The Order was founded in 1172, and has its origins in the
Order of Santiago, founded in the
Kingdom of León in 1170, probably as an order of
Augustinian canons regular to escort pilgrims to the shrine of
St. James the Greater in
Santiago de Compostela. King
Ferdinand II of León soon set it to garrison the southern frontiers of León against the
Almohads of
al-Andalus. In 1170, Ferdinand II granted the new order the castles of
Cáceres and
Monfragüe, which had been confiscated from
Gerald the Fearless in 1169, and would make further donations thereafter. The new Leonese order was soon operating in neighboring kingdoms. His nephew, King
Alfonso VIII of Castile granted them the castles of
Mora and
Oreja in 1171, and merged the arriving knights of Santiago with the older Castilian brotherhood of knights of
Ávila in 1172. The establishment of the Order of Santiago was endorsed by
papal legate Cardinal Hyacinthus of Acardo on a visit to Iberia in 1172–73. The approval of the Order was confirmed three years later by
Pope Alexander III in a bull issued July 1175. In January 1174, Alfonso VIII granted them the citadel of
Uclés, which would later serve as the headquarters of the Order of Santiago as a whole after the
reunification of the León and Castile in 1230. The Order expanded into Portugal when King
Afonso I of Portugal donated
Arruda dos Vinhos in June 1172. This was followed up by donations of the
Castle of Monsanto in September 1173 and
Abrantes in September 1174. Given the poor relations between Afonso and Ferdinand II, the arrival of the Leonese order in Portugal is a little surprising. Some historians have conjectured Afonso was trying to exploit a quarrel between order's grand master
Pedro Fernández and king Ferdinand II, but it is likely that the Order's entry was part of some diplomatic agreement between the two kings. Nonetheless, the donation documents explicitly name
Rodrigo Álvarez as the administrator of all three Portuguese donations. Although a founding knight of Santiago, Rodrigo Álvarez was known to be dissatisfied with its rules (Álvarez would resign shortly after and found his own separate
Order of Mountjoy in
Aragon). So it is possible Afonso may have been trying to encourage a switch or schism in the Order already at this stage. The foundation of the
Order of Évora (future Order of Aviz) in 1175/76 reveal Afonso's keen interest in a native Portuguese order.
Expulsion from Portugal Whatever the intentions of the original invitation, the knights of Santiago evidently did not meet Afonso's expectations. The Crown took back Monsanto in 1174, and in 1179, Afonso expelled the Order of Santiago from Portugal and cancelled all their donations, as a consequence of a war that erupted between Portugal and León that year.
Return to Portugal In 1186, after the death of Afonso I, King
Sancho I of Portugal donated to the
Order of Santiago the Portuguese dominions of
Palmela,
Almada and
Alcácer do Sal, all in the
Setúbal District, south of
Lisbon), thus marking their return. But in 1190–91, all three citadels were conquered in an offensive led by the
Almohad caliph
Yaqub al-Mansur. They were recovered sometime between 1194 and 1204. The Order of Santiago established its Portuguese headquarters at Palmela shortly before 1210, and definitively by 1212. One of the most notable of Portuguese knights of St. James was
Paio Peres Correia. Between 1234 and 1242, Correia led the conquest of much of the southerly Moorish dominions of
Baixo Alentejo and the
Algarve. In 1242, Paio Peres Correia was elevated to Grand Master of the
Order of St. James, the only known Portuguese to have held the supreme title of the Castilian-based Order. In 1249, Paio Peres Correia and the Order of Santiago helped
Afonso III of Portugal sweep up the final
Moorish possessions in the Algarve. The possessions of the Order in Portugal were expanded and confirmed by Afonso III in 1255.
Portuguese Order of Santiago After the death of Correia in 1275, the Order of Santiago returned firmly into Castilian hands. Thus, in 1288, King
Denis of Portugal separated the Portuguese branch from the Castilian-Leonese Order. This was confirmed by
Pope John XXII in 1320. During the
1383–1385 Portuguese succession crisis, D. Fernando Afonso de Albuquerque, master of the Order of Santiago in Portugal, backed the candidacy of
John, Master of Aviz, and served briefly as John's ambassador to the English Court. Upon becoming king, having distributed much royal and seized land to reward his supporters, King
John I of Portugal was left with a slim royal
demesne, insufficient to maintain his
many sons with princely households. But the vast wealthy domains of the military orders were an alternative option. John promptly set his mind on acquiring the masterships of all the principal military orders in Portugal for his family. In 1418, John secured the mastership of the Order of St. James for his son,
John of Reguengos, the future
Constable of Portugal. In 1420, he secured the mastership of the
Order of Christ (ex-
Templars) for another son,
Henry the Navigator. After his death in 1433, John I's own
Order of Aviz (ex-branch of
Calatrava) was passed to a third son,
Ferdinand the Saint. The mastership of the three major orders – St. James, Christ and Aviz – would remain in the hands of princes of the royal family (
infantes) for much of the next century. After the death of John of Reguengos in 1442, his brother, the regent prince
Peter of Coimbra appointed John's son
Diogo as master of Santiago. But Diogo died within a year, so Peter passed the mastership on to his nephew,
Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Beja, the younger brother of King
Afonso V of Portugal. This was confirmed by
Pope Eugene IV in 1444. In the 1452 bull
Ex apostolice sedis,
Pope Nicholas V confirmed once more Ferdinand's appointment and put a definitive end to questions (up to then still being raised by Castile) about the autonomy of the Portuguese branch of Santiago. At the death of Henry the Navigator in 1460, his title of
Duke of Viseu and the mastership of the
