Prime Orders / Royal Orders
The royal orders, such as the Garter, the Golden Fleece, or the Black Eagle, are sometimes known as the Prime Orders of Christendom. Most British chivalric orders cover the entire kingdom; however, there are three that each pertain to a different constituent country only. The Most Noble Order of the Garter, which covers England. The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, Scotland's premier order of chivalry, is second only to the Order of the Garter. The Prime Order of Ireland was the The "most illustrious" Order of St Patrick. The Royal Guelphic Order, of the Kingdom of Hannover, was used only briefly in the UK until 1837.
Dating from the fourteenth 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 master (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 privilege of private oratories, dispensation from certain fasts, etc.
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, were absolutely 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 chapters in the Charterhouse (founded in 1392) of PierreChátel in Bugey. Here also the Knights of the Annunziata 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 France, they transferred their chapters to the newly founded 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 venerated in that capital.
Lastly there are a number of pontifical secular orders, the oldest of which is the Order of Christ, contemporary with the institution of the same order in Portugal in 1319. In approving the latter institution, John XXII reserved the right of creating a certain number 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, instituted 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 Sepulchre, formerly dependent on the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and quite recently reorganized by the reigning pope (Pius X). The Knights of St. Catherine of Sinai are not an order, either secular or regular.
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