Order of the Faith and Peace

The order was first mentioned by Pope Gregory IX in 1231 in a letter to magistro militiae ordinis sancti Jacobi ejusque fratribus tam presentibus quam futuris ad defensionem fidei et pacis in Guasconia constitutis ("the master of the military order of Saint James and his brothers present and future constituted for the defence of the faith and of the peace in Gascony").

Gregory had sent a letter to Amanieu in 1227 exhorting him to establish the peace, which may have prompted the founding of an order of knighthood.

The order had properties mainly west of Toulouse in the dioceses of Auch, Bayonne, Comminges, and Lescar.

Gregory placed it under a rule adapted from the Order of Santiago and its first major patron was the Viscount of Béarn, Gaston VII.

The archbishop of Auch, now Amanieu II, tried to save the organisation in 1268 by purchasing for it a hospital at Pont d'Artigues from the Order of Santiago and appointing his nephew as master.