Order of Alcántara

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Order of Alcántara
Orden de Alcántara
Grand Master
Prince Pedro, Duke of Calabria
Precedence
RelatedOrder of Santiago
Order of Calatrava
Order of Montesa


The Order of Alcántara (Leonese: Orde de Alcántara, Spanish: Orden de Alcántara), also called the Knights of St. Julian,[1] was originally a military order of León, founded in 1166[2] and confirmed by Pope Alexander III in 1177.[3]

Alcántara

Muslims and Christians of Iberian Peninsula in the 12th century. Alcántara was first taken in 1167 by King Ferdinand II of León; In 1174 it fell again into the hands of Abu Yaqub Yusuf;[4] and was not recovered until 1214, when it was taken by King Alfonso IX of León.[5] The Order of Trujillo was the Castilian
branch of the order until 1195.

To defend this conquest, on a border exposed to many assaults, the king resorted to military orders. The

Almohades
. Alonzo of León wished to found at Alcántara a special branch of this celebrated order for his realm. However, four years later the Order decided that the post was too far from its Castilian headquarters. They gave up the scheme and transferred the castle, with the permission of the king, to a peculiar Leonese order still in a formative stage, known as the Knights of St Julian de Pereiro.

History

Origins of the Order

This order's genesis is obscure, but according to a somewhat questionable tradition,

Master of Calatrava
. This union did not last long.

Internal dissensions

The Knights of Alcántara, under their new name, acquired many castles and estates, for the most part at the expense of the Muslims. They amassed great wealth from booty during the war and from pious donations. It was a turning point in their career. However, ambitions and dissensions increased among them. The post of grand master became the aim of rival aspirants. In 1318, the Grand Master,

Pedro of Castile and his brother, Henry the Bastard
, which divided half Europe, the Knights of Alcántara were also split into two factions which warred upon each other.

The Marquess of Huarte in uniform of a knight of the Order of Alcántara, c. 1910

Royal involvement

The kings, on their side, did not fail to take an active part in the election of the grand master, who could bring such valuable support to the royal authority. In 1409, the regent of Castile succeeded in having his son,

Ferdinand VII
.

The Liberal monarchy seized much of the Order's properties in the 1830s, but by royal decree of 7 April 1848 the majority of the benefices of the four Orders were restored. In the Concordat of 1851 the four Military Orders were allowed continued ecclesiastical jurisdiction over their territories, while the titular of the jurisdiction remained the King (or Queen), as administrator of the four Orders by Apostolic Delegation. Certain of the confiscated properties were restored and concentrated together near Ciudad Real, while others distributed more distantly were integrated into the dioceses in which they lay, and were removed from the Order's jurisdiction. The territories now concentrated around the city of Ciudad Real were designated as the new Priory, a Prelature nullius dioeceseos called the "Priory of the four reunited Military Orders of Santiago, Calatrava, Alcántara and Montesa", with the Prior holding the titular diocese of Dora and given as his Priory Church, or Cathedral, the former Parish Church of Santa María del Prado in Ciudad Real. The 1st Spanish Republic proclaimed on 12 February 1873 made as one of its first provisions the abolition of all Military Orders, by decree of 9 March following; the Pope, Pius IX, considering that the Orders' ecclesiastical jurisdiction was thereby rendered ineffective, transferred the administration of their benefices to the closest dioceses, in the Bull Quo graviu of 14 July 1873. The President of the Republic, the Duke of La Torre, seeing this as a concession by the Pope, re-established the Military Orders and their governing body, the Tribunal.

The Bull Ad Apostolicam published on 18 November 1875 re-established the Orders' ecclesiastical jurisdiction and the priory based at Ciudad Real. The solemn inauguration of the Priory followed, on 6 June 1876 and the first Prior appointed on the 29 September next. The administration was now re-titled once again by royal decree of 1 August 1876, as the Tribunal Metropolitano y Consejo de las Órdenes Militares, with the responsibility for regulating the proofs of nobility and the admission and investiture of the knights, the appointment of charges and officers, the creation or suppression of parishes, the construction or repair of churches and chapels, the direction of the benefices and hospitals and modification of regulations or statutes; the government thus formally recognised the continued legal existence of the four Orders.

