The frontier of Granada or the Moorish Band and the Santiaguista Priory of San Marcos de León formed and established the ancient Jacobean route of the Camino de la Frontera. In the late medieval period between the two Andalusias there was an element of political and physical separation: the frontier. This formed part of the complicated military and diplomatic scheme established between the Christian kingdoms of Seville and the Nasrid kingdom of Granada, in this sense, there is no reason to think of a permanent warlike situation. Typical institutions of the frontier were the ‘alfaqueques’ and the ‘fieles del rastro’, the former dedicated to the rescue of captives and the latter to the pursuit of outlaws. It seems that both corporations in the late medieval period guarded the roads between fortresses and protected travellers and travellers. At the same time, the military orders of Alcántara, Calatrava and Santiago defended these communication routes and bastions in the present-day mountainous regions of Morón, Osuna and Estepa, respectively.
The Sevillian towns along the Pilgrim’s Way to Santiago de Compostela are linked to the Camino de la Frontera because they belonged to the old Moorish band and because of the close relationship between many of them and Santiago de Compostela, as evidenced by the confluence with the Leonese Priory of Santiago in the Jacobean commendatory of Estepa, where the Camino de la Frontera also became the Pilgrim’s Way to Santiago de Compostela. Apparently, according to chronicles and legends, the apostle St. James the Greater was preaching in Osuna and its surrounding lands before the year 43. The Border Way converges in Olvera (Cádiz) with the Vía Serrana and in Los Santos de Maimona (Badajoz) with the Vía de la Plata”.
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