order in 1344, there can be little doubt that the king from whom he cer-
tainly borrowed the idea (Alfonso XI of Castile) thought of his Order of
the Band as a neo-Arthurian society that would convert him into a new
Arthur surrounded by the best knights in the world. As all of the later or-
ders were inspired either directly or indirectly by the Order of the Garter
that Edward actually founded and all included Arthurian elements of one
sort or another, the whole set of monarchical orders can be described as
neo-Arthurian in character. In the orders most thoroughly modeled on the
Band and the Garter (i.e., most of those outside Germany and Scandi-
navia), this meant not only that the members of the order were expected to
practice the highest ideals of chivalry, but that the order itself was pre-
sented as an embodiment of those ideals. This made both patronage of and
membership in such orders highly honorable, for just as it identified the
prince-president with Arthur as a patron of chivalry, so it identified the
companions of the order with the knights of the Round Table as paragons
of chivalry.
The extent to which the founders of monarchical orders borrowed the
other distinctive characteristics of the Round Table Society reported in the
romances varied considerably. Alfonso of Castile was unique in requiring
the knights of his order to challenge anyone they found wearing what
looked like the band of the order to armed combat and to send back to the
royal court any who acquitted themselves well in such a conflict. Alfonso
was also more explicit than any later founder in insisting that the knights
of his order live up to the highest standards of curialitas (Latin; courtliness)
or courtoisie(French; source of English courtesy) and abjure the vices com-
mon to noblemen. Most later founders promoted the courtliness ideally as-
sociated by 1330 with knightliness in the same ways they promoted the
military virtues of prowess, courage, and loyalty: by asking not only for an-
nual reports of the sort that Arthurian knights commonly delivered on re-
turning to the royal court after accomplishing some quest, but annual ses-
sions of mutual criticism of the sort more common in professional
confraternities. In three orders, however (the Company of the Star, the
Company of the Knot, and its successor the Order of the Ship), the statutes
actually provided a further reward for meritorious conduct in the form of
a seat at a special table of honor (resembling the Round Table) at the an-
nual banquet, and the last two of those added a series of honorific alter-
ations to the badge of the order that in effect replaced the sorts of promo-
tion in formal rank practiced in most modern multigrade orders of merit.
Another aspect of the fictional model that was borrowed by the great
majority of the founders of monarchical orders was a fixed number of
knights. Religious orders and confraternities sought to have as many mem-
bers as possible. An unlimited (or at least large) number was also indicated
Orders of Knighthood, Secular 399