THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA

A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION

ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME XV SLICE VIII
Kite-Flying to Kyshtym

Articles in This Slice

KITE-FLYING, the art of sending up into the air, by means of the wind, light frames of varying shapes covered with paper or cloth (called kites, after the bird—in German Drache, dragon), which are attached to long cords or wires held in the hand or wound on a drum. When made in the common diamond form, or triangular with a semicircular head, kites usually have a pendulous tail appended for balancing purposes. The tradition is that kites were invented by Archytas of Tarentum four centuries before the Christian era, but they have been in use among Asiatic peoples and savage tribes like the Maoris of New Zealand from time immemorial. Kite-flying has always been a national pastime of the Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Tonkinese, Annamese, Malays and East Indians. It is less popular among the peoples of Europe. The origin of the sport, although obscure, is usually ascribed to religion. With the Maoris it still retains a distinctly religious character, and the ascent of the kite is accompanied by a chant called the kite-song. The Koreans attribute its origin to a general, who, hundreds of years ago, inspirited his troops by sending up a kite with a lantern attached, which was mistaken by his army for a new star and a token of divine succour. Another Korean general is said to have been the first to put the kite to mechanical uses by employing one to span a stream with a cord, which was then fastened to a cable and formed the nucleus of a bridge. In Korea, Japan and China, and indeed throughout Eastern Asia, even the tradespeople may be seen indulging in kite-flying while waiting for customers. Chinese and Japanese kites are of many shapes, such as birds, dragons, beasts and fishes. They vary in size, but are often as much as 7 ft. in height or breadth, and are constructed of bamboo strips covered with rice paper or very thin silk. In China the ninth day of the ninth month is “Kites’ Day,” when men and boys of all classes betake themselves to neighbouring eminences and fly their kites. Kite-fighting is a feature of the pastime in Eastern Asia. The cord near the kite is usually stiffened with a mixture of glue and crushed glass or porcelain. The kite-flyer manœuvres to get his kite to windward of that of his adversary, then allows his cord to drift against his enemy’s, and by a sudden jerk to cut it through and bring its kite to grief. The Malays possess a large variety of kites, mostly without tails. The Sultan of Johor sent to the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893 a collection of fifteen different kinds. Asiatic musical kites bear one or more perforated reeds or bamboos which emit a plaintive sound that can be heard for great distances. The ignorant, believing that these kites frighten away evil spirits, often keep them flying all night over their houses.

There are various metaphorical uses of the term “kite-flying,” such as in commercial slang, when “flying a kite” means raising money on credit (cf. “raising the wind”), or in political slang for seeing “how the wind blows.” And “flying-kites,” in nautical language, are the topmost sails.

Kite-flying for scientific purposes began in the middle of the 18th century. In 1752 Benjamin Franklin made his memorable kite experiment, by which he attracted electricity from the air and demonstrated the electrical nature of lightning. A more systematic use of kites for scientific purposes may, however, be said to date from the experiments made in the last quarter of the 19th century.

(E. B.)

Meteorological Use.—Many European and American meteorological services employ kites regularly, and obtain information not only of the temperature, but also of the humidity and velocity of the air above. The kites used are mostly modifications of the so-called box-kites, invented by L. Hargrave. Roughly these kites may be said to resemble an ordinary box with the two ends removed, and also the middle part of each of the four sides. The original Hargrave kite, the form generally used, has a rectangular section; in Russia a semicircular section with the curved part facing the wind is most in favour; in England the diamond-shaped section is preferred for meteorological purposes owing to its simplicity of construction. Stability depends on a multitude of small details of construction, and long practice and experience are required to make a really good kite. The sizes most in use have from 30 to 80 sq. ft. of sail area. There is no difficulty about raising a kite to a vertical height of one or even two miles on suitable days, but heights exceeding three miles are seldom reached. On the 29th of November 1905 at Lindenberg, the Prussian Aeronautical Observatory, the upper one of a train of six kites attained an altitude of just four miles. The total lifting surface of these six kites was nearly 300 sq. ft., and the length of wire a little over nine miles. The kites are invariably flown on a steel wire line, for the hindrance to obtaining great heights is not due so much to the weight of the line as to the wind pressure upon it, and thus it becomes of great importance to use a material that possesses the greatest possible strength, combined with the smallest possible size. Steel piano wire meets this requirement, for a wire of 1⁄32 in. diameter will weigh about 16 ℔ to the mile, and stand a strain of some 250-280 ℔ before it breaks. Some stations prefer to use one long piece of wire of the same gauge throughout without a join, others prefer to start with a thin wire and join on thicker and thicker wire as more kites are added. The process of kite-flying is as follows. The first kite is started either with the self-recording instruments secured in it, or hanging from the wire a short distance below it. Wire is then paid out, whether quickly or slowly depends on the strength of the wind, but the usual rate is from two to three miles per hour. The quantity that one kite will take depends on the kite and on the wind, but roughly speaking it may be said that each 10 sq. ft. of lifting surface on the kite should carry 1000 ft. of 1⁄32 in. wire without difficulty. When as much wire as can be carried comfortably has run out another kite is attached to the line, and the paying out is continued; after a time a third is added, and so on. Each kite increases the strain upon the wire, and moreover adds to the height and makes it more uncertain what kind of wind the upper kites will encounter; it also adds to the time that is necessary to haul in the kites. In each way the risk of their breaking away is increased, for the wind is very uncertain and is liable to alter in strength. Since to attain an exceptional height the wire must be strained nearly to its breaking point, and under such conditions a small increase in the strength of the wind will break the wire, it follows that great heights can only be attained by those who are willing to risk the trouble and expense of frequently having their wire and train of kites break away. The weather is the essential factor in kite-flying. In the S.E. of England in winter it is possible on about two days out of three, and in summer on about one day out of three. The usual cause of failure is want of wind, but there are a few days when the wind is too strong. (For meteorological results, &c., see [Meteorology].)

(W. H. Di.)

Military Use.—A kite forms so extremely simple a method of lifting anything to a height in the air that it has naturally been suggested as being suitable for various military purposes, such as signalling to a long distance, carrying up flags, or lamps, or semaphores. Kites have been used both in the army and in the navy for floating torpedoes on hostile positions. As much as two miles of line have been paid out. For purposes of photography a small kite carrying a camera to a considerable height may be caused to float over a fort or other place of which a bird’s-eye view is required, the shutter being operated by electric wire, or slow match, or clockwork. Many successful photographs have been thus obtained in England and America.

The problem of lifting a man by means of kites instead of by a captive balloon is a still more important one. The chief military advantages to be gained are: (1) less transport is required; (2) they can be used in a strong wind; (3) they are not so liable to damage, either from the enemy’s fire or from trees, &c., and are easier to mend; (4) they can be brought into use more quickly; (5) they are very much cheaper, both in construction and in maintenance, not requiring any costly gas.

Captain B. F. S. Baden-Powell, of the Scots Guards, in June 1894 constructed, at Pirbright Camp, a huge kite 36 ft. high, with which he successfully lifted a man on different occasions. He afterwards improved the contrivance, using five or six smaller kites attached together in preference to one large one. With this arrangement he frequently ascended as high as 100 ft. The kites were hexagonal, being 12 ft. high and 12 ft. across. The apparatus, which could be packed in a few minutes into a simple roll, weighed in all about 1 cwt. This appliance was proved to be capable of raising a man even during a dead calm, the retaining line being fixed to a wagon and towed along. Lieut. H. D. Wise made some trials in America in 1897 with some large kites of the Hargrave pattern (Hargrave having previously himself ascended in Australia), and succeeded in lifting a man 40 ft. above the ground. In the Russian army a military kite apparatus has also been tried, and was in evidence at the manœuvres in 1898. Experiments have also been carried out by most of the European powers.

(B. F. S. B.-P.)

KIT-FOX (Canis [Vulpes] velox), a small fox, from north-western America, measuring less than a yard in length, with a tail of nearly a third this length. There is a good deal of variation in the colour of the fur, the prevailing tint being grey. A specimen in the Zoological Gardens of London had the back and tail dark grey, the tail tipped with black, and a rufous wash on the cheeks, shoulders, flanks and outer surface of the limbs, with the under surface white. The specific name was given on account of the extraordinary swiftness of the animal. (See [Carnivora].)

