CALCUTTA
152
CALCUTTA
warrior on the battlefield, the glory of Padilla shed
its last rays in the war of the conquest of Granada,
which he did not live to see completed. At his death
(1487), Ferdinand of Aragon exhibited to the chapter,
assembled for the election of a new grand master, a
Bull of Innocent VIII which invested him with au-
thority to administer the order, and to this decree
he compelled the electors to submit. Thus ended
the political autonomy of the Order of Calatrava.
The reason of its being — the struggle against the
Moors — seemed, indeed, to end with the fall of
Granada (1492).
The canonical bond between Calatrava and Mori- mond had been relaxing more and more. The King of Spain was too jealous of his authority to tolerate any foreign — especially French — intervention in the affairs of his kingdom. The canonical visits of the Abbot of Morimond ceased; difficulties were raised when the grand prior came from Morimond to take possession of his dignity. The last French prior was Nicholas of Avesnes, who died in 1552. After a long contest, a compromise was effected in 1630, leaving to Morimond its right, of electing the grand prior, but limiting its choice to Spanish Cistercians. Moreover, the knights of the order were virtually secularized: Pope Paul III commuted their vow of celibacy to one of conjugal fidelity (1540). As members of the order were allowed to found families, and were authorized by Julius III (1551) to make free use of their personal property, the vow of poverty also passed into virtual desuetude. In 1652, under Philip IV, the three Spanish orders took a new vow: that of defending the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. This was the last manifestation of any religious spirit in the orders. The military spirit, too, had long since dis- appeared. The orders had, in fact, fallen into a state of utter inactivity. The commanderies were but so many pensions at the king's free disposal, and granted by him rather to the high-born than to the deserving. In 1628 the Order of Calatrava was declared to be inaccessible not only to tradesmen, but even to sons of tradesmen. The last attempt to employ the knights of the three orders for a mili- tary purpose was that of Philip IV, in quelling the rebellion of the Catalans (1640-50), but the orders restricted their efforts to the complete equipment of one regiment, which has since been known in the Spanish army as "The Regiment of the Orders".
When the Bourbon dynasty occupied the throne. Charles III, having founded the personal order of his name, levied upon the old orders a contribution of a million reals to pension 200 knights of the new order (1775). Their revenues being the only re- maining raison d'etre of the order, confiscation necessarily led to dissolution. Confiscated by King Joseph (1808), re-established by Ferdinand VII at the Restoration (1814), the possessions of Calatrava were finally dissipated in the general secularization of 1838. (See Alcantara; Military Orders.)
Definiciones de la Orden y Cavalleria dp Calatrava { Valladolid, 16001; ManriqI-'E, Krries prafectorum mililvr Calatrava', in his Annates, III, Appendix; Jongelinub. Origin™ cquestrium militarium ordims cisterciensis (Cologne, 1640>; Zapater, Cuter militantc (Saragossa, 1662); Dubois. Histoire de Vabbaye de Morimond avec les principoxix ordrea muiiaires d'Espagne et de Portugal (Paris, 1851).
Ch. Moeller.
Calcutta, Archdiocese of, in British India. — The Ecclesiastical Province of Calcutta comprises practically the old province of Bengal, where the Catholic Faith was introduced very early. About the middle of the sixteenth century Portuguese mer- chants were trading with the ports of Bengal. But they did not stay in the country; their ships came to Bengal with the monsoon at the end of May, and went back to Cochin in October. About 1571 they obtained from Akbar, the great Mogul emperor then residing in Agra, very important concessions: they
were allowed to build a town in Hugh, to erect
churches, send for priests and baptize the natives
who might wish to become Christians. Portuguese
merchants and settlers soon flocked to Hugh, many
natives became Christians, so that in 1598 the num-
ber of Catholics in Hugh was five thousand, of
Portuguese, native, or mixed origin.
Quite different were the origin and the character of the other Catholic communities which sprang up all over Bengal at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century. Native rulers, whose states were continually exposed to the raids of their enemies, appealed for protection to the Portu- guese adventurers then numerous in India and fa- mous for their undaunted bravery. They settled in bandels, generally situated on the bank of a river, and received for their military services lands, a monthly pay, and a share of the booty. Their numbers increased rapidly, for they married native women, and many native converts came to them for protection and security. These converts were called topassees, because they wore a hat, like the Portuguese (topa means hat). In 159S there were on the coast of Chittagong and Arracan 2500 Catholics of Portu- guese or mixed origin, besides the native Christians. All the Catholic communities of Bengal were under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Cochin, erected in 1557. But no regular provision had been made for the supply of priests and the building of churches. Hugh alone had a church and a parish priest. Else- where Catholics depended for spiritual ministrations on any priest who happened to be travelling through the country. On 9 January, 1606, the Diocese of San Thome de Meliapur was erected, and Bengal was put under its jurisdiction.
Two Jesuits had gone to Bengal temporarily in 1579, and two others were sent there from Cochin in 1598 to report on the hopes and prospects of a Catho- lic mission. They erected in Hugh a school and hospital; in Chittagong two churches and residences; in Chandecan a church and residence; two churches were contemplated or begun in Siripur and Bacala. The native rulers were very favourable, and even generously endowed the new missions. But political disturbances ruined these happy beginnings: churches and residences were destroyed in 1603, and the four Jesuits then in Bengal were recalled by their supe- riors. In the meantime a permanent provision had been made for the Catholics of Bengal by the Bishop of Cochin, Don Fray Andre\ a Franciscan. He had entrusted Bengal to the Augustinians of Goa, and is said to have conferred upon them the exclusive right to the parishes of the country. In 1599 five Augus- tinians landed in Hugh, built a convent of St. Nicholas of Tolentino. and took possession of the church or churches existing in the town. A few years afterwards we find them established in Angelim (Hidgelee). Tambolim (Tumlook), Pipli; about 1612 in Dacca, Noricul, Siripur, Katrabo; in 1621 in Chit- tagong; and after 1640 in Balasore, Ossumpoor, and Rangamati.
Chittagong deserves a special notice. The Moguls of Bengal were continually trying to wrest Chittagong from the dominion of the Emperor of Arracan. Twice they almost succeeded in taking it by surprise, and from that time this potentate always kept a large body of Portuguese in his service at Dianga, near Chittagong. Instead of waiting for the attacks of the Moguls, these Portuguese found it easier and more effective to carry the war into the enemy's territory, and they began to make periodical raids on the coasts of Bengal, carrying away whole populations of Hindu and Mohammedan villages. Thus between 1621 and 1634 they brought back with them to Chittagong 42,000 slaves, of whom the Augustinians baptized 28,000. They converted besides five thousand na- tives of the country, called Mugs or Mogos.
