Pseudo-chivalric orders or self-styled orders are organizations which falsely claim to be chivalric orders. Most self-styled orders arose in or after the mid-eighteenth century and many have been created in the present day, though most are short-lived and endure no more than a few decades.
Chivalric order must have a fount of honour (or fons honorum) as either its founder or its principal patron in order to be considered a chivalric order; a fount of honour is a person who held sovereignty either at or before the moment when the order was established. (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).[1] 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.
Contrary to popular belief, a noble or a knight seldom has the right to create nobles or confer knighthood himself: in general, no person or organization other than a current or former head of state can be a fount of honour and, generally, persons and organizations other than a head of state, heads of exiled dynasties, or popes may confer such honours only with the explicit permission of the fount of honour. For example, in the United Kingdom, where the fount of honour is the Monarch, some societies have permissions from the Monarch to award medals, but these are to be worn on the right side of the chest. In France, however, with very few exceptions, no non-governmental orders and medals are permitted to be worn. In Sweden, decisions about medals and orders worn to military uniform has been delegated to the General Staff, which have led one of the many bogus orders of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon, to become accepted. This acceptance policy has been criticized by the Herald of the Royal Court.
Self-styled orders may share certain other characteristics:
- They long ago were suppressed by the Holy See, protector of mediaeval Western military religious orders in the Holy Land or on the Iberian Peninsula;[2]
- No sovereign Western state recognises them as legitimate orders of knighthood;[3][4]
- They claim to be under the high protection of or to be headed by Episcopi vagantes or to be headed by obscure princes;[5]
- They are linked closely to bearers of false titles of nobility.
Although not officially recognised by any international treaty, the International Commission for Orders of Chivalry has developed widely accepted principles employed in determining which organizations are genuine chivalric orders (many of which are listed on the website of the Commission) rather than self-styled ones. The Commission was created as a temporary committee of the International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences in August of 1960, though it has been transformed into a permanent and independent international body.[6][7] Though these principles may form a set of reasonable guidelines.
Certain other organisations (such as the Augustan Society, which states publicly that it is not a chivalric order) that may appear to have a chivalric character nevertheless carefully distinguish themselves from legitimate orders of chivalry, thus differentiating themselves from self-styled orders.
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See also
- Chivalric order
- Order of St. Joachim
- Knights Hospitaller Mimic Orders
- Noble Order of Saint George of Rougemont
- Order of Saint Blaise
- Order of the Fleur de Lys
- False titles of nobility
- Niadh Nask
- International Order of Saint Stanislaus
- Order of the Collar of Saint Agatha
- Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem
References
Further reading
- Ordres et contre-ordres de chevalerie by Arnaud Chaffanjon, Mercure de France Paris 1982.
- Faux Chevaliers vrais gogos by Patrice Chairoff, Jean Cyrile Godefroy Paris 1985.
- The knightly twilight by Robert Gayre of Gayre, Lochore Enterprises Valletta 1973.
- Orders of knighthood, Awards and the Holy See by Peter Bander van Duren and Archbishop H.E. Cardinale (Apostolic Delegate in the United Kingdom), Buckinghamshire 1985.
- World Orders of Knighthood and Merit by Guy Stair Sainty and Rafal Heydel-Mankoo, Burke's Peerage 2006.
- Ephemeral Decorations, Gillingham, H. E. New York, 1935. American Numismatical Society: Numismatic Notes and Mongraphs 66.
External links
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