Santa Hermandad
Santa Hermandad (, "holy brotherhood") was a type of military peacekeeping association of armed individuals, which became characteristic of municipal life in medieval Spain, especially in Castile. Modern hermandades in Spain, some of which evolved from medieval origins, are now for the most part religious confraternities retaining only a military structure and ethos. Background As medieval Iberian kings of León, Castile, and Aragon were often unable to maintain public peace, protective municipal leagues began to emerge in the twelfth century against bandits and other rural criminals, as well as against the lawless nobility or mobilized to support a claimant to the crown. These organizations were individually temporary, but became a long-standing fixture of Spain. The first recorded case of the formation of an hermandad occurred when the towns and the peasantry of the north united to police the pilgrim road to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, and to protect the pilgrims in the 12th century, a major source of regional income, against robber knights. With the countryside virtually everywhere effectively in the hands of nobles, such brotherhoods throughout the High Middle Ages were frequently formed by leagues of towns to protect the roads connecting them. The hermandades were occasionally co-opted