whom they had chosen, in the monastery of Cirvelos. Only Velasquez and a few other clerics, to act as chaplains, remained in Calatrava with the knights, Velasquez becoming prior of the whole community. This somewhat revolutionary arrangement was approved by the general chapter at Cîteaux, and by Pope Alexander III (1164). A general chapter held at Cîteaux in 1187 gave to the Knights of Calatrava their definitive rule, which was approved in the same year by Pope Gregory VIII. This rule, modeled upon the Cistercian customs for lay brothers, was imposed upon the knights, besides the obligations of the three religious vows, the rules of silence in the refectory, dormitory, and oratory; of abstinence on four days a week, besides several fast days during the year; they were also obliged to recite a fixed number of paternosters for each day Hour of the Office; to sleep in their armour; to wear, as their full dress, the Cistercian white mantle with the scarlet cross fleur de lisée. Calatrava was subject not to Cîteaux, but to Morimond in Champagne, the mother-house of Fitero, from which Calatrava had sprung. Consequently, the Abbot of Morimond possessed the right of visiting the houses and of reforming the statutes of Calatrava, while the highest ecclesiastical dignity of the order, that of grand prior, could be held only by a monk of Morimond. Battles during the Reconquista The first military services of the Knights of Calatrava were highly successful, and in return for the exceptional services they had rendered they received from the King of Castile new grants of land, which formed their first commanderies. They had already been called into the neighbouring Kingdom of Aragon, and been rewarded by a new encomienda (landed estate), that of Alcañiz (1179). But these successes were followed by a series of misfortunes, due in the first instance to the unfortunate partition which Alfonso had made of his possessions, and the consequent rivalry which ensued between the Castilian and Leonese branches of his dynasty. On the other hand, the first successes of the Reconquista, in the 12th century, soon met up with a new wave of Islamic warriors, the invasion of the Almohads from Morocco. The first encounter resulted in a defeat for Castile. Battle of Alarcos After the disastrous Battle of Alarcos, the knights abandoned their bulwark of Calatrava to the Almohads (1195). Velasquez lived long enough to witness the