The origin of the Knights of Santiago or Saint James of Compostella was slightly different. Compostella prided itself on possessing the body of Saint James the Apostle, who, according to tradition, stayed for a while in Spain to preach the gospel and consecrated the first Spanish bishops. After the Apostle had been martyred in Jerusalem, his body was transferred to Compostella, which for that reason ranked in the Middle Ages as one of the most venerable shrines of Christendom, with an importance surpassed only by Rome and Jerusalem. However, the numerous pilgrims from all countries in Europe visiting the Apostle’s tomb in this far corner of Galicia were often waylaid and robbed by brigands and Moors. For that reason a number of Spanish knights banded together to protect the pilgrims on the road to Compostella, and in 1175 this group of pious soldiers was canonically approved as a religious military order. The Knights of Santiago erected hospices and strongholds on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees as did the Knights of St. John on the French side. A fortified church erected by the Hospitallers at this time and still in a stage of good repair may be seen at Luz-St. Sauveur near Lourdes. The origin of the Order of Christ and that of Monteza were quite different from that of the other Iberian military orders, as we shall see when we come to speak of the Pontifical Orders of Knighthood. Although each of the Iberian military orders had, of course, its own, often fascinating, history, the general development of these institutions followed very much the same pattern. The knights lived in their convents and castles ruled by their grand masters; they showed great prowess in the wars against the Moorish invaders, and simultaneously they rose to power and political influence, accumulating immense wealth from the bounty of grateful kings and the pious faithful. Sometimes one order of knighthood confronted another on the field of battle, as happened when they took opposite sides in civil wars that so frequently occurred on the peninsula. This continued until most of the peninsula was under one rule through the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. The reign of these two sovereigns, _los Reyes Catolicos_, marked the end of the Moorish occupation, but at the same time accounts for the decline of the religious military orders. After the surrender of Granada in 1492—the year in which Columbus first sailed westward from Palos—the Moors were definitely driven off the Iberian Peninsula, but by the same token the military orders lost their very _raison d’être_. The fact that the Portuguese Orders of Christ and of Avis kept the military spirit alive for some time by sending out expeditions to Africa to fight the Mohammedans in their own stronghold altered but little the inevitable course of events. The religious military orders on the Iberian Peninsula were doomed to die a slow death.