Feastday: March 15
Death: 1163
Cistercian abbot and founder of the Order of Calatrava, also called Ramon Sierra. Born in Aragon, Spain, he served as a canon at Tarazona Cathedral and then joined the Cistercians at Scala Dei Monastery in France. He was sent to Spain to establish and serve as abbot of the Fitero Abbey in Navarre, a post which brought him into the forefront of the struggle between Christian Spain and the Moors. Thus, when the Moors were on the verge of attacking the Toledo outpost of Calatrava in 1158, Raymond convinced King Sancho HI of Castile to aid his call for an army to march to the city's defense. Assisted by Diego Velasquez, a one time knight who was then a humble monk, Raymond enlisted the aid of the archbishop of Toledo and created a vast host of Christian soldiers. The Moors failed to attack, but Raymond suggested that the knights be formed into the military order of the Knights of Calatrava. The members accepted the Benedictine rule and soon distinguished themselves as one of the most ardent forces advancing the cause of the Reconquista. The cult of Raymond as a saint was approved in 1719.
Raymond of Fitero (also known as Ramon Sierra, Spanish: San Raimundo de Fitero) (*? - †Ciruelos, 1163) was a monk, abbot, and founder of the Order of Calatrava.
Biography
His birthplace is unknown; Saint-Gaudens (France), Tarazona (Aragon), and Barcelona (Catalonia) have all claimed to be Raymond's birthplace.
As a young man, Raymond felt a religious vocation, and became a canon of the new cathedral at Tarazona, established after King Alfonso I of Aragon reconquered the historic city from the Moors in 1119.
Across the Pyrenees mountains, at Escaladieu Abbey in Gascony, Raymond became a monk of the Cistercian Order, which had been founded relatively recently (in 1098) and which accepted many former knights as members. When King Alfonso VII of Castile supported the order's extension into Spain, Raymond joined abbot Durando (a.k.a. Durandus, Durand) and other monks and established a new monastery near the Ebro River at Nienzabas (Niencebas), between Calahorra (reconquered from the Moors in 1045) and Tudela (which Alfonso I had recaptured from the Moors in 1114 and was still subject to raids). At Durando's death, fellow monks elected Raymond (who had been prior) his successor. The monks then moved across the Ebro to strategic Castejón, Navarre, and finally built their new monastery at a spot named Fitero (Castellón de Fitero), situated slightly up the Alhama river from Castejón along the frontier between Castile's La Rioja region and the Kingdom of Navarre. They called their new monastery the Monasterio de Santa María la Real de Fitero.
When King Alfonso VII died in 1158, Raymond went to Toledo so that the new king, Sancho III of Castile, could confirm the privileges that his father had granted the new monastery. In Toledo Raymond's companion, former knight Father Diego Velásquez, learned that Christian leaders planned a major offensive south against the Moors. Furthermore, Sancho promised to grant the strategic town of Calatrava (Calatrava la Vieja) on the Guadiana River to anyone who promised to defend it from the Moors, who might themselves be planning a sally north to test the new Christian king. His father had reconquered Calatrava in 1147, and it was on the road from Toledo (reconquered in 1085) to Córdoba and Moorish strongholds.
Calatrava la Vieja
Encouraged by Father Diego, Raymond took up the challenge, and Sancho granted them the privilege of defending Calatrava. With the support of the Archbishop of Toledo, Raymond organized an army that successfully prevented a Moorish attack on Calatrava that year.
This success prompted Raymond to found the military Order of Calatrava, organized along Cistercian lines. Raymond then moved some fighting monks south from the relatively safe Fitero in Navarre to Calatrava in what became the Castilla-La Mancha province. He himself retired to Ciruelos, near Ocaña, where he died in 1163. On September 26, 1164 Pope Alexander III recognized the new military order, which played a crucial role in the Reconquest.
