Knights of Santiago

Another gap in our Spanish armies for the display game for Claymore is some military order knights. They formed part of the decisive final charge at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, so we had to have a unit. Sadly, our extensive collection of knights didn't run to the Spanish orders. So back to the Beast for suitable figures and we selected the Knights of Santiago. There are some nice shield decals for this range and our resident flag man Iain from Flags of War is working on the banners. The brushwork is again from Andy McGeary.

The Knights of Santiago were formed sometime before 1164 when they were given the frontier town of Ucles. The Pope recognised the order in 1175. They were a more relaxed order in that knights were allowed to marry and hold personal possessions.

They quickly became the major military order in Spain with some 1000 lances in 83 commandaries. They also had lands in Palestine, France, Hungary and England. They fought in most of the actions that constituted the reconquest of Spain from the Moors. They still exist to this day, under the control of the crown, based in the monastery at Ucles.