Inferior in dignity and power to both these orders was the order of Alcantara. It was formed soon after the establishing of the fraternity of Saint James of Compostella, at a town called Saint Julian of the Pear-tree, near Ciudad Rodrigo. The ancient badge was a pear-tree, in allusion to the origin of the order. The knights of the Pear-tree were so poor in worldly estate and consideration, that the knights of Calatrava took them under their protection, and gave them the town of Alcantara. The knights of the Pear-tree then quitted their humble title for a name of loftier sound, though ideas of dependence were associated with it. For nearly two centuries the cavaliers of Alcantara remained the vassals and retainers of the knights of Calatrava; but the spirit of independence gradually rose with their prowess in the field; and about the year 1412 their martial array was led to battle by their own grand master. Until the union of the Spanish crowns in the persons of Ferdinand and Isabella, they rivalled their former lords and the knights of Saint James in power and rank: the crown then placed them within its own control, and like the other fraternities, the main object of whose institution had been the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, the cross of the order of Alcantara became a mere decoration of nobility.[362] * * * * * [Sidenote: Knights of our Lady of Mercy.] Co-existent with these religious brotherhoods was a charitable establishment, which completed the blessings of chivalry in Spain. Experience of the wretchedness of imprisonment taught James I. of Arragon to sympathise with the hapless fate of others; and about the year 1218 he associated several valiant knights and pious ecclesiastics in Barcelona, whose whole thoughts and cares were to have for their chief end and aim the applying of the alms of the charitable towards the liberation of Christian captives. Knights of our Lady of Mercy was their title; and every cavalier at his inauguration professed his heart's resolve to observe the vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty, to apply the whole energies of his mind and feelings to succour such of his unhappy countrymen as, by the chance of battle, were in Moorish prisons, and if necessary to remain a slave in the hands of the Saracens rather than abandon his duty of procuring the redemption of captives. The general course of their lives was directed by the rule of Saint Benedict, for a knight as a monk,-- "When he is reckless,[363] Is like to a fish that is waterless."[364]