Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/356

212 212 ADMINISTRATION OF CASTILE. latrava. lART device which glittered on the banner of their tute- , _': lar saint, when he condescended to take part in their engagements with the Moors. The red color denoted, according to an ancient commentator, " that it was stained with the blood of the infidel." The rules of the new order imposed on its members the usual obligations of obedience, community of property, and of conjugal chastity, instead of celi- bacy. They were, moreover, required to relieve the poor, defend the traveller, and maintain per- petual war upon the Mussulman. ^^ Order of ca- Thc institutiou of the Knights of Calatrava was somewhat more romantic in its origin. That town, from its situation on the frontiers of the Moorish territory of Andalusia, where it commanded the passes into Castile, became of vital importance to the latter kingdom. Its defence had accordingly been intrusted to the valiant order of the Templars, who, unable to keep their ground against the pertinacious assaults of the Moslems, abandoned it, at the expiration of eight years, as untenable. This occurred about the middle of the twelfth century ; and the Castilian monarch, Sancho the Beloved, as the last resort, offered it to whatever good knights would undertake its defence. 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 37 Rades y Andrada, Las Tres 2-8. — Garil)ay, Compendio, torn. Ordenes, fol. 3-15. — Caro de ii. pp. 116 - 118. Torres, Ordenes Militares, fol.