Captaincies of the Azores very clear, as it has been both referred to as the "comendador da ilha de Santa Maria e nosso capitão nos Açores" ("Commander of the island of Santa Maria and Our captain of the Azores"), or alternately as the "comendador das ilhas dos Açores" ("Commander of the Azores"). The more probable interpretation of this role, being from the Order of Christ responsible for the administration of the islands, came from the "comenda" regime, referring to a "knighthood" or "commandery", normally associated with the Order in Portugal, but applied to the, then, populous island of Santa Maria in the archipelago. Still,
History of the Azores appears on most of these same maps, with their modern names: "legname" (Ligurian for "wood", Madeira), "porto sancto" (Porto Santo), "desertas" (Desertas) and "salvazes" (Savage Island). The source of this information is a mystery. It could simply be derived from pure legend, possibly of Andalusian Arab origin e.g. al-Idrisi speaks of an Atlantic island of wild goats (the Caprera?) and another of "cormorants", a scavenger bird (the "sea crows" of Corvis Marinis?) But outside their erroneous axial tilt, the Azores do seem clustered with reasonable accuracy. From this cartographic record, there seems little doubt that both Madeira and the Azores