ORDERS OF CHIVALRY AND HOSPITAL ORDERS. — In its original sense, “ordo militaris,” corresponding to “ordo ecclesiasticus,” that is, to the clergy, generically denotes the lay order. When people began to speak of religious Orders, in the modern sense of an organized religious family distributed across different regions, they also began to speak of military O. These chivalry (v.), and constitute a chivalry organized under ecclesiastical rules, with the task of taking up arms and going to war in defense of the faith, the poor, and the oppressed.
Following the model provided by the Cluniac and also the Cistercian organization, they were dependent upon the Holy See, which alone could permit religious persons to “hostem ferire sine culpa” and without incurring canonical irregularity; it assigned them one of the recognized Rules to observe and approved the particular constitutions governing them. Each was composed of “fratres milites” (that is, “equites” = knights) and “fratres servientes” (that is, sergeants, squires, and retainers): as “fratres” they were true religious, and as “milites” true combatants. The clerics whom they were authorized to admit into their houses were neither “milites” nor “servientes,” but chaplains charged with religious services within the Order itself.
Whereas the Crusaders, on taking the Cross, vowed themselves to temporary service, the military religious were perpetual Crusaders, because they vowed their entire lives to armed struggle against the Muslim infidel. At the head of each O. was a grand master elected by the knights, whom he governed; beneath him were the preceptors and commanders placed over the individual residences, and they enjoyed the revenues of specified properties of the O., erected as commanderies in the manner of ecclesiastical benefices. Vast possessions throughout Christendom in fact came to enrich the O., so that they might be able to fulfill the task for which they had been established. The grand master was assisted by dignitaries in charge of the individual offices, who had particular designations in addition to their common title of knights grand cross.
The foremost military O., on which the others were modeled, was that of the Temple, from name (v.).
The greatest number of military O. arose in the Iberian Peninsula, all assuming a national character with the task of waging war against the Muslims in their own country. In Spain: 1) the O. of Calatrava, according to the Cistercian Rule, founded in 1158 and approved in 1164 by Alexander III; 2) the O. of St. James of the Sword, or of Compostella, which arose around 1170 with the task of protecting those who traveled on pilgrimage to Compostella, and which, by a bull of Alexander III in 1175, was charged with fighting against the infidels; 3) the O. of Alcantara, according to the Cistercian Rule, whose beginnings date back to 1176. In 1540 Paul III granted the knights of Calatrava and Alcantara permission to marry, following the example of the knights of St. James; 4) the O. of Montesa, established by the King of Aragon in 1517, after the suppression of the Templars, for the defense of the coasts against the Saracens; it remained under the protection of the O. of Calatrava and was endowed with the Templars’ property. The administration of these four O. and the common grand mastership passed in 1523 to the king of Spain by decree of Hadrian VI, without thereby losing their religious character.
In Portugal, the suppression of the Templars gave rise to the military O. of Christ, established on the model of that of Calatrava for the defense of the Kingdom’s borders, and approved by John XXII in 1319. In this O. too, the grand mastership passed to the king of Portugal; it incorporated what remained of the O. of Avis, which had arisen as early as 1147 and had been approved by the Holy See in 1162.
A somewhat different category in origin and purpose is that of the O. which, having arisen as hospital orders, later assumed military duties. The Holy See, which initially recognized them as hospital orders and assigned them the Rule of St. Augustine, subsequently intervened when they assumed a military character. They are: the O. of St. John of Jerusalem, now called of Malta (v. sovereign military order, etc), and the Teutonic O. (v. TEUTONIC, ORDER).
Finally, in the past there were chivalric O. which, having arisen as hospital orders, retained this character until they were transformed in the 16th–18th centuries or became entirely extinct.
In the 12th century, the O. of St. Lazarus existed as a hospital order for the care of lepers; Alexander IV canonically recognized it on 11 April 1255 under the Rule of St. Augustine. It was initially composed of knights from other O., especially Templars, who, having contracted leprosy, had to leave their own O.; it could therefore also pass as a military order, but as such it had no real importance. Under its governance, besides the leprosarium of Jerusalem, the cradle of the O., were other institutions of the same kind in Europe, which gradually lost their purpose when leprosy was overcome in the West. After lengthy negotiations, Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, obtained from Gregory XIII in 1572, under certain conditions, that the O.’s properties situated in his territory be assigned to the O. of St. Maurice. Its members wore a black habit with a green cross.
