Muslims and exempted from the quinta, the fifth of the booty traditionally owed to the sovereign. It was permitted to colonise any depopulated lands, but all its property was held per deum (of God) and inde deo serviant (for serving God). It elected its own leader, titled princeps or rector, and it employed two merchants exempted from all customs and tolls. Furthermore, the members were permitted to judge cases brought by outsiders against any member. 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. Present were three archbishops—Raymond de Sauvetât, Diego Gelmírez, Paio Mendes—twenty bishops, nine abbots and the Papal legate Guido Pisano. The support that qualified could be permanent or temporary membership, or a donation, and the indulgence applied everybody both lay and religious. The equating of reconquista with crusade was based on the idea of opening a route to Jerusalem through Spain and North Africa. Likewise the Confraternity of Belchite is explicitly compared to the Hospitallers and the Templars, and the indulgence to that granted for the 1113–15 Balearic Islands expedition and the 1118–20 conquest of Zaragoza: Let he who wishes to serve God [in Belchite] for a year gain the same remission as if he went to Jerusalem. . . 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. . . Therefore, dearest brothers, make haste toward the great joy of this indulgence with an eager spirit[.] [B]y the same indulgence the tomb of the Lord [sepulcrum Domini] was delivered from captivity, as were Mallorca and Zaragoza and other places, and likewise, by the favour of God, the road to Jerusalem [iter Hierosolymitanum] from this region [pars] will be opened [aperietur] and the Church of God, which is held there as a slave in captivity, will be liberated. Much of the language of the indulgence is borrowed from the speech made by Diego Gelmírez at the Council of Compostela (1125), the only other instance of such an indulgence being issued by a Spanish ecclesiastic and not by a pope in the twelfth century. This strongly suggests that Diego was influential in writing up the indulgence of 1136.