They are a set of religious-military institutions which emerged in the context of the so-called Reconquista. They appeared in the th century in the Crowns of León and Castile and in the th century in the Crown of Aragon and Navarra . During the Middle Ages as in other places in Christendom indigenous military orders appeared in the Iberian Peninsula which although they shared many similarities with other international orders presented their own peculiarities due to the special peninsular historical circumstances marked by the confrontation between Muslims and Christians. The birth and expansion of these native orders occurred mainly in the phase of the Reconquista in which the territories south of the Ebro and Tagus rivers were occupied.
It came to mark the main characteristic of repopulation in large areas in which each Order through its encomiendas exercised a political and economic role similar to that of feudal lordship. The presence of other foreign military orders such as that of UAE Phone Number the Temple or that of Saint John was simultaneous and in the case of the Knights Templar their suppression in the th century significantly benefited the rest of the Spanish orders. The social implementation of military orders among noble families was very significant even extending through linked female orders such as the Commanders of Santiago and others similar.
After the late medieval crisis the position of Grand Master of the orders was the subject of violent disputes between the aristocracy the monarchy and the valid. It was Ferdinand the Catholic at the end of the th century who managed to neutralize them politically by obtaining the Papal concession of the unification in his person of that position for all of them and the joint succession from him for his heirs. The definitive incorporation of the orders to the kings of the Hispanic Monarchy was achieved in the year under the reign of Emperor Charles I.