ORDINAIRE; LEGAL TREATISES; LETTERS OF REMISSION; MONTPELLIER;
NOTARIES; PARLEMENT DE PARIS; TREASON]
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vols. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1991.
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Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1957–63, Vol. 2: Institutions royales.
Olivier-Martin, François. Histoire du droit français des origines a la Révolution. Paris:
Montchrestien, 1948.
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Revue historique de droit français et étranger 62 (1984):361–90.
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siècles. Paris: CNRS, 1973.
LAY ORDERS OF CHIVALRY
. Between 1325 and ca. 1470, many associations were formed in western Christendom in
which membership was restricted to laymen (and more rarely laywomen) of noble birth.
As the more important of these bodies were also restricted to men who followed the
profession of arms as knights or esquires, and bore the corporate title “order,” all such
societies came to be loosely designated by the generic term “order of chivalry” (ordre de
chevalerie). To distinguish them from the older orders of monk-knights like the Templars
and Hospitalers, on which some of them were partially modeled, the latter-day societies
of lay knights may be termed collectively “lay orders of chivalry.”
Four types of true lay order, endowed with corporate statutes intended to govern the
lives and activities of members, were founded in our period. (1) The “confraternal order”
differed from the normal lay confraternity only in being restricted to nobles and thus had
elected officers. (2) The “monarchical order” differed from the confraternal type
primarily in having a presidency attached on a permanent and hereditary basis to the
crown or, more rarely, dynasty of its princely founder; it gave its president (variously
titled “sovereign,” “prince,” or “chief”) powers comparable with those of the “master” of
one of the religious orders of knighthood. (3) The “fraternal order” was essentially a
temporary society of brothers-in-arms, loosely modeled on the confraternity but intended
to exist only for the duration of a particular campaign or crisis. (4) The “votive order”
was a temporary society of knights who collectively undertook a vow to accomplish
some enterprise (emprise) of arms within a specified period of time, typically a year or
two. Lay orders of all types commonly took their name from the badge, or devise, worn
by their members, but some were named after their patron saint. Orders of the first two
types were created at least partly to promote chivalrous behavior and activities, but those
of the second type, modeled more or less directly on the fictional society of the Round
Table, were intended primarily to promote and reward loyalty and service to the crown of
the prince-president among the members, usually called “companions.”
Orders of all four types were founded in France. Among the confraternal orders, the
most important were the Dauphinois Order of St. Catherine (founded ca. 1335), the
Barrois Order of St. Hubert (1422), the Comtois Order of St. George de Rougemont (ca.
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