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

76
MILITARY ORDERS
Bachelors
and spin-
sters did
bring up
families
being negligible. In the previous century
the cowl had been given up and only the
cloak and cross distinguished them from
other men: D. Luys put through a Bull
allowing them to marry, and was the only
one at the time to take advantage of it.
We can hardly suppose that the rest lived
celibate. Of one Master early in the thir-
teenth century the historian observes that
“he had three sons and a daughter: it is
not known whether he was married before
he took the habit, or whether they were
illegitimate.” It hardly mattered, for the
merciful Spanish law distinguished rightly
between the fruits of adultery and the
children born to the unmarried. Nor was
the limpieza, now strictly required for
admission to theOrder,tainted by bastardy,
if the quarterings crossed by the bar sinister
were but sufficient and regular. The new
change which was to come within forty
years thereafter will hardly have seemed
very great to the knights: there had been
schisms and intrusions before, and now
that state was to be, so to speak, perma-
nent—there was never to be a Master any
HISPANIC NOTES