KITTO, JOHN (1804-1854), English biblical scholar, was the son of a mason at Plymouth, where he was born on the 4th of December 1804. An accident brought on deafness, and in November 1819 he was sent to the workhouse, where he was employed in making list shoes. In 1823 a fund was raised on his behalf, and he was sent to board with the clerk of the guardians, having his time at his own disposal, and the privilege of making use of a public library. After preparing a small volume of miscellanies, which was published by subscription, he studied dentistry with Anthony Norris Groves in Exeter. In 1825 he obtained congenial employment in the printing office of the Church Missionary Society at Islington, and in 1827 was transferred to the same society’s establishment at Malta. There he remained for eighteen months, but shortly after his return to England he accompanied Groves and other friends on a private missionary enterprise to Bagdad, where he obtained personal knowledge of Oriental life and habits which he afterwards applied with tact and skill in the illustration of biblical scenes and incidents. Plague broke out, the missionary establishment was broken up, and in 1832 Kitto returned to England. On arriving in London he was engaged in the preparation of various serial publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, the most important of which were the Pictorial History of Palestine and the Pictorial Bible. The Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature, edited under his superintendence, appeared in two volumes in 1843-1845 and passed through three editions. His Daily Bible Illustrations (8 vols. 1849-1853) received an appreciation which is not yet extinct. In 1850 he received an annuity of £100 from the civil list. In August 1854 he went to Germany for the waters of Cannstatt on the Neckar, where on the 25th of November he died.

See Kitto’s own work, The Lost Senses (1845); J. E. Ryland’s Memoirs of Kitto (1856); and John Eadie’s Life of Kitto (1857).

KITTUR, a village of British India, in the Belgaum district of Bombay; pop. (1901), 4922. It contains a ruined fort, formerly the residence of a Mahratta chief. In connexion with a disputed succession to this chiefship in 1824, St John Thackeray, an uncle of the novelist, was killed when approaching the fort under a flag of truce; and a nephew of Sir Thomas Munro, governor of Madras, fell subsequently when the fort was stormed.

KITZINGEN, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria on the Main, 95 m. S.E. of Frankfort-on-Main by rail, at the junction of the main-lines to Passau, Würzburg and Schweinfurt. Pop. (1900), 8489. A bridge, 300 yards long, connects it with its suburb Etwashausen on the left bank of the river. A railway bridge also spans the Main at this point. Kitzingen is still surrounded by its old walls and towers, and has an Evangelical and two Roman Catholic churches, two municipal museums, a town-hall, a grammar school, a richly endowed hospital and two old convents. Its chief industries are brewing, cask-making and the manufacture of cement and colours. Considerable trade in wine, fruit, grain and timber is carried on by boats on the Main. Kitzingen possessed a Benedictine abbey in the 8th century, and later belonged to the bishopric of Würzburg.

See F. Bernbeck, Kitzinger Chronik 745-1565 (Kitzingen, 1899).

KIU-KIANG FU, a prefecture and prefectural city in the province of Kiang-si, China. The city, which is situated on the south bank of the Yangtsze-kiang, 15 m. above the point where the Kan Kiang flows into that river from the Po-yang lake, stands in 29° 42´ N. and 116° 8´ E. The north face of the city is separated from the river by only the width of a roadway, and two large lakes lie on its west and south fronts. The walls are from 5 to 6 m. in circumference, and are more than usually strong and broad. As is generally the case with old cities in China, Kiu-Kiang has repeatedly changed its name. Under the Tsin dynasty (A.D. 265-420), it was known as Sin-Yang, under the Liang dynasty (502-557) as Kiang Chow, under the Suy dynasty (589-618) as Kiu-Kiang, under the Sung dynasty (960-1127) as Ting-Kiang, and under the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) it assumed the name it at present bears. Kiu-Kiang has played its part in the history of the empire, and has been repeatedly besieged and sometimes taken, the last time being in February 1853, when the T’ai-p’ing rebels gained possession of the city. After their manner they looted and utterly destroyed it, leaving only the remains of a single street to represent the once flourishing town. The position of Kiu-Kiang on the Yangtsze-kiang and its proximity to the channels of internal communication through the Po-yang lake, more especially to those leading to the green-tea-producing districts of the provinces of Kiang-si and Ngan-hui, induced Lord Elgin to choose it as one of the treaty ports to be opened under the terms of his treaty (1861). Unfortunately, however, it stands above instead of below the outlet of the Po-yang lake, and this has proved to be a decided drawback to its success as a commercial port. The immediate effect of opening the town to foreign trade was to raise the population in one year from 10,000 to 40,000. The population in 1908, exclusive of foreigners, was officially estimated at 36,000. The foreign settlement extends westward from the city, along the bank of the Yangtsze-kiang, and is bounded on its extreme west by the P’un river, which there runs into the Yangtsze. The bund, which is 500 yards long, was erected by the foreign community. The climate is good, and though hot in the summer months is invariably cold and bracing in the winter. According to the customs returns the value of the trade of the port amounted in 1902 to £2,854,704, and in 1904 to £3,489,816, of which £1,726,506 were imports and £1,763,310 exports. In 1904 322,266 ℔. of opium were imported.

KIUSTENDIL, the chief town of a department in Bulgaria, situated in a mountainous country, on a small affluent of the Struma, 43 m. S.W. of Sofia by rail. Pop. (1906), 12,353. The streets are narrow and uneven, and the majority of the houses are of clay or wood. The town is chiefly notable for its hot mineral springs, in connexion with which there are nine bathing establishments. Small quantities of gold and silver are obtained from mines near Kiustendil, and vines, tobacco and fruit are largely cultivated. Some remains survive of the Roman period, when the town was known as Pautalia, Ulpia Pautalia, and Pautalia Aurelii. In the 10th century it became the seat of a bishopric, being then and during the later middle ages known by the Slavonic name of Velbuzhd. After the overthrow of the Servian kingdom it came into the possession of Constantine, brother of the despot Yovan Dragash, who ruled over northern Macedonia. Constantine was expelled and killed by the Turks in 1394. In the 15th century Kiustendil was known as Velbushka Banya, and more commonly as Konstantinova Banya (Constantine’s Bath), from which has developed the Turkish name Kiustendil.

KIVU, a considerable lake lying in the Central African (or Albertine) rift-valley, about 60 m. N. of Tanganyika, into which it discharges its waters by the Rusizi River. On the north it is separated from the basin of the Nile by a line of volcanic peaks. The length of the lake is about 55 m., and its greatest breadth over 30, giving an area, including islands, of about 1100 sq. m. It is about 4830 ft. above sea-level and is roughly triangular in outline, the longest side lying to the west. The coast-line is much broken, especially on the south-east, where the indentations present a fjord-like character. The lake is deep, and the shores are everywhere high, rising in places in bold precipitous cliffs of volcanic rock. A large island, Kwijwi or Kwichwi, oblong in shape and traversed by a hilly ridge, runs in the direction of the major axis of the lake, south-west of the centre, and there are many smaller islands. The lake has many fish, but no crocodiles or hippopotami. South of Kivu the rift-valley is blocked by huge ridges, through which the Rusizi now breaks its way in a succession of steep gorges, emerging from the lake in a foaming torrent, and descending 2000 ft. to the lacustrine plain at the head of Tanganyika. The lake fauna is a typically fresh-water one, presenting no affinities with the marine or “halolimnic” fauna of Tanganyika and other Central African lakes, but is similar to that shown by fossils to have once existed in the more northern parts of the rift-valley. The former outlet or extension in this direction seems to have been blocked in recent geological times by the elevation of the volcanic peaks which dammed back the water, causing it finally to overflow to the south. This volcanic region is of great interest and has various names, that most used being Mfumbiro (q.v.), though this name is sometimes restricted to a single peak. Kivu and Mfumbiro were first heard of by J. H. Speke in 1861, but not visited by a European until 1894, when Count von Götzen passed through the country on his journey across the continent. The lake and its vicinity were subsequently explored by Dr R. Kandt, Captain Bethe, E. S. Grogan, J. E. S. Moore, and Major St Hill Gibbons. The ownership of Kivu and its neighbourhood was claimed by the Congo Free State and by Germany, the dispute being settled in 1910, after Belgium had taken over the Congo State. The frontier agreed upon was the west bank of the Rusizi, and the west shore of the lake. The island of Kwijwi also fell to Belgium.

See R. Kandt, Caput Nili (Berlin, 1904), and Karte des Kivusees, 1: 285,000, with text by A. v. Bockelmann (Berlin, 1902); E. S. Grogan and A. H. Sharpe, From the Cape to Cairo (London, 1900); J. E. S. Moore, To the Mountains of the Moon (London, 1901); A. St H. Gibbons, Africa from South to North, ii. (London, 1904).

