The emprise was eagerly sought by a monk of a distant convent in Navarre, who had once been a soldier, and whose military ardor seems to have been exalted, instead of being extinguished, in the solitude of the cloister. The monk, supported by his conventual brethren, and a throng of cavaliers and more humble followers, who sought redemption under the banner of the church, was enabled to make good his word. From the confederation of these knights and ecclesiastics sprung the military fraternity of Calatrava, which received the confirmation of the pontiff, Alexander the Third, in 1164. The rules which it adopted were those of St. Benedict, and its discipline was in the highest degree austere.
The cavaliers were sworn to perpetual celibacy, from which they were not released till so late as the sixteenth century. Their diet was of the plainest kind. They were allowed meat only thrice a week, and then only one dish. They were to maintain unbroken silence at the table, in the chapel, and the dormitory; and they were enjoined both to sleep and to worship with the sword girt on their side, in token of readiness for action. In the earlier days of the institution, the spiritual, as well as the military brethren, were allowed to make part of the martial array against the infidel, until this was prohibited, as indecorous, by the Holy See. From this order branched off that of Montesa, in Valencia, which was instituted at the commencement of the fourteenth century, and continued dependent on the parent stock. [38]
The third great order of religious chivalry in Castile was that of Alcantara, which also received its confirmation from Pope Alexander the Third, in 1177. It was long held in nominal subordination to the knights of Calatrava, from which it was relieved by Julius the Second, and eventually rose to an importance little inferior to that of its rival. [39]
The internal economy of these three fraternities was regulated by the same general principles. The direction of affairs was entrusted to a council, consisting of the grand master and a number of the commanders (_comendadores_), among whom the extensive territories of the order were distributed. This council, conjointly with the grand master, or the latter exclusively, as in the fraternity of Calatrava, supplied the vacancies. The master himself was elected by a general chapter of these military functionaries alone, or combined with the conventual clergy, as in the order of Calatrava, which seems to have recognized the supremacy of the military over the spiritual division of the community, more unreservedly than that of St. James.