Fig. 154.—Teutonic Knight.—Fac-simile of a Woodcut by Jost Amman, in his work entitled “Cleri totius Romanæ ecclesiæ ... habitus:” 4to, Frankfort, 1585.
Fig. 155.—Chapter of the Golden Fleece, held by Charles the Bold.—Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the Burgundian Library, Brussels.
The Order of the Knights of the Golden Fleece was not founded till 1449. It was then instituted by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy and Count of Flanders, in order to induce the nobles of his court to join him in making war against the Turks, and to attach his subjects by closer ties to the service of the state. The crusade never took place, but the order survived, and still exists as an heraldic distinction.
This order, which was placed under the protection of St. Andrew, was originally composed of twenty-four knights of high rank and stainless character; their number was increased by the Duke of Burgundy to thirty-one, and afterwards by Charles V. to fifty-one. The election of the knights took place in the chapters of the order, and were decided by a majority of votes. The distinguishing sign of the order was a necklet of gold, enamelled with the duke’s device, which was composed of two steels and two flints interlaced, with the motto, Ante ferit quam micat (It strikes before it lights). From the collar was suspended a golden sheep, or sheep’s fleece, with the inscription, Pretium non vile laborum (Labour’s just reward) (Fig. 155). Since the marriage of Philippe le Beau, son of the Emperor Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy, with Jane of Aragon, in 1496, the King of Spain and the Emperor of Austria are, in their own countries, the sovereign chiefs of the order of the Golden Fleece.
Savoy also possessed an order of military knighthood which has survived till our time. When Amadeus VIII., in whose person Savoy had been raised to the rank of a duchy by the Emperor Sigismund, determined to live as a recluse, he desired to create an order of secular knighthood, with himself as its chief. He accordingly built a retreat at Ripailles, near the Lake of Geneva, as a residence for the new order, and placed it under the protection of St. Maurice, the patron saint of Savoy. The first knights, only six in number, were distinguished by a cross of white taffeta sewn on their dress. The successors of Amadeus VIII., however, so neglected the order that it was on the point of becoming extinct, when Duke Emanuel Philibert, in 1572, obtained from Gregory XIII. a bull to reconstitute it; and shortly afterwards, by a second bull, the knights of St. Lazarus and those of St. Maurice were united.
The knights took the same triple vow as the Templars; they swore fidelity to the Dukes of Savoy, and undertook to wage war against the heretics who from Geneva were continually threatening the frontiers of the duchy. The order possessed considerable property, and its head-quarters were at Nice and Turin.
The sign of the order was a white cross with flowered points, beneath which was a second cross surrounded with green, with the image of the two patron saints.
The Knights of St. Stephen, an order founded in 1562 by Cosmo de Medicis, Grand Duke of Tuscany, played an active part in the sea-fights of the Mediterranean, where they were constantly chasing the Ottoman galleys or effecting landings on the shores of the surrounding barbarian states. In the middle of the seventeenth century they boasted that they had released, since the creation of the order, upwards of five thousand six hundred Christian captives and fifteen thousand slaves.