This is a list of some of the modern orders, decorations and medals of Spain. The bulk of the top current civil and military decorations granted by the Government of Spain in a discretionary manner trace their origins back to the 19th and 20th centuries. The control of the military orders, a series of religious-military institutions created in the Middle Ages for military and borderland repopulation purposes in the Iberian Christian kingdoms, was seized by the Crown in the late 15th to early 16th century, and, from then on, Spanish monarchs became grand masters of the orders, entitling themselves with granting individuals the habits of the former as an award.