Page:The Book of Orders of Knighthood and Decorations of Honour of All Nations.djvu/434

Rh THE MILITARY ORDER OF ST. BENEDICT OF AVIZ.

(FORMERLY CALLED ' ORDER OF EVORA.)

In the reign of the first King of Portugal, Alphonso I. in the year 1143 or 1147, several noble Portuguese formed themselves into a military fraternity, which they named the 'New Knighthood,' having for its object the subjection of the Moors. Sanctioned by the King, and presented with the Castle Mafra, which they had conquered, the knighthood existed for a long time without solemn vows, and almost without any statutes, until 1162, when it was converted into a spiritual Order, and received from John of Cirita, the Papal Legate, a series of statutes, which bound the Knights to solemn vows of chastity and mercy, to the defence of the Catholic religion, to the observance of the rules of the Benedictine and Cistercian monks, and to the wearing of a costume consisting of a white military coat, with a black hood above it, to which was fastened a narrow black scapulary reaching below the sword belt, but without mountings of precious stones or gold on either weapon, spurs or apparel.

In 1188, when Sancho I., son of Alphonso I., had availed himself of the presence of James of Avesnes, who, with an army of Crusaders, had been thrown by a gale upon the Portuguese coast, to reconquer a few provinces of his kingdom, he transferred to the new order of knighthood the reconquered town of Evora, and, by the name of Knights of Evora, they were subsequently known, until the reign of Alphonso II., the successor of Sancho L., (1211—1223), who put them into possession of the frontier fortress, Aviz, in Alemtejo, a designation they thenceforth adopted.

In 1213, Rodrigo Garcia de Aca, seventh Grand Master of the Order of Calatrava, ceded several important places and