KIWI, or Kiwi-Kiwi, the Maori name—first apparently introduced to zoological literature by Lesson in 1828 (Man. d’Ornithologie, ii. 210, or Voy. de la “Coquille,” zoologie, p. 418), and now very generally adopted in English—of one of the most characteristic forms of New Zealand birds, the Apteryx of scientific writers. This remarkable bird was unknown till George Shaw described and figured it in 1813 (Nat. Miscellany, pls. 1057, 1058) from a specimen brought to him from the southern coast of that country by Captain Barcley of the ship “Providence.” At Shaw’s death, in the same year, it passed into the possession of Lord Stanley, afterwards 13th earl of Derby, and president of the Zoological Society, and it is now with the rest of his collection in the Liverpool Museum. Considering the state of systematic ornithology at the time, Shaw’s assignment of a position to this new and strange bird, of which he had but the skin, does him great credit, for he said it seemed “to approach more nearly to the Struthious and Gallinaceous tribes than to any other.” And his credit is still greater when we find the venerable John Latham, who is said to have examined the specimen with Shaw, placing it some years later among the penguins (Gen. Hist. Birds, x. 394), being apparently led to that conclusion through its functionless wings and the backward situation of its legs. In this false allocation, James Francis Stephens also in 1826 acquiesced (Gen. Zoology, xiii. 70). Meanwhile in 1820 K. J. Temminck, who had never seen a specimen, had assorted it with the dodo in an order to which he applied the name of Inertes (Man. d’Ornithologie, i. cxiv.). In 1831 R. P. Lesson, who had previously (loc. cit.) made some blunders about it, placed it (Traité d’Ornithologie, p. 12), though only, as he says, “par analogie et a priori,” in his first division of birds, “Oiseaux Anomaux,” which is equivalent to what we now call Ratitae, making of it a separate family “Nullipennes.” At that time no second example was known, and some doubt was felt, especially on the Continent, as to the very existence of such a bird [1]—though Lesson had himself when in the Bay of Islands in April 1824 (Voy. “Coquille,” ut supra) heard of it; and a few years later J. S. C. Dumont d’Urville had seen its skin, which the naturalists of his expedition procured, worn as a tippet by a Maori chief at Tolaga Bay (Houa-houa),[2] and in 1830 gave what proves to be on the whole very accurate information concerning it (Voy. “Astrolabe,” ii. 107). To put all suspicion at rest, Lord Derby sent his unique specimen for exhibition at a meeting of the Zoological Society, on the 12th of February 1833 (Proc. Zool. Society, 1833, p. 24), and a few months later (tom. cit., p. 80) William Yarrell communicated to that body a complete description of it, which was afterwards published in full with an excellent portrait (Trans. Zool. Society, vol. i. p. 71, pl. 10). Herein the systematic place of the species, as akin to the Struthious birds, was placed beyond cavil, and the author called upon all interested in zoology to aid in further research as to this singular form. In consequence of this appeal a legless skin was within two years sent to the society (Proceedings, 1835, p. 61) obtained by W. Yate of Waimate, who said it was the second he had seen, and that he had kept the bird alive for nearly a fortnight, while in less than another couple of years additional information (op. cit., 1837, p. 24) came from T. K. Short to the effect that he had seen two living, and that all Yarrell had said was substantially correct, except underrating its progressive powers. Not long afterwards Lord Derby received and in March 1838 transmitted to the same society the trunk and viscera of an Apteryx, which, being entrusted to Sir R. Owen, furnished that eminent anatomist, in conjunction with other specimens of the same kind received from Drs Lyon and George Bennett, with the materials of the masterly monograph laid before the society in instalments, and ultimately printed in its Transactions (ii. 257; iii. 277). From this time the whole structure of the kiwi has certainly been far better known than that of nearly any other bird, and by degrees other examples found their way to England, some of which were distributed to the various museums of the Continent and of America.[3]

In 1847 much interest was excited by the reported discovery of another species of the genus (Proceedings, 1847, p. 51); and though the story was not confirmed, a second species was really soon after made known by John Gould (tom. cit., p. 93; Transactions, vol. iii, p. 379, pl. 57) under the name of Apteryx oweni—a just tribute to the great master who had so minutely explained the anatomy of the group. Three years later A. D. Bartlett drew attention to the manifest difference existing among certain examples, all of which had hitherto been regarded as specimens of A. australis, and the examination of a large series led him to conclude that under that name two distinct species were confounded. To the second of these, the third of the genus (according to his views), he gave the name of A. mantelli (Proceedings, 1850, p. 274), and it soon turned out that to this new form the majority of the specimens already obtained belonged. In 1851 the first kiwi known to have reached England alive was presented to the Zoological Society by Eyre, then lieutenant-governor of New Zealand. This was found to belong to the newly described A. mantelli, and some careful observations on its habits in captivity were published by John Wolley and another (Zoologist, pp. 3409, 3605).[4] Subsequently the society has received several other live examples of this form, besides one of the real A. australis (Proceedings, 1872, p. 861), some of A. oweni, and one of a supposed fourth species, A. haasti, characterized in 1871 by Potts (Ibis, 1872, p. 35; Trans. N. Zeal. Institute, iv. 204; v. 195).[5]

The kiwis form a group of the subclass Ratitae to which the rank of an order may fitly be assigned, as they differ in many important particulars from any of the other existing forms of Ratite birds. The most obvious feature the Apteryges afford is the presence of a back toe, while the extremely aborted condition of the wings, the position of the nostrils—almost at the tip of the maxilla—and the absence of an after-shaft in the feathers, are characters nearly as manifest, and others not less determinative, though more recondite, will be found on examination. The kiwis are peculiar to New Zealand, and it is believed that A. mantelli is the representative in the North Island of the southern A. australis, both being of a dark reddish-brown, longitudinally striped with light yellowish-brown, while A. oweni, of a light greyish-brown transversely barred with black, is said to occur in both islands. About the size of a large domestic fowl, they are birds of nocturnal habit, sleeping, or at least inactive, by day, feeding mostly on earth-worms, but occasionally swallowing berries, though in captivity they will eat flesh suitably minced. Sir Walter Buller writes (B. of New Zealand, p. 362):—

“The kiwi is in some measure compensated for the absence of wings by its swiftness of foot. When running it makes wide strides and carries the body in an oblique position, with the neck stretched to its full extent and inclined forwards. In the twilight it moves about cautiously and as noiselessly as a rat, to which, indeed, at this time it bears some outward resemblance. In a quiescent posture, the body generally assumes a perfectly rotund appearance; and it sometimes, but only rarely, supports itself by resting the point of its bill on the ground. It often yawns when disturbed in the daytime, gaping its mandibles in a very grotesque manner. When provoked it erects the body, and, raising the foot to the breast, strikes downwards with considerable force and rapidity, thus using its sharp and powerful claws as weapons of defence.... While hunting for its food the bird makes a continual sniffing sound through the nostrils, which are placed at the extremity of the upper mandible. Whether it is guided as much by touch as by smell I cannot safely say; but it appears to me that both senses are used in the action. That the sense of touch is highly developed seems quite certain, because the bird, although it may not be audibly sniffing, will always first touch an object with the point of its bill, whether in the act of feeding or of surveying the ground; and when shut up in a cage or confined in a room it may be heard, all through the night, tapping softly at the walls.... It is interesting to watch the bird, in a state of freedom, foraging for worms, which constitute its principal food: it moves about with a slow action of the body; and the long, flexible bill is driven into the soft ground, generally home to the very root, and is either immediately withdrawn with a worm held at the extreme tip of the mandibles, or it is gently moved to and fro, by an action of the head and neck, the body of the bird being perfectly steady. It is amusing to observe the extreme care and deliberation with which the bird draws the worm from its hiding-place, coaxing it out as it were by degrees, instead of pulling roughly or breaking it. On getting the worm fairly out of the ground, it throws up its head with a jerk, and swallows it whole.”

The foregoing extract refers to A. mantelli, but there is little doubt of the remarks being equally applicable to A. australis, and probably also to A. oweni, though the different proportion of the bill in the last points to some diversity in the mode of feeding.

(A. N.)

[1] Cuvier in the second edition of his Règne Animal only referred to it in a footnote (i. 498).

[2] Cruise in 1822 (Journ. Residence in New Zealand, p. 313) had spoken of an “emeu” found in that island, which must of course have been an Apteryx.

[3] In 1842, according to Broderip (Penny Cyclopaedia, xxiii. 146), two had been presented to the Zoological Society by the New Zealand Company, and two more obtained by Lord Derby, one of which he had given to Gould. In 1844 the British Museum possessed three, and the sale catalogue of the Rivoli Collection, which passed in 1846 to the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, includes a single specimen—probably the first taken to America.

