Teutonic Knights like state in Iberia?

Could a Knightly Order rule territory independent of any monarch in Iberia like they did around the Baltic? What if this knightly order existed into the 16th century? Could it expand into north Africa?

Would a multinational membership make it less likely to join an Inerian monarchy?
 
Hmm. Maybe if the Calatrava accepted non-Spanish members, they could become what you are looking for ...
 
I doubt it. Baltic was a special case. In Iberia christian powers were expanding into muslim area themselves and as such unlikely to support independant power that would be their competition.
 
I doubt it. Baltic was a special case. In Iberia christian powers were expanding into muslim area themselves and as such unlikely to support independant power that would be their competition.

But it could be orders being given right of conquest by the pope just like in the holy land. As such, it would be castillan and aragonese knight who fight under papal authorities, not that of any iberian king, and keep the spoils for the order.
 
No.

1) Unlike Baltic which was basically the medeval "Frontier", Hispania was considered as "old christian land" so already belonging to hispanic lords and kings.

2) The recruitment of theses orders would be made on Hispania (maybe in the Kingdom of France as well) and therefore you'll have loyalties already existing between nobles members of these orders and feudataires (including rulers).

3) You had actually one tentative, with the death of Alfons I that gave his kingdom to knights orders. It was blockaded really easily as the king didn't had the right to alienate the kingdom.

4) The dynastic divisions, civil wars or struggles between Portugal/Castille/Navarra/Aragon greatly disadvantaged the sovereign orders as Caltrava that had possession spawning on all the peninsula.

Kings preferred having vassals and prevent the appearance of sovereign allodial lands.

5) Finally, these same kings usually put in charge of these orders family, close friends or puppets to control these.
 
But it could be orders being given right of conquest by the pope just like in the holy land. As such, it would be castillan and aragonese knight who fight under papal authorities, not that of any iberian king, and keep the spoils for the order.

In Levant military orders were formed when that land was already under christian rule. They weren't created for conquest but for other things. Even Teutonics went to Baltic after several false starts, where they weren't conquering for Pope.

And as LSCatilina pointed out, Iberian rulers wouldn't allow it and would do anything to prevent independant power to emerge. At best you could have orders fighting for these rulers as sort of autonomous force and given some newly conquered lands to rule as vassals to Iberian rulers. Such orders did exist in reconquista but not as independant force.
 
I think that just like Poland at a time, Iberia would have to be balkanised into small duchies for such independent monastic state to emerge.
 
I think that just like Poland at a time, Iberia would have to be balkanised into small duchies for such independent monastic state to emerge.

If balkanized, it's likely Hispania would have been

1)Integrated sooner or later within another kingdom (the most obvious the kingdom of France up to the XI century as the catalan counties were)

2)Unable to resist (not talking about reconquering) Muslim Spain and putting the whole military order thing butterflied in the peninsula for a while.

3) The spanish feudalism quite prevented a great balkanisation : the king had a greater role and the lands weren't fully given as they were in France or Germany.

The little nobility, aslo, could be under direct royal influence without passing by other vassals.

It was sometimes based more on communauties/suzerain than vassal/suzerain relations.

Finally, the muslim presence in Al-Andalusa nd the subsequent raids pushing quite far to the north forced the nobles, king and nobility to keep some coherence in order to resist.

I don't think you'll have a greater "balkanisation" that it happened during the XI century with many competing states (Galicia, Leon, Castile, Navare, Aragon, Barcelona-Catalonia).
 
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