The Five Towns (‘Cinco Villas’) of Aldea del Rey, Almagro, Bolaños, Daimiel, and Villarrubia de los Ojos in the Campo de Calatrava had relatively large Mudéjar populations, which had lived in the area for centuries. From the twelfth century onwards the whole region came under the control of the military Order of Calatrava, a control which only started to break down at the end of the fifteenth century, when the Order passed into royal hands, and most crucially in the early sixteenth century, when certain towns were sold off by the Crown to private individuals. What particularly distinguished these five towns was the existence in each of them of an aljama, or self-governing community of Moors, which worked in close harmony with the local Commander of the Order and which paid an annual tribute to the Crown. The existence of an aljama is itself a good indication of the strength of the Moorish, later Mudéjar, population. Unfortunately, for this period it is all but impossible to provide reliable figures for the population of these towns, although Villarrubia (for which we have some patchy information) may have had a Mudéjar population of some 40 to 55 households (c. 150–200 people) at the end of the fifteenth century, representing about 15–17 per cent of the total population. A number sufficient to be noticed, but not enough to create fear among the Christian population.