[4] This bird in 1859 laid an egg, and afterwards continued to lay one or two more every year. In 1865 a male of the same species was introduced, but though a strong disposition to breed was shown on the part of both, and the eggs, after the custom of the Ratitae, were incubated by him, no progeny was hatched (Proceedings, 1868, p. 329).

[5] A fine series of figures of all these supposed species is given by Rowley (Orn. Miscellany, vol. i. pls. 1-6). Some others, as A. maxima, A. mollis, and A. fusca have also been indicated, but proof of their validity has yet to be adduced.

KIZILBASHES (Turkish, “Red-Heads”), the nickname given by the Orthodox Turks to the Shiitic Turkish immigrants from Persia, who are found chiefly in the plains from Kara-Hissar along Tokat and Amasia to Angora. During the wars with Persia the Turkish sultans settled them in these districts. They are strictly speaking persianized Turks, and speak pure Persian. There are many Kizilbashes in Afghanistan. Their immigration dates only from the time of Nadir Shah (1737). They are an industrious honest folk, chiefly engaged in trade and as physicians, scribes, and so on. They form the bulk of the amir’s cavalry. Their name seems to have been first used in Persia of the Shiites in allusion to their red caps.

See Ernest Chantre, Recherches anthropologiques dans l’Asie occidentale (Lyons, 1895).

KIZIL IRMAK, i.e. “Red River” (anc. Halys), the largest river in Asia Minor, rising in the Kizil Dagh at an altitude of 6500 ft., and running south-west past Zara to Sivas. Below Sivas it flows south to the latitude of Kaisarieh, and then curves gradually round to the north. Finally, after a course of about 600 m., it discharges its waters into the Black Sea between Sinope and Samsun, where it forms a large delta. The only important tributaries are the Delije Irmak on the right and the Geuk Irmak on the left bank.

KIZLYAR (Kizliar, or Kizlar), a town of Russia, in Caucasia, in the province of Terek, 120 m. N.E. of Vladikavkaz, in the low-lying delta of the river Terek, about 35 m. from the Caspian. The population decreased from 8309 in 1861 to 7353 in 1897. The town lies to the left of the main stream between two of the larger secondary branches, and is subject to flooding. The town proper, which spreads out round the citadel, has Tatar, Georgian and Armenian quarters. The public buildings include the Greek cathedral, dating from 1786; a Greek nunnery, founded by the Georgian chief Daniel in 1736; the Armenian church of SS Peter and Paul, remarkable for its size and wealth. The population is mainly supported by the gardens and vineyards irrigated by canals from the river. A government vineyard and school of viticulture are situated 3½ m. from the town. About 1,200,000 gallons of Kizlyar wine are sold annually at the fair of Nizhniy-Novgorod. Silk and cotton are woven. Kizlyar is mentioned as early as 1616, but the most notable accession of inhabitants (Armenians, Georgians and Persians) took place in 1715. Its importance as a fortress dates from 1736, but the fortress is no longer kept in repair.

KIZYL-KUM, a desert of Western Asia, stretching S.E. of the Aral Lake between the river Syr-darya on the N.E. and the river Amu-darya on the S.W. It measures some 370 by 220 m., and is in part covered with drift-sand or dunes, many of which are advancing slowly but steadily towards the S.W. In character they resemble those of the neighbouring Kara-kum desert (see [Kara-kum]). On the whole the Kizyl-kum slopes S.W. towards the Aral Lake, where its altitude is only about 160 ft. as compared with 2000 in the S.E. In the vicinity of that lake the surface is covered with Aralo-Caspian deposits; but in the S.E., as it ascends towards the foothills of the Tian-shan system, it is braided with deep accumulations of fertile loess.

KJERULF, HALFDAN (1815-1868), Norwegian musical composer, the son of a high government official, was born at Christiania on the 15th of September 1815. His early education was at Christiania University, for a legal career, and not till he was nearly 26—on the death of his father—was he able to devote himself entirely to music. As a fact, he actually started on his career as a music teacher and composer of songs before ever having seriously studied music at all, and not for ten years did he attract any particular notice. Then, however, his Government paid for a year’s instruction for him at Leipzig. For many years after his return to Norway Kjerulf tried in vain to establish serial classical concerts, while he himself was working with Björnson and other writers at the composition of lyrical songs. His fame rests almost entirely on his beautiful and manly national part-songs and solos; but his pianoforte music is equally charming and simple. Kjerulf died at Grefsen, on the 11th of August 1868.

KJERULF, THEODOR (1825-1888), Norwegian geologist, was born at Christiania on the 30th of March 1825. He was educated in the university at Christiania, and subsequently studied at Heidelberg, working in Bunsen’s laboratory. In 1858 he became professor of geology in the university of his native city, and he was afterwards placed in charge of the geological survey of the country, then established mainly through his influence. His contributions to the geology of Norway were numerous and important, especially in reference to the southern portion of the country, and to the structure and relations of the Archaean and Palaeozoic rocks, and the glacial phenomena. His principal results were embodied in his work Udsigt over det sydlige Norges Geologi (1879). He was author also of some poetical works. He died at Christiania on the 25th of October 1888.

KLADNO, a mining town of Bohemia, Austria, 18 m. W.N.W. of Prague by rail. Pop. (1900), 18,600, mostly Czech. It is situated in a region very rich in iron-mines and coal-fields and possesses some of the largest iron and steel works in Bohemia. Near it is the mining town of Buschtĕhrad (pop. 3510), situated in the centre of very extensive coal-fields. Buschtĕhrad was originally the name of the castle only. This was from the 15th century to 1630 the property of the lords of Kolovrat, and came by devious inheritance through the grand-dukes of Tuscany, to the emperor Francis Joseph. The name Buschtĕhrad was first given to the railway, and then to the town, which had been called Buckow since its foundation in 1700. There is another castle of Buschtĕhrad near Hořic. Kladno, which for centuries had been a village of no importance, was sold in 1705 by the grand-duchess Anna Maria of Tuscany to the cloister in Břewnow, to which it still belongs. The mining industry began in 1842.

KLAFSKY, KATHARINA (1855-1896), Hungarian operatic singer, was born at Szt János, Wieselburg, of humble parents. Being employed at Vienna as a nurserymaid, her fine soprano voice led to her being engaged as a chorus singer, and she was given good lessons in music. By 1882 she became well-known in Wagnerian rôles at the Leipzig theatre, and she increased her reputation at other German musical centres. In 1892 she appeared in London, and had a great success in Wagner’s operas, notably as Brünnhilde and as Isolde, her dramatic as well as vocal gifts being of an exceptional order. She sang in America in 1895, but died of brain disease in 1896.

A Life, by L. Ordemann, was published in 1903 (Leipzig).

KLAGENFURT (Slovene, Celovec), the capital of the Austrian duchy of Carinthia, 212 m. S.W. of Vienna by rail. Pop. (1900), 24,314. It is picturesquely situated on the river Glan, which is in communication with the Wörther-see by the 3 m. long Lend canal. Among the more noteworthy buildings are the parish church of St Ægidius (1709), with a tower 298 ft. in height; the cathedral of SS Peter and Paul (1582-1593, burnt 1723, restored 1725); the churches of the Benedictines (1613), of the Capuchins (1646), and of the order of St Elizabeth (1710). To these must be added the palace of the prince-bishop of Gurk, the burg or castle, existing in its present form since 1777; and the Landhaus or house of assembly, dating from the end of the 14th century, and containing a museum of natural history, and collection of minerals, antiquities, seals, paintings and sculptures. The most interesting public monument is the great Lindwurm or Dragon, standing in the principal square (1590). The industrial establishments comprise white lead factories, machine and iron foundries, and commerce is active, especially in the mineral products of the region.

Upon the Zollfeld to the north of the city once stood the ancient Roman town of Virunum. During the Middle Ages Klagenfurt became the property of the crown, but by a patent of Maximilian I. of the 24th of April 1518, it was conceded to the Carinthian estates, and has since then taken the place of St Veit as capital of Carinthia. In 1535, 1636, 1723 and 1796 Klagenfurt suffered from destructive fires, and in 1690 from the effects of an earthquake. On the 29th of March 1797 the French took the city, and upon the following day it was occupied by Napoleon as his headquarters.

KLAJ (latinized Clajus), JOHANN (1616-1656), German poet, was born at Meissen in Saxony. After studying theology at Wittenberg he went to Nuremberg as a “candidate for holy orders,” and there, in conjunction with Georg Philipp Harsdörffer, founded in 1644 the literary society known as the Pegnitz order. In 1647 he received an appointment as master in the Sebaldus school in Nuremberg, and in 1650 became preacher at Kitzingen, where he died in 1656. Klaj’s poems consist of dramas, written in stilted language and redundant with adventures, among which are Höllen- und Himmelfahrt Christi (Nuremberg, 1644), and Herodes, der Kindermörder (Nuremberg, 1645), and a poem, written jointly with Harsdörffer, Pegnesische Schäfergedicht (1644), which gives in allegorical form the story of his settlement in Nuremberg.

