The cross of Santiago emblem drew fatal retaliation on captured knights

Evidence

An incident during the first of these assaults recounted by M´armol conveys the ferocity with which the battle was fought on each side. One Juan Pacheco, a gentleman who had the honor to be a member of the order of Santiago, arrived at the last moment, in haste to join the battle. Within two hours of arriving at Galera and reporting for duty to Austria he was in action, and had volunteered for the assault party that was planning to break through the village defenses in the stunned moment immediately after the first mine was exploded. The mine went up, and Juan Pacheco rushed impetuously in through the gap thus created, only to find himself trapped, because the gap created by the explosion in fact led nowhere. Many of his companions managed to scramble back, but he was trapped and taken prisoner. When the Muslims noticed the cross of Santiago he was wearing (as was normal in this military order), they became infuriated. He was hacked limb from limb in a great demonstration of hatred. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1042

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the military-order insignia material — an order’s emblem marking its wearer as an enemy of a particular religious group resonates with the Saint James / Matamoros identity in Iberian history.
• SEED: Angle for an article: how insignia and uniforms become death warrants — the Santiago cross functioning as a target marker, parallel to how religious or military dress marks combatants in other wars.