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GREAT ORDERS OF CHIVALRY |
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The Military Order of Montesa ©Guy Stair Sainty
The much smaller Order of Montesa was not only a later foundation but was also territorially limited to the Kingdom of Aragón. It was founded following the break-up of the Templar Order in 1312, when there was considerable resistance on the part of the Kings of Aragón and Portugal to the amalgamation of the Templar benefices with those of the knights hospitaller. King Jaime II persuaded the Pope to permit him to regroup the Templar properties in Aragón and Valencia and confer them on a new Order, dedicated to Our Lady, and based at Montesa. The new Order received the approval of Pope John XXII on 10 June 1317, when it was given the Cistercian rule. On 22 July 1319 the Master of Calatrava was given the right to visit the Order and regulate disputes, as the first knights to form the new Order had been a group of volunteers from the Order of Calatrava. The first Master was Guillermo d'Eril and the Order had a total of fifteen Masters, whose military importance was insufficient to bring them into conflict with the Crown and who were not perceived as the same kind of threat as those of the other three Orders. By a bull of 24 January 1401, the anti-Pope Benedict XIII combined Montesa with the earlier Order of Saint George of Alfama. [1] The Order was only marginally involved in the war against the Moors, as by this late date they had been largely confined to the Kingdom of Grenada and seldom threatened the security of Valencia or Aragón. The penultimate Master, Francisco Lanzol de Romani (died 1544), was succeeded by his cousin Pedro-Luis de Borja (died 1592), half-brother of Saint Francis Borja, 4th Duke of Gandia (who was himself a knight of Santiago). Borja resigned in the Mastership in 1586 and it was united in perpetuity to the Crown of Aragón by a Bull of Sixtus V of 15 March 1587. It continued to maintain an autonomous existence under the Crown until its Council was united with that of the other three Orders on 22 May 1739. [2] In 1931 there were nearly fifty knights, of whom forty per cent were professed. Unlike the other three Orders, the senior officer is not a Grand Commander but a "Lieutenant-General" of the Order. His deputy is the Clavero-Mayor and the third officer is the Alférez (Standard-Bearer) and Commander of Alcalá de Gisbert. When the Order was revived there were five knights surviving from the pre-1931 Order, of whom the Baron de Llauri, Grandee of Spain (who had made profession in 1912), had been appointed Clavero-Mayor in 1960. Today there are twenty-three professed and nineteen novice knights (one Grandee of Spain), the Lieutenant-General is D. Miguel Peman y Medina (formerly the Alférez), the Clavero Mayor, substitute Lieutenant-General, is D. Rafael de la Brena y Sanchiz (also Secretary), and the Alférez and Commander of Alcalá de Gisbert is the Marquess of Bajamar. Requirements for admission are less stringent that in the other four Orders, as only the paternal and maternal of the four grandparents' (all of whom must be legitimate and not descended from non-Christians) families must be noble. The cross of the Order of Montesa is identical to that of Caltrava but in black, ensigned with a plain red greek cross. It is suspended from a red ribbon or sewn on the left breast. Footnotes[1] This small crusader Order had been founded at Alfama, near Tolosa, by King Pedro II of Aragón in 1201 but had not received Papal approval until May 15, 1373 when it was confirmed by Pope Gregory XI [2]See Zeininger de Borja, op.cit., pp.210-211; Helyot, op.cit., Volume VI, pp.78-80. |