See Tittmann, Die Nürnberger Dichterschule (Göttingen, 1847).

KLAMATH, a small tribe of North American Indians of Lutuamian stock. They ranged around the Klamath river and lakes, and are now on the Klamath reservation, southern Oregon.

See A. S. Gatschet, “Klamath Indians of Oregon,” Contributions to North American Ethnology, vol. ii. (Washington, 1890).

KLAPKA, GEORG (1820-1892), Hungarian soldier, was born at Temesvár on the 7th of April 1820, and entered the Austrian army in 1838. He was still a subaltern when the Hungarian revolution of 1848 broke out, and he offered his services to the patriot party. He served in important staff appointments during the earlier part of the war which followed; then, early in 1849, he was ordered to replace General Mészáros, who had been defeated at Kaschau, and as general commanding an army corps he had a conspicuous share in the victories of Kapólna, Isaszeg, Waitzen, Nagy Sarlo and Komárom. Then, as the fortune of war turned against the Hungarians, Klapka, after serving for a short time as minister of war, took command at Komárom, from which fortress he conducted a number of successful expeditions until the capitulation of Világos in August put an end to the war in the open field. He then brilliantly defended Komárom for two months, and finally surrendered on honourable terms. Klapka left the country at once, and lived thenceforward for many years in exile, at first in England and afterwards chiefly in Switzerland. He continued by every means in his power to work for the independence of Hungary, especially at moments of European war, such as 1854, 1859 and 1866, at which an appeal to arms seemed to him to promise success. After the war of 1866 (in which as a Prussian major-general he organized a Hungarian corps in Silesia) Klapka was permitted by the Austrian government to return to his native country, and in 1867 was elected a member of the Hungarian Chamber of Deputies, in which he belonged to the Deák party. In 1877 he made an attempt to reorganize the Turkish army in view of the war with Russia. General Klapka died at Budapest on the 17th of May 1892. A memorial was erected to his memory at Komárom in 1896.

He wrote Memoiren (Leipzig, 1850); Der Nationalkrieg in Ungarn, &c. (Leipzig, 1851); a history of the Crimean War, Der Krieg im Orient ... bis Ende Juli 1855 (Geneva, 1855); and Aus meinen Erinnerungen (translated from the Hungarian, Zürich, 1887).

KLAPROTH, HEINRICH JULIUS (1783-1835), German Orientalist and traveller, was born in Berlin on the 11th of October 1783, the son of the chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth (q.v.). He devoted his energies in quite early life to the study of Asiatic languages, and published in 1802 his Asiatisches Magazin (Weimar, 1802-1803). He was in consequence called to St Petersburg and given an appointment in the academy there. In 1805 he was a member of Count Golovkin’s embassy to China. On his return he was despatched by the academy to the Caucasus on an ethnographical and linguistic exploration (1807-1808), and was afterwards employed for several years in connexion with the academy’s Oriental publications. In 1812 he moved to Berlin; but in 1815 he settled in Paris, and in 1816 Humboldt procured him from the king of Prussia the title and salary of professor of Asiatic languages and literature, with permission to remain in Paris as long as was requisite for the publication of his works. He died in that city on the 28th of August 1835.

The principal feature of Klaproth’s erudition was the vastness of the field which it embraced. His great work Asia polyglotta (Paris, 1823 and 1831, with Sprachatlas) not only served as a résumé of all that was known on the subject, but formed a new departure for the classification of the Eastern languages, more especially those of the Russian Empire. To a great extent, however, his work is now superseded. The Itinerary of a Chinese Traveller (1821), a series of documents in the military archives of St Petersburg purporting to be the travels of George Ludwig von ——, and a similar series obtained from him in the London foreign office, are all regarded as spurious.

Klaproth’s other works include: Reise in den Kaukasus und Georgien in den Jahren 1807 und 1808 (Halle, 1812-1814; French translation, Paris, 1823); Geographisch-historische Beschreibung des östlichen Kaukasus (Weimar, 1814); Tableaux historiques de l’Asie (Paris, 1826); Mémoires relatifs à l’Asie (Paris, 1824-1828); Tableau historique, geographique, ethnographique et politique de Caucase (Paris, 1827); and Vocabulaire et grammaire de la langue géorgienne (Paris, 1827).

KLAPROTH, MARTIN HEINRICH (1743-1817), German chemist, was born at Wernigerode on the 1st of December 1743. During a large portion of his life he followed the profession of an apothecary. After acting as assistant in pharmacies at Quedlinburg, Hanover, Berlin and Danzig successively he came to Berlin on the death of Valentin Rose the elder in 1771 as manager of his business, and in 1780 he started an establishment on his own account in the same city, where from 1782 he was pharmaceutical assessor of the Ober-Collegium Medicum. In 1787 he was appointed lecturer in chemistry to the Royal Artillery, and when the university was founded in 1810 he was selected to be the professor of chemistry. He died in Berlin on the 1st of January 1817. Klaproth was the leading chemist of his time in Germany. An exact and conscientious worker, he did much to improve and systematize the processes of analytical chemistry and mineralogy, and his appreciation of the value of quantitative methods led him to become one of the earliest adherents of the Lavoisierian doctrines outside France. He was the first to discover uranium, zirconium and titanium, and to characterize them as distinct elements, though he did not obtain any of them in the pure metallic state; and he elucidated the composition of numerous substances till then imperfectly known, including compounds of the then newly recognized elements: tellurium, strontium, cerium and chromium.

His papers, over 200 in number, were collected by himself in Beiträge zur chemischen Kenntniss der Mineralkörper (5 vols., 1795-1810) and Chemische Abhandlungen gemischten Inhalts (1815). He also published a Chemisches Wörterbuch (1807-1810), and edited a revised edition of F. A. C. Gren’s Handbuch der Chemie (1806).

KLÉBER, JEAN BAPTISTE (1753-1800), French general, was born on the 9th of March 1753, at Strassburg, where his father was a builder. He was trained, partly at Paris, for the profession of architect, but his opportune assistance to two German nobles in a tavern brawl obtained for him a nomination to the military school of Munich. Thence he obtained a commission in the Austrian army, but resigned it in 1783 on finding his humble birth in the way of his promotion. On returning to France he was appointed inspector of public buildings at Belfort, where he studied fortification and military science. In 1792 he enlisted in the Haut-Rhin volunteers, and was from his military knowledge at once elected adjutant and soon afterwards lieutenant-colonel. At the defence of Mainz he so distinguished himself that though disgraced along with the rest of the garrison and imprisoned, he was promptly reinstated, and in August 1793 promoted general of brigade. He won considerable distinction in the Vendéan war, and two months later was made a general of division. In these operations began his intimacy with Marceau, with whom he defeated the Royalists at Le Mans and Savenay. For openly expressing his opinion that lenient measures ought to be pursued towards the Vendéans he was recalled; but in April 1794 he was once more reinstated and sent to the Army of the Sambre-and-Meuse. He displayed his skill and bravery in the numerous actions around Charleroi, and especially in the crowning victory of Fleurus, after which in the winter of 1794-95 he besieged Mainz. In 1795 and again in 1796 he held the chief command of an army temporarily, but declined a permanent appointment as commander-in-chief. On the 13th of October 1795 he fought a brilliant rearguard action at the bridge of Neuwied, and in the offensive campaign of 1796 he was Jourdan’s most active and successful lieutenant. Having, after the retreat to the Rhine (see [French Revolutionary Wars]), declined the chief command, he withdrew into private life early in 1798. He accepted a division in the expedition to Egypt under Bonaparte, but was wounded in the head at Alexandria in the first engagement, which prevented his taking any further part in the campaign of the Pyramids, and caused him to be appointed governor of Alexandria. In the Syrian campaign of 1799, however, he commanded the vanguard, took El-Arish, Gaza and Jaffa, and won the great victory of Mount Tabor on the 15th of April 1799. When Napoleon returned to France towards the end of 1799 he left Kléber in command of the French forces. In this capacity, seeing no hope of bringing his army back to France or of consolidating his conquests, he made the convention of El-Arish. But when Lord Keith, the British admiral, refused to ratify the terms, he attacked the Turks at Heliopolis, though with but 10,000 men against 60,000, and utterly defeated them on the 20th of March 1800. He then retook Cairo, which had revolted from the French. Shortly after these victories he was assassinated at Cairo by a fanatic on the 14th of June 1800, the same day on which his friend and comrade Desaix fell at Marengo. Kléber was undoubtedly one of the greatest generals of the French revolutionary epoch. Though he distrusted his powers and declined the responsibility of supreme command, there is nothing in his career to show that he would have been unequal to it. As a second in command he was not excelled by any general of his time. His conduct of affairs in Egypt at a time when the treasury was empty and the troops were discontented for want of pay, shows that his powers as an administrator were little—if at all—inferior to those he possessed as a general.

