Confraternity of Belchite

The Confraternity of Belchite was an "experimental" community of knights founded in 1122 by Alfonso the Battler, king of Aragon and Navarre, and lasting until shortly after 1136.

[3] A Christian organisation dedicated to a holy war against Muslims (reconquista), its impetus and development coincide with that of the international military orders and it introduced the concept of an indulgence proportional to length of service.

[5] In 1117 Alfonso the Battler conquered the town of Belchite, about twenty-two miles southeast of his main target, the city of Zaragoza, which surrendered on 18 December 1118.

[9] More probably it had collapsed by the time of Alfonso the Battler's will (1134), leaving its confirmation charter of 1136 as a political ploy in the haggling over the succession in Aragon.

[10][11] In 1143 a settlement was reached in which Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona gave the castle at Belchite to the Templars "according as [they could] best come to terms" with its lord, Lope Sanz (Sánchez), who was the princeps and rector of the confraternity in 1136.

[13] On 4 October 1136 a synod convened by Alfonso VII sat in Burgos and, at his request, granted an indulgence for those lent support to Belchite.

If any knight or anyone else, living or dead, should leave his horse or arms for the service of God [in Belchite], let him have the same indulgence as he who has bequeathed them to the Hospital of Jerusalem or the Temple.

[17]In his work on Spanish historiography (1954), Américo Castro also "proposes that the medieval Christian military orders of fighting religious men were modeled on the Islamic ribāṭ.

"[18] His proposal was rejected for lack of positive evidence by Joseph O'Callaghan (1959), before being taken up by Thomas Glick and Oriol Pi-Sunyer as a textbook example medieval acculturation through stimulus- or idea-diffusion: Many an alien institution which is basically attractive may be unacceptable in its original form.

[18]Elena Lourie argues that the notion of temporary service, so alien to Christian idea of vocation, yet central to the nucleus of the rule of Belchite of 1122 (preserved in the re-issue of 1136, with changes) could only have come from the Islamic ribāṭ.