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

196
MILITARY ORDERS
The Roman
policy
Till the
Constable
of Bourbon
sacked
Rome for
the Em-
peror
Schism in
Portugal
Queen of King Peter, has lately been pub-
lished. The fixed policy of the Roman
curia was to keep Spain torn by intestine
wars, in order to manipulate the balance
of power. Spanish Kings had enough to
do, at home and abroad, and could not
retaliate in self-protection like the great
princes in Italy. Meanwhile, and in con-
sequence perhaps, towards the close of the
thirteenth century a Bull of Nicholas IV
permitted the Portuguese Comendador and
knights to elect their own Master in com-
plete independence. The whole Order pro-
tested with such justice and force that
Celestine V revoked it, but never again
would the Portuguese recognize the Master
of Castile and Leon.
s
King Alfonso XI, being in Cuenca when
in 1338 the Master D. Vasco Rodriguez
died, learned promptly of it, and sent mes-
sages to the trezes forbidding them to elect
a new Master without his presence and
HISPANIC NOTES