Ernouf, the grandson of Jourdan’s chief of staff, published in 1867 a valuable biography of Kléber. See also Reynaud, Life of Merlin de Thionville; Ney, Memoirs; Dumas, Souvenirs; Las Casas, Memorial de Ste Hélène; J. Charavaray, Les Généraux morts pour la patrie; General Pajol, Kléber; lives of Marceau and Desaix; M. F. Rousseau, Kléber et Menou en Egypte (Paris, 1900).

KLEIN, JULIUS LEOPOLD (1810-1876), German writer of Jewish origin, was born at Miskolcz, in Hungary. He was educated at the gymnasium in Pest, and studied medicine in Vienna and Berlin. After travelling in Italy and Greece, he settled as a man of letters in Berlin, where he remained until his death on the 2nd of August 1876. He was the author of many dramatic works, among others the historical tragedies Maria von Medici (1841); Luines (1842); Zenobia (1847); Moreto (1859); Maria (1860); Strafford (1862) and Heliodora (1867); and the comedies Die Herzogin (1848); Ein Schützling (1850); and Voltaire (1862). The tendency of Klein as a dramatist was to become bombastic and obscure, but many of his characters are vigorously conceived, and in nearly all his tragedies there are passages of brilliant rhetoric. He is chiefly known as the author of the elaborate though uncompleted Geschichte des Dramas (1865-1876), in which he undertook to record the history of the drama from the earliest times. He died when about to enter upon the Elizabethan period, to the treatment of which he had looked forward as the chief part of his task. The work, which is in thirteen bulky volumes, gives proof of immense learning, but is marred by eccentricities of style and judgment.

Klein’s Dramatische Werke were collected in 7 vols. (1871-1872).

KLEIST, BERND HEINRICH WILHELM VON (1777-1811), German poet, dramatist and novelist, was born at Frankfort-on-Oder on the 18th of October 1777. After a scanty education, he entered the Prussian army in 1792, served in the Rhine campaign of 1796 and retired from the service in 1799 with the rank of lieutenant. He next studied law and philosophy at the university of Frankfort-on-Oder, and in 1800 received a subordinate post in the ministry of finance at Berlin. In the following year his roving, restless spirit got the better of him, and procuring a lengthened leave of absence he visited Paris and then settled in Switzerland. Here he found congenial friends in Heinrich Zschokke (q.v.) and Ludwig Friedrich August Wieland (1777-1819), son of the poet; and to them he read his first drama, a gloomy tragedy, Die Familie Schroffenstein (1803), originally entitled Die Familie Ghonorez. In the autumn of 1802 Kleist returned to Germany; he visited Goethe, Schiller and Wieland in Weimar, stayed for a while in Leipzig and Dresden, again proceeded to Paris, and returning in 1804 to his post in Berlin was transferred to the Domänenkammer (department for the administration of crown lands) at Königsberg. On a journey to Dresden in 1807 Kleist was arrested by the French as a spy, and being sent to France was kept for six months a close prisoner at Châlons-sur-Marne. On regaining his liberty he proceeded to Dresden, where in conjunction with Adam Heinrich Müller (1779-1829) he published in 1808 the journal Phöbus. In 1809 he went to Prague, and ultimately settled in Berlin, where he edited (1810-1811) the Berliner Abendblätter. Captivated by the intellectual and musical accomplishments of a certain Frau Henriette Vogel, Kleist, who was himself more disheartened and embittered than ever, agreed to do her bidding and die with her, carrying out this resolution by first shooting the lady and then himself on the shore of the Wannsee near Potsdam, on the 21st of November 1811. Kleist’s whole life was filled by a restless striving after ideal and illusory happiness, and this is largely reflected in his work. He was by far the most important North German dramatist of the Romantic movement, and no other of the Romanticists approaches him in the energy with which he expresses patriotic indignation.

His first tragedy, Die Familie Schroffenstein, has been already referred to; the material for the second, Penthesilea (1808), queen of the Amazons, is taken from a Greek source and presents a picture of wild passion. More successful than either of these was his romantic play, Das Käthchen von Heilbronn, oder Die Feuerprobe (1808), a poetic drama full of medieval bustle and mystery, which has retained its popularity. In comedy, Kleist made a name with Der zerbrochene Krug (1811), while Amphitryon (1808), an adaptation of Molière’s comedy, is of less importance. Of Kleist’s other dramas, Die Hermannschlacht (1809) is a dramatic treatment of an historical subject and is full of references to the political conditions of his own times. In it he gives vent to his hatred of his country’s oppressors. This, together with the drama Prinz Friedrich von Homburg, the latter accounted Kleist’s best work, was first published by Ludwig Tieck in Kleists hinterlassene Schriften (1821). Robert Guiskard, a drama conceived on a grand plan, was left a fragment. Kleist was also a master in the art of narrative, and of his Gesammelte Erzählungen (1810-1811), Michael Kohlhaas, in which the famous Brandenburg horse dealer in Luther’s day (see [Kohlhase]) is immortalized, is one of the best German stories of its time. He also wrote some patriotic lyrics. His Gesammelte Schriften were published by Ludwig Tieck (3 vols. 1826) and by Julian Schmidt (new ed. 1874); also by F. Muncker (4 vols. 1882); by T. Zolling (4 vols. 1885); by K. Siegen, (4 vols. 1895); and in a critical edition by E. Schmidt (5 vols. 1904-1905). His Ausgewählte Dramen were published by K. Siegen (Leipzig, 1877); and his letters were first published by E. von Bülow, Heinrich von Kleists Leben und Briefe (1848).

See further A. Wilbrandt, Heinrich von Kleist (1863); O. Brahm, Heinrich von Kleist (1884); R. Bonafous, Henri de Kleist, sa vie et ses œuvres (1894); H. Conrad, Heinrich von Kleist als Mensch und Dichter (1896); G. Minde-Pouet, Heinrich von Kleist, seine Sprache und sein Stil (1897); R. Steig, Heinrich von Kleists Berliner Kämpfe (1901); F. Servaes, Heinrich von Kleist (1902); S. Wukadinowic, Kleist-Studien (1904); S. Rahmer, H. von Kleist als Mensch und Dichter (1909).

KLEIST, EWALD CHRISTIAN VON (1715-1759), German poet, was born at Zeblin, near Köslin in Pomerania, on the 7th of March 1715. After attending the Jesuit school in Deutschkrona and the gymnasium in Danzig, he proceeded in 1731 to the university of Königsberg, where he studied law and mathematics. On the completion of his studies, he entered the Danish army, in which he became an officer in 1736. Recalled to Prussia by Frederick II. in 1740, he was appointed lieutenant in a regiment stationed at Potsdam, where he became acquainted with J. W. L. Gleim (q.v.), who interested him in poetry. After distinguishing himself at the battle of Mollwitz (April 10, 1741) and the siege of Neisse (1741), he was promoted captain in 1749 and major in 1756. Quartered during the winter of 1757-1758 in Leipzig, he found relief from his irksome military duties in the society of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (q.v.). Shortly afterwards in the battle of Kunersdorf, on the 12th of August 1759, he was mortally wounded while leading the attack, and died at Frankfort-on-Oder on the 24th of August following.

Kleist’s chief work is a poem in hexameters, Der Frühling (1749), for which Thomson’s Seasons largely supplied ideas. In his description of the beauties of nature Kleist shows real poetical genius, an almost modern sentiment and fine taste. He also wrote some charming odes, idylls and elegies, and a small epic poem Cissides und Paches (1759), the subject being two Thessalian friends who die an heroic death for their country in a battle against the Athenians.

Kleist published in 1756 the first collection of his Gedichte, which was followed by a second in 1758. After his death his friend Karl Wilhelm Ramler (q.v.) published an edition of Kleists sämtliche Werke in 2 vols. (1760). A critical edition was published by A. Sauer, in 3 vols. (1880-1882). Cf. further, A. Chuquet, De Ewaldi Kleistii vita et scriptis (Paris, 1887), and H. Pröhle, Friedrich der Grosse und die deutsche Literatur (1872).

