Why does the middles ages knight order 'Order of the Garter' have the word Garter in it When you look up the origin of the word if means 'bend at the knee' in old English?

Answer 1

You should look at the word 'garter' not as a verb, but as a noun. The word 'garter' today is of course best known as 'article of women's underclothing'. A well-known put totally unproven story has it that the origin of the name of the order was an incident in which a lady's garter fell down by accident, and the king, picking it up told bystanders 'shame on you who think bad of this' (the Order's motto).

There is however another meaning of the word that probably is more relevant here: garter was the name of the leathers straps that held together the pieces of a knight's armour. Although the proof of the name's origin disappeared when the earliest documents of the Order were destroyed in a fire, many scientists now believe that the order of the 'garter' meant to indicate that it bound together Britain's most important but loosely-connected nobles in the same way that a garter firmly held together the pieces of an armour.