Convent of San Benito
, parent headquarters of the order

Alfonso XIII obtained de facto papal approval of his new title of Grand Master and Perpetual Administrator when the Holy See confirmed certain regulations in 1916. A royal decree of 18 February 1906 introduced some modifications to the regulations governing the Metropolitan Tribunal and Council that were the last formal regulations introduced before the fall of the monarchy in 1931. The 2nd Republic purported to suppress the Orders in a decree of 29 April 1931, just two weeks after the proclamation of the Republic, and dissolve the Tribunal but did not mention the Consejo de las Órdenes Militares, leaving the juridical situation of this body intact. The suppression provoked an immediate protest by the Cardinal Primate since the religious character of these Orders was regulated by the Concordat. In a modification of the earlier act, the Ministry of War by a decree of 5 August 1931 declared the four Orders subject to the Spanish law on Associations, to which status it had also converted the five Maestranzas and named a "Junta, or Provisional Commission", to which it gave juridical personality in place of the Consejo.

The

Juan Carlos I, was formally nominated by the King "Dean President of the Royal Council of the Orders of Chivalry of Santiago, Calatrava, Alcántara and Montesa" in 1978. Following his death the Grand Commander of the Order of Alcantara, the Infante Carlos, Duke of Calabria, was appointed his successor and upon his death in 2015 his Son Prince Pedro, Duke of Calabria[6]
became the head of the Order.

List of grand masters

The following list is taken from Ayala Martínez.[7]

  1. Gómez (c.1175–1200)
  2. Benito Suárez (1200–1216)
  3. Nuño Fernández (1218–1219)
  4. García Sánchez (1219–1227)
  5. Arias Pérez (1227–1234)
  6. Pedro Ibáñez (1234–1254)
  7. García Fernández (1254–1284)
  8. Fernando Páez (1284–1292)
  9. Fernando Pérez Gallego (1292–1298)
  10. Gonzalo Pérez (1298–1316)
  11. Rodrigo Vázquez (1316–1318)
  12. Suero Pérez (1318–1335)
  13. Rodrigo Pérez (1335–1337)
  14. Gonzalo Martínez de Oviedo (1337–1340)
  15. Nuño Chamizo (1340–1343)
  16. Pedro Alfonso Pantoja (1343–1345)
  17. Pedro Yáñez de Campo (1345)
  18. Fernando Pérez Ponce de León (1346–1355)
  19. Diego Gutiérrez de Cevallos (1355)
  20. Suero Martínez (1356–1363)
  21. Gutierre Gómez de Toledo (1362–1365)
  22. Martín López de Córdoba (1365–1367)
  23. Pedro Muñiz Godoy (1367)
  24. Melén Suárez (1369–1370)
  25. Rodrigo Díaz de la Vega (1370–1375)
  26. Diego Martínez (1376–1383)
  27. Diego Gómez Barroso (1383–1384)
  28. Gonzalo Núñez Guzmán (1384–1385)
  29. Martín Yáñez de Barbudo (1385–1394)
  30. Fernando Rodríguez Villalobos (1394–1408)
  31. Infante Sancho de Aragón (1408–1416)
  32. Juan de Sotomayor (1416–1432)
  33. Gutierre de Sotomayor (1432–1454)
  34. Gómez de Cáceres y Solís (1458–1473)
  35. Alonso de Monroy (1473–1477)
    Francisco de Solís (1474–1475), elect
  36. Juan de Zúñiga y Pimentel (1477–1494)

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Military Order of Alcántara". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

  1. ^ The Orders of knighthood, British and foreign, Ed. Sourindro Mohun Tagore, (Catholic Orphan Press, 1884), 96.
  2. ^ Vicens Vives, Jaime, Approaches to the History of Spain, (University of California Press, 1967), 49.
  3. ^ Prescott, William Hickling, History of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic, of Spain, Vol.1, (Richard Bentley, 1838), 326.
  4. ^ "Fernando II, King of Leon", Bernard F. Reilly, Medieval Iberia: An Encyclopedia, Ed. E. Michael Gerli, Samuel G. Armistead, (Taylor & Francis, 2003), 329.
  5. ^ O'Callaghan, Joseph F., Reconquest and crusade in medieval Spain, (University of Pennsylvania, 2003), 75.
  6. ^ "Orden de Alcantara. Galeria de imagenes". www.ordenesmilitares.es.
  7. ^ Carlos de Ayala Martínez, Las órdenes militares hispánicas en la Edad Media (siglos XII–XV) (Madrid: Marcial Pons Historia, 2007), p. 851.
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