The British honours system is a means of rewarding individuals' personal bravery, achievement, or service to the United Kingdom and the British Overseas Territories. The system consists of three types of award – honours, decorations and medals:
A viceroy is an official who runs a country, colony, city, province, or sub-national state, in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning "in the place of" and the French word roy, meaning "king". A viceroy's territory may be called a viceroyalty, though this term is not always applied. The adjective form is viceregal, less often viceroyal. The term vicereine is sometimes used to indicate a female viceroy suo jure, although viceroy can serve as a gender-neutral term. Vicereine is more commonly used to indicate a viceroy's wife.
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established on 4 June 1917 by King George V and comprises five classes across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two of which make the recipient either a knight if male or dame if female. There is also the related British Empire Medal, whose recipients are affiliated with, but not members of the order.
The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is a British order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later King George IV, while he was acting as regent for his father, King George III.
The Most Exalted Order of the Star of India is an order of chivalry founded by Queen Victoria in 1861. The Order includes members of three classes:
- Knight Grand Commander (GCSI)
- Knight Commander (KCSI)
- Companion (CSI)
The Military William Order, or often named Military Order of William, is the oldest and highest honour of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Order is named after St. William of Gellone (755–814), the first Prince of Orange. The Order's motto is Voor Moed, Beleid en Trouw. The chivalric order was established on 30 April 1815 by King William I and was presented for feats of excellent bravery on the battlefield and as a meritorious decoration to senior military officers. Comparable with the French Légion d’Honneur but far less often awarded, the Military William Order is a chivalry order of merit open to everyone regardless of rank and nobility, and not only to Dutch military but also foreigners. To date membership of the Order is extremely rarely awarded and only for excellent bravery in battle.
An order is a visible honour awarded by a sovereign state, monarch, dynastic royal house or organisation to a person, typically in recognition of individual merit, that often comes with distinctive insignia such as collars, medals, badges, and sashes worn by recipients.
The Dutch colonial empire comprised the overseas territories and trading posts controlled and administered by Dutch chartered companies and subsequently by the Dutch Republic (1581–1795), and by the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands after 1815. It was initially a trade-based system which derived most of its influence from merchant enterprise and from Dutch control of international maritime shipping routes through strategically placed outposts, rather than from expansive territorial ventures. With a few notable exceptions, the majority of the Dutch colonial empire's overseas holdings consisted of coastal forts, factories, and port settlements with varying degrees of incorporation of their hinterlands and surrounding regions. Dutch chartered companies often dictated that their possessions be kept as confined as possible in order to avoid unnecessary expense, and while some such as the Dutch Cape Colony and Dutch East Indies expanded anyway, others remained undeveloped, isolated trading centres dependent on an indigenous host-nation. This reflected the primary purpose of the Dutch colonial empire: commercial exchange as opposed to sovereignty over homogeneous landmasses.
A dynastic order, monarchical order, or house order, is an order under royal patronage, bestowed by the head of a currently or formerly sovereign royal family as legitimate fons honorum. These are often considered part of the cultural patrimony of the royal family. They are orders of chivalry, and orders of merit just as those distributed by sovereign states, but dynastic orders were often founded or maintained to reward service to a monarch, or the monarch's subsequent dynasty.
An order of chivalry, order of knighthood, chivalric order, or equestrian order is an order of knights typically founded during or inspired by the original Catholic military orders of the Crusades, paired with medieval concepts of ideals of chivalry.
Commander, or Knight Commander, is a title of honor prevalent in chivalric orders and fraternal orders.
A colonial empire is a collective of territories, either contiguous with the imperial center or located overseas, settled by the population of a certain state and governed by that state.
The Order of Saint Stanislaus, also spelled Stanislas, is a Russian dynastic order of knighthood founded as Order of the Knights of Saint Stanislaus, Bishop and Martyr in 1765 by King Stanisław II Augustus of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1831 after the downfall of the November Uprising, the order was incorporated into the Chapter of Russian Orders as part of the honours system of the Russian Empire by Emperor Nicholas I of Russia.
In the Dutch honours system, most orders are the responsibility of ministers of the Netherlands Government. The house orders, however, are awarded at the discretion of the Dutch monarch alone.
Orders, decorations, and medals of the German Empire covers those decorations awarded by the states which came together under Prussian leadership to form the German Empire in 1871. For convenience's sake, this category also covers the decorations of the various German states which were no longer in existence in 1871, mainly because they had been annexed by Prussia during the Wars of Unification or before.
The Royal Order of Cambodia was a colonial order of chivalry of French Cambodia, and is still in use as an order of chivalry in the present-day Kingdom of Cambodia.
This page is a list of the orders of chivalry and orders of merit awarded by France, in the order they were established or incorporated in France, and their origins.
The International Commission for Orders of Chivalry is a privately run, privately funded organisation composed of scholars on chivalric matters and systems of awards. Founded in 1960, its stated purpose is to examine orders of chivalry to determine their legitimacy. Its President since 1999 is Dr. Pier Felice degli Uberti, and its seat is situated in Milan, Italy.
Orders of chivalry for women, orders of knighthood for women or ladies orders are orders of chivalry reserved solely for women. These knighthoods for women made their first appearance in 1600, and have been much less numerous than traditional knighthood reserved for men.
The Volunteer Officers' Decoration was instituted in 1892 as an award for long and meritorious service by officers of the United Kingdom's Volunteer Force. In 1894, the grant of the decoration was extended to commissioned officers of Volunteer Forces throughout the British Empire. A separate new decoration was instituted, the Volunteer Officers' Decoration for India and the Colonies, post-nominal letters VD.
