minion or domain, the monarchical orders and indeed the curial orders
more generally were also the embodiments of the ideals of nobility within
the same territories. To serve both ideals, many founders or later presidents
of such societies attached to them the office of the chief herald of their
lands: a role still played by Garter, Principal King of Arms of the English,
to this day. In principle these ideals always included distinguished military
service, and if the surviving orders have never admitted the most decorated
soldiers from the ranks, they have usually included the most distinguished
generals and admirals of their presidents’ lands, along with the most dis-
tinguished prime ministers, princes, and peers.
D’A. Jonathan D. Boulton
See alsoChivalry; Europe; Knights; Orders of Knighthood, Religious
References
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Suffolk, UK: The Boydell Press.
Boulton, D’Arcy Jonathan Dacre. 2000. The Knights of the Crown: The
Monarchical Orders of Knighthood in Later Medieval Europe,
1325–1520.2d ed. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: The Boydell Press.
Keen, Maurice. 1984. Chivalry.New Haven: Yale University Press.
Kruse, Holger, Werner Paravicini, and Andreas Ranft, eds. 1991.
Ritterorden und Adelsgesellschaften im Spätmittelalterlichen
Deutschland.Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Ranft, Andreas. 1994. Adelsgesellschaften: Gruppenbildang und
Genossenschaft im Spätmittelalterlichen Reich. Sigmaringen:
J. Thorbecke.
Orders of Knighthood, Secular 401