King, Georgiana Goddard: A brief account of the military orders in Spain (New York: The Hispanic Society of America, 1921)

IN SPAIN
9
Alfonso VI took Toledo in 1072. El
que gand Toledo: that is how the chronicles
name the amazing old king of the many
monasteries, the many wives, the many
conquests. But though he recovered
Toledo, Calatrava la Vieja was for seventy-
two years more in the power of the Haga-
renes. In 1147 Alfonso VII took but could
not keep Cordova, so he returned to
Toledo and thence besieged Calatrava and
stormed it. He gave the chief mosque to
the Chapter and Archbishop of Toledo,
who put in ten clerks (what with priests,
deacons and other clergy) and he gave the
stronghold to the Master and Knights
Brethren of the Temple, who for eight
years kept it at a great expenditure of
goods and men. Then when the Emperor
was dead and the realm was divided and
the Moors were raising an immense army,
even over-sea, the Master resigned it
to Sancho the Desired in Toledo. The
King offered it to anyone that dared the
adventure. No one appeared. The abbot
of Fitero, D. Raimundo, was at the court
with one of his Cistercian monks, a knight
A forlorn
adventure
AND MONOGRAPHS