A self-styled order or pseudo-chivalric order is an organisation which claims to be a chivalric order, but is not recognised as legitimate by countries or international bodies. Most self-styled orders arose in or after the mid-18th century, and many have been created recently. Most are short-lived and endure no more than a few decades.
Many countries do not regulate the wearing of decorations, and remain neutral as to whether any particular order is legitimate or not. Other countries explicitly regulate what decorations are accepted as legitimate. For example, in Sweden, decisions about medals and orders worn on a military uniform has been delegated to the General Staff.
The criteria of France provide an illustrative example of those nations which take a more regulatory approach: only decorations recognised by the Chancery of the Legion of Honour may be worn publicly, and permission must be sought and granted to wear any foreign awards or decorations. Dynastic orders are prohibited unless the dynasty in question is currently recognised as sovereign. [1] (For example, the Royal Victorian Order is explicitly recognised, whereas the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus is not. [2] ) Failure to comply is punishable by law. A non-exhaustive list of collectively authorised orders is published by the French government. [2]
Another example is the United Kingdom, where legitimacy of any particular order is determined by the Monarch – some societies have permission from the Monarch to award medals, but these are to be worn on the right side of the chest. No UK citizen may accept and wear a foreign award without the Sovereign's permission. Moreover, the government is explicit that permission for foreign awards conferred by private societies or institutions will not be granted. [3] [4]
The private organisation International Commission on Orders of Chivalry (ICOC) also maintains a set of principles to evaluate whether a chivalric order is genuine. The ICOC is not officially recognised by any international treaty, and their definition is explicitly rejected by many countries (see examples above of France, UK, and Sweden). The ICOC was created as a temporary committee of the International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences in August 1960, though it has been transformed into a permanent and independent international body. [5] [6] The ICOC argues that a chivalric order must have a fount of honour (Latin : fons honorum) as either its founder or its principal patron in order to be considered genuine. A fount of honour is a person who held sovereignty either at or before the moment when the order was established. The ICOC considers that holding sovereignty before the founding of an order is considered effective in creation of a genuine chivalric order only if the former sovereign had not abdicated his sovereignty before the foundation of the order but, instead, had been deposed or had otherwise lost power. [7] In the ICOC's view, some organisations create a false fons honorum in order to satisfy this requirement and give themselves apparent legitimacy; often, the founder or patron of a self-styled order has assumed a false title of nobility as well as supposed current or former sovereignty. The ICOC maintains a register of which organisations they consider to be genuine chivalric orders. [8]
Certain organisations which may appear to have a chivalric character (such as the Augustan Society and the International Fellowship of Chivalry-Now, which state publicly that they are not chivalric orders) carefully distinguish themselves from self-styled orders of chivalry, orders legitimized by countries, and those viewed as genuine by international bodies.
After the medieval era, the exclusive right to confer nobility, titles, knighthoods and membership in Europe's state-recognized orders of chivalry was arrogated by sovereigns, [9] [10] exceptions being recorded in such annals as the Almanach de Gotha for dynastic orders granted by royal consorts (e.g., Order of the Starry Cross) or pretenders.
Self-styled orders may share certain other characteristics:
Since the 18th century, freemasonry has incorporated symbols and rituals of several medieval military orders in a number of Masonic bodies, notably the "Red Cross of Constantine" (derived from the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George, and the Order of the Holy Sepulchre), the "Order of Malta" (derived from the Sovereign Military Order of Malta), and the "Order of the Temple" (derived from the medieval Knights Templar), the latter two featuring prominently in the York Rite of Freemasonry.[ citation needed ]
None of the masonic bodies are claiming to be orders of chivalry nor are their insignia worn in public (a right accorded orders of chivalry): hence they are not self-styled orders, but merely fraternal organisations.[ citation needed ]
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity.
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), officially the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, and commonly known as the Order of Malta or the Knights of Malta, is a Catholic lay religious order, traditionally of a military, chivalric, and noble nature. Though it possesses no territory, the order is often considered a sovereign entity under international law.
The Russian tradition of the Knights Hospitaller is a collection of charitable organisations claiming continuity with the Russian Orthodox grand priory of the Order of Saint John.
The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Order of St John, and also known as St John International, is an order of chivalry constituted in 1888 by royal charter from Queen Victoria and dedicated to St John the Baptist.
The Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, also called the Order of the Holy Sepulchre or Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, is a Catholic order of knighthood under the protection of the Holy See. The Pope is the sovereign of the order. The order creates canons as well as knights, with the primary mission to "support the Christian presence in the Holy Land". It is an internationally recognised order of chivalry. The order today is estimated to have some 30,000 knights and dames in 60 lieutenancies around the world. The Cardinal Grand Master has been Fernando Filoni since 2019, and the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem is ex officio the Order's Grand Prior. Its headquarters are situated at the Palazzo Della Rovere and its official church in Sant'Onofrio al Gianicolo, both in Rome, close to Vatican City. In 1994, Pope John Paul II declared the Virgin Mary as the order's patron saint under the title "Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Palestine".
An order is a visible honour awarded by a sovereign state, monarch, dynastic 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 fount of honour is a person, who, by virtue of their official position, has the exclusive right of conferring legitimate titles of nobility and orders of chivalry on other persons.
A dynastic order, monarchical order, or house order is an order under royal patronage. Such an order is bestowed by, as a legitimate fons honorum, a sovereign or the head of a once-sovereign ruling family. These are often considered part of the cultural patrimony of the ruling family. Dynastic orders were often founded or maintained to reward service to a monarch or their 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 and paired with medieval concepts of ideals of chivalry.
Grand Master is a title of the supreme head of various orders, including chivalric orders such as military orders and dynastic orders of knighthood.
Commander, or Knight Commander, is a title of honor prevalent in chivalric orders and fraternal orders.
(George) Robert Gair, who later assumed the surname Gayre of Gayre and Nigg, was a Scottish anthropologist who founded Mankind Quarterly, a peer-reviewed academic journal which has been described as a "cornerstone of the scientific racism establishment". An authority on heraldry, he also founded The Armorial, and published a number of books on this subject. He achieved notoriety for claiming to be the Chief of "Clan Gayre" and "Clan Gayre and Nigg", it being subsequently found that such a "clan" had never existed; per the Glasgow Herald, Gayre created "a Scottish clan from scratch, providing it with traditions, rituals, precedences and privileges". Further, not only did he not have legitimate male-line Gair descent, but he had falsified a pedigree, given to Burke's Peerage among others, connecting his ancestor to a minor family of the name resident at Nigg. Many biographical details, such as ranks, degrees, and titles he claimed, are not independently verifiable, deriving from his own writings.
Palazzo Malta, officially named as the Magistral Palace, and also known as Palazzo di Malta or Palazzo dell'Ordine di Malta, is the more important of the two headquarters of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a Roman Catholic lay religious order and a sovereign subject of international law. It is located in Via dei Condotti, 68 in Rome, Italy, a few minutes' walk from the Spanish Steps, and has been granted extraterritoriality by the Italian Government. The Palace has been a property of the Order of Malta since 1630.
The Alliance of the Orders of Saint John of Jerusalem is a federation of European chivalric orders that share inheritance of the tradition of the medieval military Knights Hospitaller.
The orders, decorations, and medals of the Holy See include titles, chivalric orders, distinctions and medals honoured by the Holy See, with the Pope as the fount of honour, for deeds and merits of their recipients to the benefit of the Holy See, the Catholic Church, or their respective communities, societies, nations and the world at large.
The Italian honours system is a means to reward achievements or service to the Italian Republic, formerly the Kingdom of Italy, including the Italian Social Republic.
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 Pier Felice degli Uberti, and its seat is situated in Milan, Italy.
The Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem is a Christian order that was statuted in 1910 by a council of Catholics in Paris, France, initially under the protection of Patriarch Cyril VIII Geha of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. During the 1920s, it expanded its jurisdiction and enrolled members from other countries in Europe and in the Americas. It re-established the office of grand master in 1935, linking the office to members of the Spanish branch of the House of Bourbon. It assumed an ecumenical dimension during the 1950s to expand its membership to individuals of other Trinitarian Christian denominations in British Commonwealth countries.
The Vilatte orders are awards or decorations associated with Joseph René Vilatte which include the Order of the Crown of Thorns (OCT) and the Order of the Lion and the Black Cross (OLBC). Both are condemned by the Holy See and Italy lists both as illegal decorations.
The Patriarchal Order of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem is a Catholic honorific lay order and ecclesiastical decoration established in 1979 by Patriarch Maximos V Hakim of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, with its seat in the Old City of Jerusalem. It aims to promote Catholic faith and to support religious, cultural and social works of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church in the Holy Land, as well as to promote its Byzantine liturgy. Its current Grand Master is Patriarch Youssef Absi, and its Grand Prior is the Vicar Apostolic of Jerusalem.
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