And thus it was with Velasquez. His chivalric spirit was roused by the call of his king, and he lighted a flame of military ardor among his brethren. They implored the superior of the convent to accept the royal proffer; and the king, who was at first astonished at the apparent audacity of the wish, soon recollected that the defence of the fortress of Calatrava could not be achieved by the ordinary exertions of courage, and he then granted it to the Cistertian order, and principally to its station at Santa Maria de Fetero, in Navarre. And the fortress was wisely betowed; for not only did the bold spirits of the convents keep the Moors at bay in that quarter, but the valour of the friars caused many heroic knights of Spain to join them. To these banded monks and cavaliers the king gave the title of the Religious Fraternity of Calatrava, and Pope Alexander III. accepted their vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity. The new religious order of knighthood, like that of Saint James of Compostella, was a noble bulwark of the Christian kingdom. [Sidenote: Discipline of the order.] [Sidenote: Fame of this order.] Nothing could be more perfect than the simplicity of the knights of Calatrava. Their dress was formed from the coarsest woollen, and the edges were not like those of many a monk of the time, purfiled or ornamented with vair or gris, or other sorts of rich fur. Their diet, too, reproached the usual luxury of the monastery, for the fruits of the earth sustained them. They were silent in the oratory, and the refectory, one voice only reciting the prayers, or reading a legend of battle; but when the first note of the Moorish atabal was heard by the warder on the tower, the convent became a scene of universal uproar. The caparisoning of steeds, and the clashing of armour, broke the repose of the cloister, while the humble figure of the monk was raised into a bold and expanded form of dignity and power. Through all the mighty efforts of the Christians for the recovery of their throne, the firm and dense array of the knights of Calatrava never was tardy in appearing on the field; but the kingdom, as its power and splendour increased, overshadowed the soldiers of every religious order of chivalry. The grand mastership of the Calatrava fraternity became annexed to the thrones of Castile and Leon by the decree of Pope Innocent VIII., and the Kings of Spain kept alive the chivalry of their nation by using the crosses and other emblems of the ancient knighthood as signs of military merit.[361] * * * * * [Sidenote: Order of Alcantara.]