orders combined to guard the invasion routes along which the Moors might always come at any moment. 'Thus Alfonso VIII tried to defend the southern approaches to Toledo by placing the friars of Santiago in Mora and Piedra Negra, and the Calatravans in Calatrava, Alarcos, Malagón and Aceca,' writes Derek Lomax in The Reconquest of Spain. 'To hold the eastern approaches he gave Zorita and Almoguera to Calatrava, and Uclés, Oreja and Fuentidueña to Santiago. On the Seville–Salamanca road, the friars of Santiago received Cáceres, Monfragiie and later Granadilla; and to the south of Lisbon, Palmela and the whole peninsula between the Tagus and the Sado.