The Portuguese Military Orders and the Oceanic Navigations: From Piracy to Empire (Fifteenth to Early Sixteenth Centuries)

It is known that the military orders appeared in the context of the process commonly referred to as the crusades. This process included a wide range of different aspects (military confrontation, liberation of the Holy Land and a spirit of pilgrimage, among others) and resulted in the reinforcement of a Christianity that, governed by Christian principles and structured by the Church (strengthened by the Gregorian reform), was to establish itself in a variety of ways from the end of the eleventh century onwards.