Around 1180 Guido of Montpellier had founded a hospital, associating with himself several companions to assist him. By a bull dated 19 June 1204, Innocent III entrusted him with the care of the hospital he had founded in Rome. At Guido’s death, in the spring of 1208, the Pope decreed that the mastership of the O., which, like the hospital, was called of the Holy Spirit in Sassia, should belong to the head or preceptor of that hospital, so that he “might preside over all the friars of the O.” Indeed, hospitals in various places in Italy, endowed with suitable properties, were attached to its jurisdiction under its own rule (cf. M. Vanti, Bernardino Cirillo, Rome 1926, p. 76).
Their insignia was the double white cross on a black mantle, and their coat of arms bore a dove with outspread wings. They also had the right to beg for alms, a right which they later leased out, giving rise to deplorable abuses. With the specific purpose of caring for the sick, the hospital O. of St. Anthony the Abbot arose in Vienne, Provence, during the 11th century. After a first hospital founded in that city, it established others in Italy and in Rome itself on the Esquiline; all were endowed with revenues and possessed the right to beg for alms. On their black mantles the hospital brothers wore a white T as their insignia.
In Tuscany, at Altopascio, a hospital was founded with particular constitutions that were adopted by other hospitals affiliated with II. As a hospital order, in the first decades of the 13th century a confraternity arose in Barcelona through the work of St. Peter Nolasco, under the Rule of St. Augustine and the protection of the King of Aragon; it soon became an O., that of St. Mary of Mercy, with the purpose of providing for the redemption of slaves. The King granted permission to bear his insignia, with the cross superimposed upon the white habit (v. VERCESARI). In 1725 Benedict XIII definitively recognized this O. as a true mendicant Order, equating it in every respect with them (cf. A. Serafini, De honorificis titulis coniatis ab Ordine S. Maria de Mercede, etc., Rome 1936). The O. of the Trinitarians had arisen in France for a similar purpose.
On the model of the Hospitaller Orders, that of the Glorious Virgin Mary was founded at Bologna in 1261, commonly called that of the Friars Gaudenti, and confirmed by Urban IV, with the aim of settling civil and family disputes and legally protecting the weak from the abuses of the powerful. It spread from Bologna to other cities of central and northern Italy, but did not last long. The friars wore a white habit with a gray mantle and a vermilion cross with two shells (D. V. FEDERICI, GIACOMO, Istoria dei Frati Gaudenti, Venezia 1787. Cf. Dante, Inferno, XXIII, 103 sgg.). They were bound to conjugal chastity.
It was then princes who began to establish chivalric Orders for the nobles of their realms, preserving a religious character for them and assigning them a purpose modeled on that of the military Orders, particular constitutions, corresponding revenues, and their own insignia and dress. Philip, duke of Burgundy, founded the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1431, whose badge was a golden lambskin suspended from a collar, and whose dress was red. After Burgundy passed under the rule of the Habsburgs, the Golden Fleece became the supreme distinction in Spain and Austria. Eugene IV in 1433 and Leo X in 1516 approved the Order. Louis XI of France established the Order of St. Michael in 1469, and Henry III, in 1578, that of the Holy Spirit. Amadeus VIII of Savoy founded with fifteen knights, in 1409, the Order of the Collar, later called that of the Annunciation, and subsequently, in 1434, that of St. Maurice, when he withdrew to live as a hermit at Ripaglia together with five other knights, widowers like himself. Venice, too, had its knights, whom the doge appointed from among the most deserving nobles. Special mention should be made of the Order of St. Stephen, which Cosimo I, grand duke of Tuscany, founded in 1562 with the Pope’s approval, taking the organization of the Order of Malta as his model. The purpose of the new Order was to free the Mediterranean from the Muslim corsairs who infested it and to make navigation safe; its headquarters were established at Pisa; and immediately the knights, with the galleys they had armed, bravely took to the sea, also taking part in the victory of Lepanto (1571).
The example of the Catholic princes was imitated also by Protestant princes, who became founders of chivalric Orders in order to decorate princes and subjects with them; but this distorted their original character, and simple, more or less pompous distinctions were created.
The Revolution suppressed every chivalric Order in France under the pretext of equality, just as, moreover, it had suppressed every noble rank. But Napoleon, by the law of 19 May 1802, in order to create “military rewards and also reward civil services and virtues,” established a “Legion of Honor,” purely secular in character, with no further mention whatsoever of religious ties; it retained within it a hierarchy with names taken from the ancient chivalric military establishment, including grand officers, commanders, officers, and knights. The Legion was preserved and modified under the First and Second Empires and served as a model for the new equestrian Orders newly established or transformed in a wholly secular sense. But in these, every vestige of the ancient medieval chivalry has now disappeared, even from their names.