One of the constituent groups of the Little Union in the year 1244 had communities in Spain before the Order of Saint Augustine was constituted by the Grand Union of 1256.
The earliest house identified with any certainty is the one that existed at Jatvia, in the Spanish
kingdom of
Valencia.
It was founded in 1244 by the Gianboniti (the Hermits of Brother John the Good), after King Jaime I took the territory from the Muslims during the Reconquista (the “reconquering”).
Late in the thirteenth century, however, the house passed to the Dominicans.
Other houses were founded at Cordoba in Andalusia, and Salamanca in Leon. Both of them were probably established by the Gianboniti before the Grand Union of 1256, but the historical record is not totally clear.
Other houses are mentioned that also possibly belonged to the Gianboniti: Aquas Vivas (1239), Burgos, San Gines near Cartagena, Carvajal, Valencia (1238) and the famous conventus Hispalensis at Seville.
After the Grand Union the Order set up houses at
Toledo in 1260.
By 1300 there were seven other Augustinian houses in the
Kingdom of
Aragon, many of which enjoyed royal support: Aguas Vivas (by 1267), Alcira (1270), Zaragoza (1286), Burgos (about 1287), Alcoy (1290) and
Castellon de la Plana (1298).
On the Iberian Peninsula by 1295 there was the Province of Spain and the Province of Aragon (which covered Aragon, Catalonia and the Kingdom of Valencia).
As well, the houses of the Order in Spain
received greater financial support from kings and people generally, and less opposition from local bishops such that rapid growth was supported rather than impeded.
For example, in the early fifteenth century the constable Ruy Lopez Davalos and his second wife, Elvira de Guevara gave the Augustinians land in
Valladolid, and came to be considered the founders of that house.
Spain was the country in the the Order of Saint Augustine made most progress in the later Middle Ages.
(Continued on the next page.)
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