Chivalric order

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article or section includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations.
You can improve this article by introducing more precise citations.

Chivalric orders are orders of knights that were created by European monarchs in imitation of the military orders of the Crusades. After the crusades, the memory of these crusading military orders became idealized and romanticized, resulting in the late medieval notion of chivalry, and is reflected in the Arthurian romances of the time.

Contents

[edit] Distinction

  • Chivalric orders by time of foundation:
    • Medieval chivalric orders: foundation of the order during the middle ages or renaissance
    • Modern chivalric orders: foundation after 1789
  • Chivalric orders by religion:
  • Chivalric orders by purpose:
    • Monarchical and dynastical chivalric orders: foundation by a monarch who is a fount of honour; either ruling or not ruling
    • Confraternal chivalric orders: foundation by a nobleman, either high nobility or low nobility
    • Fraternal chivalric orders: founded for a specific purpose only
    • Votive chivalric orders: founded for a limited period of time only by members who take a vow
    • Honorific chivalric orders: consist only of honorific insignia bestowed on knights on festive occasions, consisting of nothing but the badge
    • Pseudo-chivalric orders: self proclaimed imitation-orders without statutes or restricted memberships

[edit] Medieval orders

Heraldist D'Arcy Boulton (1987) classifies chivalric orders in the following manner:

  • Monarchical or dynastical orders
  • Confraternal orders
  • Fraternal orders
  • Votive Orders
  • Cliental pseudo-orders
  • Honorific orders

[edit] Monarchical or dynastical orders

  • Late medieval monarchical orders (14th and 15th centuries) are orders of chivalry with the presidency attached to a monarch:
  1. the Order of Saint George, founded by Charles I of Hungary in 1325
  2. the Order of the Garter, founded by Edward III of England in ca. 1348
  3. the Order of the Most Holy Annunciation, founded by Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy in 1362.
  4. the Order of the Stoat, founded by John V, Duke of Brittany in 1381: First order to accept Women.
  5. the Order of the Dragon, founded in 1408 by Sigismund of Hungary
  6. the Order of the Golden Fleece, founded by Philip III, Duke of Burgundy in 1430
  7. the Order of St Michel, founded by Louis XI of France in 1469
  • Post-medieval foundations of chivalric orders:
  1. the Order of Saint Stephen (1561)
  2. the Order of the Holy Spirit (1578)
  3. the Order of the Thistle (1687)
  4. the Order of Saint Joseph (1807)
  • Monarchical orders whose monarch no longer reigns but continue to be bestowed, are called dynastical orders:
  1. the Order of the Golden Fleece (Austrian branch)
  2. the Order of the Holy Spirit
  3. the Order of Prince Danilo I of Montenegro
  4. the Order of Saint Peter of Cetinje

[edit] Confraternal orders

Confraternal orders are orders of chivalry with the presidency attached to a nobleman:

  • Princely orders were founded by noblemen of higher rank. Most of these were founded in imitation of the Order of the Golden Fleece, after 1430:
  1. Order of Saint Catherine, founded by Humbert, Dauphin du Viennois in ca. 1335
  2. Order of Saint Anthony, founded by Albrecht I of Bavaria in 1384
  3. Society of the Eagle, founded by Albrecht von Habsburg in 1433
  4. Society of Our Lady (Order of the Swan), founded by Friedrich II of Brandenburg in 1440
  5. Order of Saint Hubert, founded by Gerhard V of Jülich and Berg in 1444
  6. Order of the Crescent, founded by René d'Anjou in 1448
  7. Society of Saint Jerome, founded by Friedrich II of Wettin in 1450
  • Baronial orders, founded by noblemen of lower rank:
  1. Order of Saint Hubert (Barrois, (1422)
  2. Noble Order of Saint George of Rougemont, also called Confraternity of Saint-Georges of Burgundy (Franche-Comté, 1440)

[edit] Fraternal orders

Fraternal orders are orders of chivalry that were formed ad-hoc for a certain enterprise:

  1. the Compagnie of the Black Swan, founded by 3 princes and 11 knights in Savoy (1350)
  2. the Corps et Ordre du Tiercelet, founded by the vicomte de Thouars and 17 barons in Poitou (1377–1385)
  3. Ordre de la Pomme d'Or, founded by 14 knights in Auvergne (1394)
  4. Alliance et Compagnie du Levrier, founded by 44 knights in the Barrois (1416–1422), subsequently converted into the Confraternal order of Saint Hubert (see above)

[edit] Votive Orders

Votive orders are orders of chivalry, temporarily formed on the basis of a vow. These were courtly chivalric games rather than actual pledges as in the case of the fraternal orders. Three are known from their statutes:

  1. Emprise de l'Escu vert à la Dame Blanche (Enterprise of the green shield with the white lady), founded by Jean Le Maingre dit Boucicaut and 12 knights in 1399 for the duration of 5 years
  2. Emprise du Fer de Prisonnier (Enterprise of the Prisoner's Iron), founded by Jean de Bourbon and 16 knights in 1415 for the duration of 2 years
  3. Emprise de la gueule de dragon (Enterprise of the Dragon's Mouth), founded by Jean comte de Foix in 1446 for 1 year.

