Page:The Book of Orders of Knighthood and Decorations of Honour of All Nations.djvu/657

306 admission, prove their noble descent, pass by the name of 'Female Commanders,' and are apparelled like the Cistercian nuns, with the addition only of the Cross of the Order, which they wear on the left side of the capoch, fastened to the Scapulary. They are, or rather were, richly endowed.

ORDER OF ALCANTARA,

(PREVIOUSLY OF ST. JULIAN.)

The Order of Calatrava was, as we have seen, mainly founded with a view to protect Castille against the Moors, and the Knights of St. James of Compostella rendered Estramadura secure against the same inveterate opponents, by their first settlement in Carrcerés and Alharilla. But when Ferdinand, King of Leon and Galizia, compelled them to emigrate to Ucles, they turned their arms chiefly against the infidels in La Mancha. To fill up the chasm which was created in Estramadura by their absence, Ferdinand favoured and patronized a society of Knights, which had been formed by the brothers Don Suero and Don Gomez Barriento, in the small town of St. Julian de Pereiro (St. Julian of the pear tree) near Ciudad Rodrigo, as a barrier against Moorish inroads. In 1177, Pope Alexander III. raised this society to a Knightly Order, and Pope Lucius, in 1183, confirmed the Papal decree. Pope Alexander framed statutes for it, which were those of St. Benedict in a rather modified and milder form, and which were followed also by the Knights of Calatrava, while Pope Lucius eranted, in addition, considerable privileges, at the same time that he submitted the Order to the jurisdiction of the Holy Chair.