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

IN SPAIN
75
century, and the reign of John II, whose
court was a hothouse of Renaissance
literature, exotic, exquisite, full of colour,
fragrance, melody. All that Italy and
France could give, was there transplanted,
and flourished with a new strange bloom.
The knights of the Order were caught
betwixt heaven and earth, between castle,
court and convent. They were not cru-
saders, and they wore the cross on their
shoulders as a token not of soldierly
brotherhood but of lordly lineage. They
were not Religious, for they were the sons
of great houses, intriguing for command-
eries, indifferent to Latin and theology
and avid of the Italian literature and the
new poetry. In the incessant struggle
between the great houses for the control
of the King and that of the realm thereby,
they knew how to use their power to
advantage, and with exercise it grew.
Their vows meant no more to them than
the thirty-nine articles to an English
clergyman, and the vows themselves by
now imposed little more than loyalty to
Our Lady and the King—the latter part
The
status of
the Order
Vows both
vague and
negligible
AND MONOGRAPHS