KLERKSDORP, a town of the Transvaal, 118 m. S.W. of Johannesburg and 192 m. N.E. of Kimberley by rail. Pop. (1904), 4276 of whom 2203 were whites. The town, built on the banks of the Schoonspruit 10 m. above its junction with the Vaal, possesses several fine public buildings. In the neighbourhood are gold-mines, the reef appearing to form the western boundary of the Witwatersrand basin. Diamonds (green in colour) and coal are also found in the district. Klerksdorp was one of the villages founded by the first Boers who crossed the Vaal, dating from 1838. The modern town, which is on the side of the spruit opposite the old village, was founded in 1888.

KLESL (or Khlesl), MELCHIOR (1552-1630), Austrian statesman and ecclesiastic, was the son of a Protestant baker, and was born in Vienna. Under the influence of the Jesuits he was converted to Roman Catholicism, and having finished his education at the universities of Vienna and Ingolstadt, he was made chancellor of the university of Vienna; and as official and vicar-general of the bishop of Passau he exhibited the zeal of a convert in forwarding the progress of the counter-reformation in Austria. He became bishop of Vienna in 1598; but more important was his association with the archduke Matthias which began about the same time. Both before and after 1612, when Matthias succeeded his brother Rudolph II. as emperor, Klesl was the originator and director of his policy, although he stoutly opposed the concessions to the Hungarian Protestants in 1606. He assisted to secure the election of Matthias to the imperial throne, and sought, but without success, to strengthen the new emperor’s position by making peace between the Catholics and the Protestants. When during the short reign of Matthias the question of the imperial succession demanded prompt attention, the bishop, although quite as anxious as his opponents to retain the empire in the house of Habsburg and to preserve the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church, advised that this question should be shelved until some arrangement with the Protestant princes had been reached. This counsel was displeasing to the archduke Maximilian and to Ferdinand, afterwards the emperor Ferdinand II. who believed that Klesl was hostile to the candidature of the latter prince. It was, however, impossible to shake his influence with the emperor; and in June 1618, a few months before the death of Matthias, he was seized by order of the archdukes and imprisoned at Ambras in Tirol. In 1622 Klesl, who had been a cardinal since 1615, was transferred to Rome by order of Pope Gregory XV., and was released from imprisonment. In 1627 Ferdinand II. allowed him to return to his episcopal duties in Vienna, where he died on the 18th of September 1630.

See J. Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall, Khlesls Leben (Vienna, 1847-1851); A. Kerschbaumer, Kardinal Klesl (Vienna, 1865); and Klesls Briefe an Rudolfs II. Obersthofmeister A. Freiherr von Dietrichstein, edited by V. Bibl. (Vienna, 1900).

KLINGER, FRIEDRICH MAXIMILIAN VON (1752-1831), German dramatist and novelist, was born of humble parentage at Frankfort-on-Main, on the 17th of February 1752. His father died when he was a child, and his early years were a hard struggle. He was enabled, however, in 1774 to enter the university of Giessen, where he studied law; and Goethe, with whom he had been acquainted since childhood, helped him in many ways. In 1775 Klinger gained with his tragedy Die Zwillinge a prize offered by the Hamburg theatre, under the auspices of the actress Sophie Charlotte Ackermann (1714-1792) and her son the famous actor and playwright, Friedrich Ludwig Schröder (1744-1816). In 1776 Klinger was appointed Theaterdichter to the “Seylersche Schauspiel-Gesellschaft” and held this post for two years. In 1778 he entered the Austrian military service and took part in the Bavarian war of succession. In 1780 he went to St Petersburg, became an officer in the Russian army, was ennobled and attached to the Grand Duke Paul, whom he accompanied on a journey to Italy and France. In 1785 he was appointed director of the corps of cadets, and having married a natural daughter of the empress Catharine, was made praeses of the Academy of Knights in 1799. In 1803 Klinger was nominated by the emperor Alexander curator of the university of Dorpat, an office he held until 1817; in 1811 he became lieutenant-general. He then gradually gave up his official posts, and after living for many years in honourable retirement, died at Dorpat on the 25th of February 1831.

Klinger was a man of vigorous moral character and full of fine feeling, though the bitter experiences and deprivations of his youth are largely reflected in his dramas. It was one of his earliest works, Sturm und Drang (1776), which gave its name to this literary epoch. In addition to this tragedy and Die Zwillinge (1776), the chief plays of his early period of passionate fervour and restless “storm and stress” are Die neue Arria (1776), Simsone Grisaldo (1776) and Stilpo und seine Kinder (1780). To a later period belongs the fine double tragedy of Medea in Korinth and Medea auf dem Kaukasos (1791). In Russia he devoted himself mainly to the writing of philosophical romances, of which the best known are Fausts Leben, Taten und Höllenfahrt (1791), Geschichte Giafars des Barmeciden (1792) and Geschichte Raphaels de Aquillas (1793). This series was closed in 1803 with Betrachtungen und Gedanken über verschiedene Gegenstände der Welt und der Literatur. In these works Klinger gives calm and dignified expression to the leading ideas which the period of Sturm und Drang had bequeathed to German classical literature.

Klinger’s works were published in twelve volumes (1809-1815), also 1832-1833 and 1842. The most recent edition is in eight volumes (1878-1880); but none of these is complete. A selection will be found in A. Sauer, Stürmer und Dränger, vol. i. (1883). See E. Schmidt, Lenz und Klinger (1878); M. Rieger, Klinger in der Sturm- und Drangperiode (1880); and Klinger in seiner Reife (1896).

KLINGER, MAX (1857-  ), German painter, etcher and sculptor, was born at Plagwitz near Leipzig. He attended the classes at the Carlsruhe art school in 1874, and went in the following year to Berlin, where in 1878 he created a sensation at the Academy exhibition with two series of pen-and-ink drawings—the “Series upon the Theme of Christ” and “Fantasies upon the Finding of a Glove.” The daring originality of these imaginative and eccentric works caused an outburst of indignation, and the artist was voted insane; nevertheless the “Glove” series was bought by the Berlin National Gallery. His painting of “The Judgment of Paris” caused a similar storm of indignant protest in 1887, owing to its rejection of all conventional attributes and the naïve directness of the conception. His vivid and somewhat morbid imagination, with its leaning towards the gruesome and disagreeable, and the Goyaesque turn of his mind, found their best expression in his “cycles” of etchings: “Deliverances of Sacrificial Victims told in Ovid,” “A Brahms Phantasy,” “Eve and the Future,” “A Life,” and “Of Death”; but in his use of the needle he does not aim at the technical excellence of the great masters; it supplies him merely with means of expressing his ideas. After 1886 Klinger devoted himself more exclusively to painting and sculpture. In his painting he aims neither at classic beauty nor modern truth, but at grim impressiveness not without a touch of mysticism. His “Pietà” at the Dresden Gallery, the frescoes at the Leipzig University, and the “Christ in Olympus,” at the Modern Gallery in Vienna, are characteristic examples of his art. The Leipzig Museum contains his sculptured “Salome” and “Cassandra.” In sculpture he favours the use of varicoloured materials in the manner of the Greek chryselephantine sculpture. His “Beethoven” is a notable instance of his work in this direction.

KLIPSPRINGER, the Boer name of a small African mountain-antelope (Oreotragus saltator), ranging from the Cape through East Africa to Somaliland and Abyssinia, and characterized by its blunt rounded hoofs, thick pithy hair and gold-spangled colouring. The klipspringer represents a genus by itself, the various local forms not being worthy of more than racial distinction. The activity of these antelopes is marvellous.

KLONDIKE, a district in Yukon Territory, north-western Canada, approximately in 64° N. and 140° W. The limits are rather indefinite, but the district includes the country to the south of the Klondike River, which comes into the Yukon from the east and has several tributaries, as well as Indian River, a second branch of the Yukon, flowing into it some distance above the Klondike. The richer gold-bearing gravels are found along the creeks tributary to these two rivers within an area of about 800 sq. m. The Klondike district is a dissected peneplain with low ridges of rounded forms rising to 4250 ft. above the sea at the Dome which forms its centre. All of the gold-bearing creeks rise not far from the Dome and radiate in various directions toward the Klondike and Indian rivers, the most productive being Bonanza with its tributary Eldorado, Hunker, Dominion and Gold Run. Of these, Eldorado, for the two or three miles in which it was gold-bearing, was much the richest, and for its length probably surpassed any other known placer deposit. Rich gravel was discovered on Bonanza Creek in 1896, and a wild rush to this almost inaccessible region followed, a population of 30,000 coming in within the next three or four years with a rapidly increasing output of gold, reaching in 1900 the climax of $22,000,000. Since then the production has steadily declined, until in 1906 it fell to $5,600,000. The richest gravels were worked out before 1910, and most of the population had left the Klondike for Alaska and other regions; so that Dawson, which for a time was a bustling city of more than 10,000, dwindled to about 3000 inhabitants. As the ground was almost all frozen, the mines were worked by a thawing process, first by setting fires, afterwards by using steam, new methods being introduced to meet the unusual conditions. Later dredges and hydraulic mining were resorted to with success.

