In the year 1169, the young Alfonso VIII, supported by the Laras and the council armies of Alcalá, Guadalajara, Atienza, Toledo, Soria and Avila, plus the support of the Calatravian knights, managed to recover Zorita for the Castilian crown. The following year, in 1170, Alfonso married Doña Leonor of England, and offered to him in drag the castle and place of Zorita. Shortly after, in the year 1174, Zorita was handed over to the Order of Calatrava, who received her in the person of her master Don Martín Pérez de Siones, who turned him into the head of an Encomienda, transforming it into a firm bastion full of troops, Knights and armaments.