The Royal Equestrian and Military Order of Saint Michael of the Wing (Latin: Ordo Equitum Sancti Michaelis sive de Ala,[6] Portuguese: Real Ordem Equestre e Militar de São Miguel da Ala) is a Portuguese Roman Catholic dynastic order that is believed to have been founded in 1147 in the Alcobaça Monastery in Alcobaça, Portugal, by King Afonso I of Portugal, in commemoration of the Conquest of Santarém from the Moors in 1147.

[7] The knights were under the jurisdiction of the Abbot of the Cistercian Alcobaça Monastery, and recited the same prayers as its lay brothers along with other military orders during the Reconquista.

First in 1828 or 1848 in support of the Miguelist movement by King Miguel I of Portugal, and secondly in its current form in 1981 by later Portuguese monarchists, recognised in 1986 by the Royal House of Braganza.

[2] In 1907, George Cyprian Alston,[15] writing in the Catholic Encyclopedia stated that the order died in the Middle Ages, soon after the death of its founder, Alphonse,[9] while others, such as John C.L.

[18] Later, in 1848, the order received new statutes under permission of Pope Gregory XVI, whilst King Miguel was living in exile in the Rome.

[17] Some Portuguese scholars, such as Marcus de Noronha da Costa,[19] Gomes Abrunhosa Marques de Almeida,[3] and Manuel Ângelo,[3] reject the description of the 1848 institution as a revived order and regard it as a secret society aiming to restore Miguel's branch of the Braganza family to power in Portugal.

There are disputed claims that Miguel's revived order was awarded by his descendants until in 1986,[4] Duarte Pio, Duke of Braganza and pretender to the Portuguese throne, informed the Holy See and the Portuguese Republic that he still considered himself to be the Grand Master of the Order,[10] and that although he did not have the power to validly alter the statutes a king had previously approved, he nonetheless still conferred it as an award.

[24][25] In 2014, the Court of Lisbon forbade Duarte Pio of Braganza to use the insignia of the Order of Saint Michael of the Wing and demanded that he pay compensation of €300,000 to the legal owners of the rights, Nuno da Câmara Pereira, who allegedly registered the name "Order of Saint Michael of the Wing" (Portuguese: "Ordem de São Miguel da Ala") in 1981, whereas Duarte Pio is said to have registered it in 2004.