Page:The Book of Orders of Knighthood and Decorations of Honour of All Nations.djvu/649

298 and evils in the establishments, or to report them to the General Chapter, which was to meet annually on All Saints' Day. The Order obtained many spiritual privileges, and was entirely independent of the Bishops.

At their nomination, the Knights made vows of poverty, obedience, celibacy, protection and support of poor travellers, and belief in the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. They also promised not to listen, in their combats with the Saracens, to the voice of ambition, glory, covetousness, or bloodshed, but to have only one single object in view, the protection of Christians, and the conversion of infidels.

The candidates were bound to prove that they had descended from a purely Christian race, without any intermixture of Moorish, Jewish or infidel blood, and they were, besides, obliged to undergo a six month's probation or noviciate, to learn the rules of the Order. The Canons of the Order were subject to the rule of St. Augustin, and were bound to prove at the nomination, that none of their ancestors, either paternal and maternal were, through four generations, engaged in any mercantile trade, or even acted as agents, brokers, money-changers, &c., and that none were condemned by the Holy Inquisition as Jews or infidels.

The Order soon proved exceedingly useful to the State, and acquired much reputation abroad. The members were indefatigable in their warfare against the Moors, and the red cross of the Order shone at the side of the royal standard in all the engagements, and great battles which Christendom fought against the professors of Islam, or Europe against Africa. Nor did the grateful piety of the Kings and nations, added to the conquests made by the Order itself, less contribute to increase its power, for it counted, towards the end of the fifteenth century, besides the three large Commanderies of Leon, Castille and Montalvan, nearly two hundred other