Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 10.djvu/354

 MILITARY

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MILITARY

ters, the first of whom, Vinnon. was murdered by one of his follows in 120!l, while the second, Volquin, fell on the field of battle in 1286, with four hundred and eighty knights of the order. The survivors i)etitioned to he allowed to enter the Teutonic t)rder, of which the Knights of Livonia thenceforward formed one branch under a provincial master of their own (12:iS). Their possessions, acquired by conquest, formed a t)rinci[)al- ity under Charles V (1,52.')), antl the last of their mas- ters, (iottart. Kettler, apostatized and converted it into the hereditary Duchy of Courland under the suzerainty of the kings of Poland (1.51V2).

The Gaudenti of Our Lady at Bologna, confirmed by Urban IV in 1262, and suppressed by Sixtus V

Knights Templars in 1589, were not so much a military order as an association of gentlemen who undertook to maintain the public peace in those turbulent times. An order of St. George of Alfama, in Aragon, approved in 1363 by Urban V, was merged in the Order of Montesa in 1399. The Knights of St. George, in .\ustria, founded by the Emperor Frederick III, and approved by Paul II in 1468, failing to perpetuate their existence, owing to the lack of territorial possessions, gave place to a purely secularconfratemity. The Order of St. Stephen Pope was founded in Tuscany by the Grand Duke Cosmo I and approved in 1561 by Pius IV, being placed under the Benedictine Rule. It had its prin- cipal house at Pisa, and was obliged to ec|uip a certain number of galleys to fight the Turks in the Mediter- ranean after the manner of, and in concert with, the "caravans" of the Knights of Malta.

III. The Secul.^^r Orders. — Dating from the four- teenth century, fraternities of lay knights were formed modelled on the great regular orders; as in the latter, we find in these secular orders a patron, a vow to serve the Church and the sovereign, statutes, a grand mas- ter (usually the reigning prince), and the practice of certain devotions. Most of them also asked for the approbation of the Holy See, which, on the other hand, granted them spiritual favours — indulgences, the privi- lege of private oratories, dispensation from certain fasts, etc. The chief of these orders, classified by countries, are as follows: — In England. Edward III, in memory of the legendary Knights of the Round Table, established in 1349 » brotherhood o* wenty-five

knights, exclusive of princes of the blood and foreign -princes, with St. George as its patron and with its cliai)el in \\'indsor Castle for the holding of chapters. This, the (^rder of the Garter, takes its name from the characteristic badge, worn on the left knee. The choice of this badge has given rise to various anec- dotes of doubtful authenticity. Nothing is now known of the original object of the Order of the Bath, the creation of which dates from the coronation of Henry IV (1399). A third order, Scottish by origin, is that of the Order of the Thistle, dating from the reign of James V of Scotland ( 1 534). These orders still exist, though they have been protestantized. In France, the royal orders of the Star, dating from John the Good (1352), of St. Michael, founded by Louis XI (1469), of the Holy Ghost, founded by Henry III (1570), of Our Lady of Carmel, amalgamated by Henry IV with that of St. Lazarus (q. v.), were abso- lutely suppressed by the Revolution. Austria and Spain now dispute the inheritance from the House of Burgundy of the right to confer the Order of the Golden Fleece, founded by Duke Philip the Good, approved by Eugene IV in 1433, and extended by Leo X in 1516.

In Piedmont, the Order of the Annunziata, under its later form, dates only from Charles III, Duke of Savoy, in 1518, but its first dedication to the Blessed Virgin goes back to Amadeus VIII, first Duke of Savoy, antipope under the name of Felix V (1434). There had, previously to this dedication, existed in Savoy an Order of the Collar, which held its chap- ters in the Charterhouse (founded in 1392) of Pierre- Chatcl in Bugey. Here also the Knights of the An- nunziata kept their feast of the Annunciation, so that they have considered themselves as successors of the Order of the Collar. After the cession of Bugey to J'rance, they transferred their chapters to the newly foimded Camaldolese monastery on the Mountain of Turin (1627). In the Duchy of Mantua, Duke Vincent Gonzaga, on the marriage of his son Francis II, instituted, with the approbation of Paul V, the Knights of the Precious Blood, a relic of which is veneratei.1 in that capital. Lastly there are a num- ber of pontifical secular orders, the oldest of which is the Order of Christ, contemporary with the institu- tion of the same order in Portugal in 1319. In ap- proving the latter institution, John XXII reserved the right of creating a certain numter of knights by patent, and it is now used to reward services rendered by any person whatsoever without distinction of birth. The same is to be said of the Orders of St. Peter, insti- tuted by Leo X in 1520, of St. Paul, founded by Paul III in 1534, of Our Lady of Loretto, charged by Sixtus V in 1558, to watch over and preserve that sanctuary. These distinctions were mostly granted to functionaries of the pontifical chancery. There has been some question as to the Order of the Holy Sepul- chre (q. v.), formerly dependent on the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and quite recently reorganized by the reigning pope (PiusX). The Knights of St. Cathe- rine of Sinai (q. v.) are not an order, either secular or regular. The respective particular histories of the great military orders have been traced in the various articles devoted to them ; it is necessary here only to explain their general organization, religious, military, and economic.

(1) Religious State. — The knights of the great or- ders were regarded in the Church as analogous to monks, whose three vows they professed and whose immunities they shared. They were answerable to the pope alone; they had their chapels, their clerics, and their cemeteries, all exempted from the jurisdic- tion of the secular clergy. Their landed property was free from tithes. They were not subject to the in- terdicts which the bishops in those days employed so freely. They did not all follow the same monastic rule. The Templars and orders derived from them