One of the constituent groups of the Little Union in the year
1244 had communities in Spain before the Order of Saint
Augustine was constituted by the Grand Union of 1256. The
earliest house identified with any certainty is the one that
existed at Jatvia, in the Spanish It was founded in 1244 by the
Gianboniti (the Hermits of Brother John the Good), after King
Jaime I took the territory from the Muslims during the
Reconquista (the “reconquering”). Late in the thirteenth
century, however, the house passed to the Dominicans. Other
houses were founded at Cordoba in Andalusia, and Salamanca in
Leon. Both of them were probably established by the Gianboniti
before the Grand Union of 1256, but the historical record is not
totally clear. Other houses are mentioned that also possibly
belonged to the Gianboniti: Aquas Vivas (1239), Burgos, San
Gines near Cartagena, Carvajal, Valencia (1238) and the famous
conventus Hispalensis at Seville. After the Grand Union the
Order set up houses at Toledo in 1260. By 1300 there we