El proceso de aristocratización de la Orden de Calatrava (siglos XIII-XV)

Abstract

The article analyzes the aristocratic’s process experienced by the Military Order of Calatrava between in the middle of the thirteenth century and the end of the fifteenth century. In order to obtain this objective it has been combined the analysis of the chronicles sources and the archivistic records, originating fundamentally of the Archivo Histórico Nacional (Madrid) and the Real Academia de la Historia (Madrid). The result of the study is that the Order of Calatrava service always had an aristocratic component represented by its knights. These Calatravans carry out an aristocratic’s process that begins during the second half of the thirteenth century, are accelerated during the fourteenth century and culminate in the fifteenth century, when the new reality begins to be recognized by the statutes of the Order, although their last legal adjustments would already take place in the first half of the sixteenth century.