1815. For ladies there are the Order of Sidonia, 1870, in memory
of the wife of Albert the Bold, the mother (Stamm-Mutter) of the
Albertine line; and the Maria Anna Order, 1906.
xi. The duchies of Saxe Altenburg, Saxe Coburg Gotha and Saxe Meiningen have in common the family Order of Ernest, founded in 1833 in memory of Duke Ernest the Pious of Saxe Gotha and as a revival of the Order of German Integrity (Orden der deutschen Redlichkeit) founded in 1690. Saxe Coburg Gotha and Saxe Meiningen have also separate crosses of merit in science and art.
xii. Saxe Weimar.—The Order of the White Falcon or of Vigilance was founded in 1732 and renewed in 1815.
xiii. Württemberg.—The Order of the Crown of Württemberg was founded in 1818, uniting the former Order of the Golden Eagle and an order of civil merit. It has five classes. The badge is a white cross surmounted by the royal crown, in the centre the initial F surrounded by a crimson fillet on which is the motto Furchtlos und Treu; in the angles of the cross are four golden leopards; the ribbon is crimson with two black stripes. Besides the military Order of Merit founded in 1759, and the silver cross of merit, 1900, Württemberg has also the Order of Frederick, 1830, and the Order of Olga, 1871, which is granted to ladies as well as men.
Greece.—The Order of the Redeemer was founded as such in 1833 by King Otto, being a conversion of a decoration of honour instituted in 1829 by the National Assembly at Argos. There are five classes, the numbers being regulated for each. An illustration of the badge and ribbon of the grand cross is given on Plate V. fig. 1.
Holland.—The Order of William, for military merit, was founded in 1815 by William I.; there are four classes; the badge is a white cross resting on a green laurel Burgundian cross, in the centre the Burgundian flint-steel, as in the order of the Golden Fleece. The motto Voer Moed, Belied, Trouw (For Valour, Devotion, Loyalty), appears on the arms of the cross. The cross is surmounted by a jewelled crown; the ribbon is orange with dark blue edging. The Order of the Netherlands Lion, for civil merit, was founded in 1818; there are four classes. The family Order of the Golden Lion of Nassau passed in 1890 to the grand duchy of Luxembourg (see under Luxemburg). In 1892 Queen Wilhelmina instituted the Order of Orange-Nassau with five classes. The Teutonic Order (q.v.), surviving in the Ballarde (Bailiwick) of Utrecht, was officially established in the Netherlands by the States General in 1580. It was abolished by Napoleon in 1811 and was restored in 1815.
Italy.—The Order of the Annunziata, the highest order of knighthood of the Italian kingdom, was instituted in 1362 by Amadeus VI., count of Savoy, as the Order of the Collare or Collar, from the silver collar made up of love-knots and roses, which was its badge, in honour of the fifteen joys of the Virgin; hence the number of the knights was restricted to fifteen, the fifteen chaplains recited fifteen masses each day, and the clauses of the original statute of the order were fifteen (Amadeus VIII. added five others in 1434). Charles III. decreed that the order should be called the Annunziata, and made some other alterations in 1518. His son and successor, Emmanuel Philibert, made further modifications in the statute and the costume. The church of the order was originally the Carthusian monastery of Pierre-châtel in the district of Bugey, but after Charles Emmanuel I. had given Bugey and Bresse to France in 1601 the church of the order was transferred to the Camaldolese monastery near Turin. That religious order having been suppressed at the time of the French Revolution, King Charles Albert decreed in 1840 that the Carthusian church of Collegno should be the chapel of the order. The knights of the Annunziata have the title of “cousins of the king,” and enjoy precedence over all the other officials of the state. The costume of the order is of white satin embroidered in silk, with a purple velvet cloak adorned with roses and gold embroidery, but it is now never worn; in the collar the motto Fert is inserted, on the meaning of which there is great uncertainty,[1] and from it hangs a pendant enclosing a medallion representing the Annunciation (see Plate IV. fig. 7). An account of the order is given in Count Luigi Cibrario’s Ordini Cavallereschi (Turin, 1846) with coloured plates of the costume and badges.
