“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.)
The order was founded by the Archbishop of the province of Auch. Its stated purpose was not to fight heresy, but keep the peace. Somewhat ironically, the order’s first major patron was Gaston VII de Montcada (1225-1290) Viscount de Béarn, one of the most belligerent and grasping noblemen in the duchy.
The idea behind a military order that acted as a police force was a good one, but doomed to fail since the Gascon gentry had no interest in peace. If they weren’t fighting the French or the English, they were predating on each other. The order is mentioned in the only surviving ‘sirventes’ - Occitan lyric poetry - composed by Peire Guillem de Tolosa. This took the form of a duet between Peire and his co-writer, the contemporary Italian poet, Sordello de Goito.
Peire apparently started out as a monk in Toulouse, but according to the poem he chose to leave his monastery and enter the “Order of Spaza” or Order of the Sword. Peire is depicted twice in an illustrated manuscript; once in his early life as a monk, and then in later life as a Knight of Santiago. The Order of Santiago in Spain was the parent house of the Order of the Sword, and it appears the knights of both wore the same “uniform”.
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