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9 - Chivalry and the Aristocracy

from Part I - General Themes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Maurice Keen
Edited by
Michael Jones
Michael Jones
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
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Summary

at a date which cannot be pinpointed in the year 1325, King Charles-Robert of Hungary founded the Society of St George, an elite band of fifty knights who were to be entitled to wear a special habit, were to meet three times a year for the ‘chapter’ of their society (on St George’s day, on the feast of the nativity of the Virgin and at Epiphany) and who were sworn to observe a series of religious knightly obligations laid down in the founder’s statutes. This, as far as we know, was the first instituted of the princely secular orders of chivalry, whose appearance was one of the most striking novel features of the history of knighthood in the fourteenth century. The foundation of the Society of St George was followed by that of the Order of the Band in Castile (1330), of the Garter in England (1349), the Star in France (1351), the Golden Buckle in the empire (1355), the Collar in Savoy (1364) and the Ermine in Brittany (1381); there were others too. The statutes of all these societies bear a family resemblance to one another. They detail the obligations of the companions to the sovereign or ‘master’ of the order and to one another, provide for regular chapter meetings (usually on the feast of the patron saint of the order, to be followed by High Mass in its chapel and a lavish banquet) and set out rules about the cut and wearing of the robes and insignia of the company.

Type
Chapter
Information
The New Cambridge Medieval History
, pp. 209 - 221
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

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