Order of Christ passed on to Infante Ferdinand, Henry's designated heir. Ferdinand was in an unusual position of holding two major military orders, but this was ratified by
Pope Pius II in 1461. At Infante Ferdinand's death in 1470, all his titles, including both the orders of Christ and Santiago, were inherited by his eldest son,
João, Duke of Viseu. But the sickly João died just two years later, in 1472. The mastership of the orders was subsequently separated again: João's younger brother,
Diogo, Duke of Viseu became master of the Order of Christ, while the Order of St. James passed to his brother-in-law,
Infante John, the eldest son and heir of Afonso V of Portugal. (John had recently married Infante Ferdinand's daughter,
Eleanor of Viseu). With the ascension of Infante John as King
John II of Portugal in 1481, the fortunes of the Order of St. James rose with him. At the time, the Order of Christ, with their vast possessions (including the Atlantic islands), was the richest and most powerful military order in Portugal. To combat their influence, John II, a centralizing prince, doted on and deployed his Order of St. James at their expense. The Order of Christ had been out of the explorations business since the death of Prince Henry in 1460. As A result, the Order of St. James supplied a greater share of the knights for the slate of new expeditions organized by John II in the 1480s. The death of John II's only legitimate son and heir
Prince Afonso in 1491 threw the kingdom into a succession crisis, as it left John II with only one legitimate successor, his cousin and brother-in-law, Manuel,
Duke of Beja. Manuel of Beja had become the master of the Order of Christ in 1484 (following the death of his brother, Diogo of Viseu). John II did not trust Manuel, and suspected he might fritter away his hard-won gains. As a result, John II launched a campaign to legitimize his natural son,
Jorge de Lencastre, as royal heir. From
Pope Innocent VIII, John II received authorization to appoint Jorge de Lencastre as the Master of the Order of St. James in April 1492 (and also administrator of the
Order of Aviz). However, the Pope refused to legitimize his birth, and as a result, at the death of John II in 1495, Duke Manuel of Beja ascended as King
Manuel I of Portugal. In the first decade of Manuel's reign, D. Jorge de Lencastre was the leader of what might be called the political opposition to Manuel, composed mostly of loyalists of the late King John II. The Order of St. James was his power base, and its castle in
Palmela served as something akin to an 'alternative' royal court. , Portuguese Governor of the Indies (1509–1515), wearing a cloak with the cross of the Order of SantiagoThe Order of Santiago played a leading role in the early
India expeditions, a legacy project from the reign of John II.
Vasco da Gama,
Paulo da Gama, D.
Francisco de Almeida, D.
Afonso de Albuquerque and
Duarte de Meneses, were leading knights of the Order of Santiago. It is reported by chronicler
João de Barros (p. 274) that just before his departure for India in 1497, King Manuel I of Portugal presented Vasco da Gama with his personal standard – not the familiar
armillary sphere flag later associated with Manuel, but rather the banner of the Order of Christ, of which Manuel was the grand master. But chronicler
Gaspar Correia (p. 15) reports that as soon as the ships left sight of Lisbon harbor, Paulo da Gama pulled 'the royal standard' down from the mast. Evidently the Gamas took the king's gesture as a calculated slight against their beloved Santiago. Nonetheless, in subsequent years Manuel I would set his Order of Christ to poach the knights of the Order of St. James. In January, 1505, Manuel managed to coax D.
Francisco de Almeida to abandon Santiago and move over to the Order of Christ.
Vasco da Gama himself eventually did the switch in 1507.
Afonso de Albuquerque, by contrast, refused; he was buried in his Santiago vestments. Master Jorge de Lencastre spent much of his career trying to defend the Order of Santiago against Manuel's encroachments. In May 1505, he actually managed to secure a royal order prohibiting knights from leaving his orders without his express permission. But Manuel soon obtained from
Pope Alexander VI two bulls to undermine him – one from July 1505, giving the King of Portugal the right to dispose of the property of all three Orders; another in January, 1506, authorizing knights to move freely from other Orders to the Order of Christ. In 1509, D. Jorge de Lencastre introduced a new set of rules for the Order of Santiago, overhauling its administration in a centralized fashion, bringing it closer in line with the rules of their
Spanish brethren. This was done perhaps to gain the support of the Spanish monarchy and the Pope, but to no avail. In 1516, Manuel secured from
Pope Leo X the authority to appoint Jorge's successor as grand master of Santiago.
As a royal order Manuel died in 1521, and he was succeeded by his son
John III of Portugal. When Jorge de Lencastre died in July 1550, John III received a bull from
Pope Julius III a couple of weeks later appointing him personally as the master of both the Order of Santiago and the
Order of Aviz. This was followed by a second bull,
Praeclara carissimi, issued by the pope under great diplomatic pressure by John III in December 1551, appointing the
Kings of Portugal as masters in perpetuity of all three military orders (Christ, Santiago and Aviz), thus bringing an end to the independence of the military orders in Portugal.
Secularization Pope Pius VI (1789) and Queen
Maria I reformed the order into a secular institution.
As an order of merit In 1834, when the civil government of Portugal became
anti-clerical after the defeat of King
Miguel in the
Civil War, under the
constitutional monarchy, the order lost its properties. The ancient military orders were transformed by the
liberal constitution and subsequent legislation into mere
orders of merit. The privileges which once had been an essential part of the membership of the old military orders also ceased. In 1910, when the Portuguese monarchy ended, the
Republic of Portugal abolished all of the orders except the
Military Order of the Tower and Sword. == Revival ==