The Order of St Maurice and St Lazarus (SS Maurizio e Lazzaro), is a combination of two ancient orders. The Order of St Maurice was originally founded by Amadeus VIII., duke of Savoy, in 1434, when he retired to the hermitage of Ripaille, and consisted of a group of half-a-dozen councillors who were to advise him on such affairs of state as he continued to control. When he became pope as Felix V. the order practically ceased to exist. It was re-established at the instance of Emmanuel Philibert by Pope Pius V. in 1572 as a military and religious order, and the following year it was united to that of St Lazarus by Gregory XIII. The latter order had been founded as a military and religious community at the time of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem with the object of assisting lepers, many of whom were among its members. Popes, princes and nobles endowed it with estates and privileges, including that of administering and succeeding to the property of lepers, which eventually led to grave abuses. With the advance of the Saracens the knights of St Lazarus, when driven from the Holy Land and Egypt, migrated to France (1291) and Naples (1311), where they founded leper hospitals. The order in Naples, which alone was afterwards recognized as the legitimate descendant of the Jerusalem community, was empowered to seize and confine anyone suspected of leprosy, a permission which led to the establishment of a regular inquisitorial system of blackmail. In the 15th and 16th centuries dissensions broke out among the knights, and the order declined in credit and wealth, until finally the grand master, Giannotto Castiglioni, resigned his position in favour of Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy, in 1571. Two years later the orders of St Lazarus and St Maurice were incorporated into one community, the members of which were to devote themselves to the defence of the Holy See and to fight its enemies as well as to continue assisting lepers. The galleys of the order subsequently took part in various expeditions against the Turks and the Barbary pirates. Leprosy, which had almost disappeared in the 17th century, broke out once more in the 18th, and in 1773 a hospital was established by the order at Aosta, made famous by Xavier de Maistre’s tale, Le Lépreux de la cité d’Aoste. The statutes were published in 1816, by which date the order had lost its military character; it was reformed first by Charles Albert (1831), and later by Victor Emmanuel II., king of Italy (1868). The knighthood of St Maurice and St Lazarus is now a dignity conferred by the king of Italy (the grand master) on persons distinguished in the public service, science, art and letters, trade, and above all in charitable works, to which its income is devoted. There are five classes. The badge of the combined order is composed of the white cross with trefoil termination of St Lazarus resting on the green cross of St Maurice; both crosses are bordered gold. The first four classes wear the badge suspended from a royal crown. The ribbon is dark green.
See L. Cibrario, Descrizione storica degli Ordini Cavallereschi, vol. i. (Turin, 1846); Calendario Reale, an annual publication issued in Rome.
The military Order of Savoy was founded in 1815 by Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia; badge modified 1855 and 1857. It has now five classes. The badge is a white cross, the arms of which expand and terminate in an obtuse angle; round the cross is a green laurel and oak wreath; the central medallion is red, bearing in gold two crossed swords, the initials of the founder and the date 1855. The ribbon is red with a central stripe of blue. The Civil Order of Savoy, founded in 1831 by Charles Albert of Sardinia, is of one class, and in statutes of 1868 is limited to 60 members. The badge is the plain Savoy cross in blue, with silver medallion, the ribbon is blue with white borders. The Order of the Crown of Italy was founded in 1868 by Victor Emmanuel II. in commemoration of the union of Italy into a kingdom. There are five classes.
Luxemburg.—The Order of the Golden Lion was founded as a family order of the house of Nassau by William III. of the Netherlands and Adolphus of Nassau jointly. On the death of William in 1890 it passed to the grand duke of Luxemburg; it has only one class. The Order of Adolphus of Nassau, for civil and military merit, in four classes, was founded in 1858, and the Order of the Oak Crown as a general order of merit, in five classes, in 1841, modified 1858.
Monaco.—The Order of St Charles, five classes, was founded in 1858 by Prince Charles III. and remodelled in 1863. It is a general order of merit.
Montenegro.—The Order of St Peter, founded in 1852, is a family order, in one class, and only given to members of the princely family; the Order of Danilo, or of the Independence of Montenegro, is a general order of merit, in four classes, with subdivisions, also founded in 1852.
Norway.—The Order of St Olaf was founded in 1847 by Oscar I. in honour of St Olaf, the founder of Christianity in Norway, as a general order of merit, military and civil. There are three classes, the last two being, in 1873 and 1890, subdivided into two grades each. The badge and ribbon is illustrated on Plate V, fig. 5. The reverse bears the motto Ret og Sandhed (Right and Truth). The Order of the Norwegian Lion, founded in 1904 by Oscar II., has only one class; foreigners on whom the order is conferred must be sovereigns or heads of states or members of reigning houses.
Papal.—The arrangement and constitution of the papal orders was remodelled by a brief of Pius X. in 1905. The Order of Christ, the supreme pontifical order, is of one class only; for the history of this ancient order see Portugal (infra). The badge and ribbon is the same as the older Portuguese form. The Order of Pius was founded in 1847 by Pius IX.; there are now three classes; the badge is an eight-pointed blue star with golden flames between the rays, a white centre bears the founder’s name; the ribbon is blue with two red stripes at each border. The Order of St Gregory the Great, founded in 1831, is in two divisions, civil and military, each having three classes. The Order of St Sylvester was originally founded as the Order of the Golden Spur by Paul IV. in 1559 as a military body, though tradition assigns it to Constantine the Great and Pope Sylvester. It was reorganized as an order of merit by Gregory XVI. in 1841. In 1905 the order was divided into three classes, and a separate order, that of the Golden Spur or Golden Legion (Militia Aurata) was established, in one class, with the numbers limited to a hundred. The cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, instituted by Leo XIII.
- ↑ It has been taken as the Latin word meaning “he bears” or as representing the initials of the legend Fortitudo Ejus Rhodum Tenuit, with an allusion to a defence of the island of Rhodes by an ancient count of Savoy.