[edit] Cliental pseudo-orders

Cliental pseudo-orders are not orders of chivalry and were princes' retinues fashionably termed orders. They are without statutes or restricted memberships:

  1. Ordre de la Cosse de Genêt (Order of the Broom-Pod), founded by Charles VI of France ca. 1388
  2. Order of the camail or Porcupine, created by Louis d'Orléans in 1394
  3. Order of the Dove, Castile, 1390
  4. Order of the Scale of Castile, ca. 1430

[edit] Honorific orders

Honorific orders were honorific insignia bestowed on knights on festive occasions, consisting of nothing but the badge:

  1. the Order of the Stoat and the Ear, founded by Francis I, Duke of Brittany in 1448
  2. Order of the Holy Sepulchre, bestowed to knights who made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, since the 15th century.
  3. Knights of Saint Catherine of Mount Sinai, similar to the above, bestowed from the 11th to the 15th century
  4. Order of the Golden Spur, a papal order
  5. Order of the Bath[1], founded by King George I of Great Britain on 18 May 1725[2]

[edit] Modern orders

[edit] Current orders

[edit] Former orders

[edit] Pseudo-chivalric orders

For more details on this topic, see Pseudo-chivalric orders.

Pseudo-chivalric orders are organizations that claim to be chivalric orders in the same sense as orders such as the Order of the Golden Fleece (Austrian branch) or the Order of Saint Michael (of France). Most of these have arisen starting from about the mid-eighteenth century and continue to vigorously arise right up until the present. Most of these are short-lived and only last a few decades at best. There are differing opinions about what principles or rules should be applied to distinguish an organization as being a chivalric order (genuine) or not. Many seem to agree that an organization must have a fons honorum ("fount of honor") as either its founder or principal patron in order for it to be considered a genuine chivalric order. A fount of honor is defined as someone who held sovereignty either currently or formerly at the time of the creation or the order. Further, the holding of former sovereignty is only considered to be allowable for the creation of an order in those cases where the former sovereign did not abdicate his position. This view is not necessarily universally held.

Some organizations have gone so far as to provide for a false or fake fons honorum in order to satisfy the above condition. In these cases, the founder or patron of the "order" has essentially assumed a fake title in addition to assuming some sort of sovereignty -- either current or former.

Although not officially recognized by any international treaty, many have come to agree that the principles[4] for determining what constitutes a genuine chivalric order advocated by the International Commission for Orders of Chivalry[5] form a reasonable guideline. Needless to say, these principles are not universally held either, seeing as the Commission has no officially recognized international status.

There are, however, organizations that appear to have a chivalric character but which carefully distinguish themselves as not being orders of chivalry. An example of one such an organization might be the Augustan Society, which carefully states publicly that it is not an order of chivalry.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ according to Anstis in Observations p4, knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath
  2. ^ from Statutes of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath 1725, although Risk says the order was founded on 11 May 1725
  3. ^ the last native King of Poland
  4. ^ the principles used by the International Commission for Orders of Chivalry for establishing of genuine orders of chivalry are listed on their web site
  5. ^ the International Commission for Orders of Chivalry was created as a commission (originally a temporary one) of the International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences in August of 1960

[edit] References

  • John Anstis,Observations introductory to an historical essay upon the Knighthood of the Bath, London: James Woodman, 1752
  • D'Arcy Jonathan Dacre Boulton, The knights of the crown : the monarchical orders of knighthood in later medieval Europe, 1325–1520, Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, Palgrave Macmillan (February 1987), ISBN 0-312-45842-8; Second revised edition (paperback): Woodbridge, Suffolk and Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2000
  • Richard W. Kaeuper, Elspeth Kennedy, Geoffroi De Carny, The Book of Chivalry of Geoffroi De Charny: Text, Context, and Translation, University of Pennsylvania Press (December, 1996), ISBN 0-8122-1579-6
  • James C. Risk, The History of the Order of the Bath and its Insignia, London: Spink & Son, 1972
  • Statutes of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, 1725

[edit] External links