AVIS, ORDER OF SAINT BENEDICT OF. - Military association of Portuguese knights who had returned from the Crusades. Founded around 1146, it received as a gift from the first king of Portugal, Alfonso, the city of Evora, taken from the Moors. The knights therefore first received the name of "brothers of St. Mary of Evora." After the conquest of A. they settled in the castle of that city and were called "knights of St. Benedict of A.," having adopted the Benedictine rule in 1162.
Like the knights of Calatrava in Spain, the knights of St. Benedict of A. adopted the Cistercian rule, and they modeled the style of their military mantle on the Cistercian habit: white with a red fleur-de-lis cross. On the other hand, they obtained from the knights of Calatrava certain seats that the latter held in Portugal, on condition that those seats be visited by the Grand Master of Calatrava. For these reasons the knights of A. have sometimes been considered a branch of the Order of Calatrava, although they had never ceased to have a Portuguese Grand Master.
The mission of the military Orders in Portugal seemed to have been exhausted with the decline of Muslim domination, but the Portuguese expeditions overseas opened a new field of activity for them. The knights of A. performed acts of great valor during the first landings in Africa, the conquest of Ceuta, and the attacks against Tangier. But soon the enthusiasm faded, the Crusade in Africa became a commercial enterprise, and the king was invested in perpetuity with the office of Grand Master (1551).
The religious spirit of the knights gradually weakened; in 1492 they were dispensed from celibacy by Alexander VI, and Julius III permitted them to dispose freely of their personal property (1551). The chief qualification required of aspirants continued to be aristocratic birth. Queen Maria I, with the assent of Pius VI, attempted a final reform that failed: the knights of A. were suppressed by Dom Pedro in 1834.