Page:The Book of Orders of Knighthood and Decorations of Honour of All Nations.djvu/412

Rh This simple vow is as follows: "I N. N. vow to God Almighty, to his immaculate mother, and to John the Baptist, poverty, mercy, and obedience, towards all superiors of the Order, in the sense as given by his Holiness Pope Pius IX., in his Bull beginning 'Militarem Ordinem equitum.'"

DECORATIONS OF HONOUR.

During his residence at Gaeta, Pius IX. founded two medals, one for the foreign military who had given assistance to his government, and another with the inscription ' Alla Fedelta,' for papal subjects of all classes, as an acknowledgment of their devotion in the cause. Both are worn suspended by a ribbon of the papal colours, but no privileges are attached to them.

The following is a list of the Orders which were founded by those Popes who have sanctioned and confirmed the ancient secular Orders, as established by Christian Princes.

1. The Order of St. Peter, founded by Pope Leo X. for the victorious campaign against the Turks.

2. The Order of St. Paul, by Pope Paul III.

3. The Order of the Knights of St. George, by Pope Alexander IV.

4. The Order of the Knights of St. John of the Lateran, by Pope Pius IV. in 1560.

All these Orders, even the last, may now be considered as extinct or dormant, since no nomination has taken place in them during the present century, though some of the Knights