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

164
MILITARY ORDERS
The Order
of Montesa
Ruin of
the
Templars
1640, like so many other places small in
size but noble in spirit, along that indom-
itable east coast.
t
Montesa was a younger sister though a
richer. It has been said already that when
the Order of the Temple was destroyed,
and the King of France and the Pope in
Avignon laid hand on the wealth of it, the
kings in the Peninsula took measures to
save what they could. Out of these re-
sources D. Dionis of Portugal created the
Order of Christ or of Avis, in 1318.
The Councils of Tarragona and Sala-
manca had declared the Templars inno-
cent, but in vain: in the great tenth chap-
ter of his Fifteenth Book Mariana tells
their fate in Castile. In Aragon the
Templars defended themselves stubbornly,
offering to submit to a Council of the Pope
and the Cardinals, or to disband and go
into other orders, but not submitting to
be extinguished under the charge of
HISPANIC NOTES