The Klondike, in spite of its isolated position, brought together miners and adventurers from all parts of the world, and it is greatly to the credit of the Canadian government and of the mounted police, who were entrusted with the keeping of order, that life and property were as safe as elsewhere and that no lawless methods were adopted by the miners as in placer mining camps in the western United States. The region was at first difficult of access, but can now be reached with perfect comfort in summer, travelling by well-appointed steamers on the Pacific and the Yukon River. Owing to its perpetually frozen soil, summer roads were excessively bad in earlier days, but good wagon roads have since been constructed to all the important mining centres. Dawson itself has all the resources of a civilized city in spite of being founded on a frozen peat-bog; and is supplied with ordinary market vegetables from farms just across the river. During the winter, when for some time the sun does not appear above the hills, the cold is intense, though usually without wind, but the well-chinked log houses can be kept comfortably warm. When winter travel is necessary dog teams and sledges are generally made use of, except on the stage route south to White Horse, where horses are used. A telegraph line connects Dawson with British Columbia, but the difficulties in keeping it in order are so great over the long intervening wilderness that communication is often broken. Gold is practically the only economic product of the Klondike, though small amounts of tin ore occur, and lignite coal has been mined lower down on the Yukon. The source of the gold seems to have been small stringers of quartz in the siliceous and sericitic schists which form the bed rock of much of the region, and no important quartz veins have been discovered; so that unlike most other placer regions the Klondike has not developed lode mines to continue the production of gold when the gravels are exhausted.

KLOPP, ONNO (1822-1903), German historian, was born at Leer on the 9th of October 1822, and was educated at the universities of Bonn, Berlin and Göttingen. For a few years he was a teacher at Leer and at Osnabrück; but in 1858 he settled at Hanover, where he became intimate with King George V., who made him his Archivrat. Thoroughly disliking Prussia, he was in hearty accord with George in resisting her aggressive policy; and after the annexation of Hanover in 1866 he accompanied the exiled king to Hietzing. He became a Roman Catholic in 1874. He died at Penzing, near Vienna, on the 9th of August 1903. Klopp is best known as the author of Der Fall des Hauses Stuart (Vienna, 1875-1888), the fullest existing account of the later Stuarts.

His Der König Friedrich II. und seine Politik (Schaffhausen, 1867) and Geschichte Ostfrieslands (Hanover, 1854-1858) show his dislike of Prussia. His other works include Der dreissigjährige Krieg bis zum Tode Gustav Adolfs (Paderborn, 1891-1896); a revised edition of his Tilly im dreissigjährigen Kriege (Stuttgart, 1861); a life of George V., König Georg V. (Hanover, 1878); Phillipp Melanchthon (Berlin, 1897). He edited Corrispondenza epistolare tra Leopoldo I. imperatore ed il P. Marco l’Aviano capuccino (Gratz, 1888). Klopp also wrote much in defence of George V. and his claim to Hanover, including the Offizieller Bericht über die Kriegsereignisse zwischen Hannover und Preussen im Juni 1866 (Vienna, 1867), and he edited the works of Leibnitz in eleven volumes (1861-1884).

See W. Klopp, Onno Klopp: ein Lebenslauf (Wehberg, 1907).

KLOPSTOCK, GOTTLIEB FRIEDRICH (1724-1803), German poet, was born at Quedlinburg, on the 2nd of July 1724, the eldest son of a lawyer, a man of sterling character and of a deeply religious mind. Both in his birthplace and on the estate of Friedeburg on the Saale, which his father later rented, young Klopstock passed a happy childhood; and more attention having been given to his physical than to his mental development he grew up a strong healthy boy and was an excellent horseman and skater. In his thirteenth year Klopstock returned to Quedlinburg where he attended the gymnasium, and in 1739 proceeded to the famous classical school of Schulpforta. Here he soon became an adept in Greek and Latin versification, and wrote some meritorious idylls and odes in German. His original intention of making the emperor Henry I. (“The Fowler”) the hero of an epic, was, under the influence of Milton’s Paradise Lost, with which he became acquainted through Bodmer’s translation, abandoned in favour of the religious epic. While yet at school, he had already drafted the plan of Der Messias, upon which his fame mainly rests. On the 21st of September 1745 he delivered on quitting school a remarkable “leaving oration” on epic poetry—Abschiedsrede über die epische Poesie, kultur- und literargeschichtlich erläutert—and next proceeded to Jena as a student of theology, where he elaborated the first three cantos of the Messias in prose. The life at this university being uncongenial to him, he removed in the spring of 1746 to Leipzig, and here joined the circle of young men of letters who contributed to the Bremer Beiträge. In this periodical the first three cantos of the Messias in hexameters were anonymously published in 1748. A new era in German literature had commenced, and the name of the author soon became known. In Leipzig he also wrote a number of odes, the best known of which is An meine Freunde (1747), afterwards recast as Wingolf (1767). He left the university in 1748 and became a private tutor in the family of a relative at Langensalza. Here unrequited love for a cousin (the “Fanny” of his odes) disturbed his peace of mind. Gladly therefore he accepted in 1750 an invitation from Jakob Bodmer (q.v.), the translator of Paradise Lost, to visit him in Zürich. Here Klopstock was at first treated with every kindness and respect and rapidly recovered his spirits. Bodmer, however, was disappointed to find in the young poet of the Messias a man of strong worldly interests, and a coolness sprang up between the two friends.

At this juncture Klopstock received from Frederick V. of Denmark, on the recommendation of his minister Count von Bernstorff (1712-1772), an invitation to settle at Copenhagen, with an annuity of 400 talers, with a view to the completion of the Messias. The offer was accepted; on his way to the Danish capital Klopstock met at Hamburg the lady who in 1754 became his wife, Margareta (Meta) Moller, (the “Cidli” of his odes), an enthusiastic admirer of his poetry. His happiness was short; she died in 1758, leaving him almost broken-hearted. His grief at her loss finds pathetic expression in the 15th canto of the Messias. The poet subsequently published his wife’s writings, Hinterlassene Werke von Margareta Klopstock (1759), which give evidence of a tender, sensitive and deeply religious spirit. Klopstock now relapsed into melancholy; new ideas failed him, and his poetry became more and more vague and unintelligible. He still continued to live and work at Copenhagen, and next, following Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg (q.v.), turned his attention to northern mythology, which he conceived should replace classical subjects in a new school of German poetry. In 1770, on the dismissal by King Christian VII. of Count Bernstorff from office, he retired with the latter to Hamburg, but retained his pension together with the rank of councillor of legation. Here, in 1773, he issued the last five cantos of the Messias. In the following year he published his strange scheme for the regeneration of German letters, Die Gelehrtenrepublik (1774). In 1775 he travelled south, and making the acquaintance of Goethe on the way, spent a year at the court of the margrave of Baden at Karlsruhe. Thence, in 1776, with the title of Hofrat and a pension from the margrave, which he retained together with that from the king of Denmark, he returned to Hamburg where he spent the remainder of his life. His latter years he passed, as had always been his inclination, in retirement, only occasionally relieved by association with his most intimate friends, busied with philological studies, and hardly interesting himself in the new developments of German literature. The American War of Independence and the Revolution in France aroused him, however, to enthusiasm. The French Republic sent him the diploma of honorary citizenship; but, horrified at the terrible scenes the Revolution had enacted in the place of liberty, he returned it. When 67 years of age he contracted a second marriage with Johanna Elisabeth von Winthem, a widow and a niece of his late wife, who for many years had been one of his most intimate friends. He died at Hamburg on the 14th of March 1803, mourned by all Germany, and was buried with great pomp and ceremony by the side of his first wife in the churchyard of the village of Ottensen.

Klopstock’s nature was best attuned to lyrical poetry, and in it his deep, noble character found its truest expression. He was less suited for epic and dramatic representation; for, wrapt up in himself, a stranger to the outer world, without historical culture, and without even any interest in the events of his time, he was lacking in the art of plastic representation such as a great epic requires. Thus the Messias, despite the magnificent passages which especially the earlier cantos contain, cannot satisfy the demands such a theme must necessarily make. The subject matter, the Redemption, presented serious difficulties to adequate epic treatment. The Gospel story was too scanty, and what might have been imported from without and interwoven with it was rejected by the author as profane. He had accordingly to resort to Christian mythology; and here again, circumscribed by the dogmas of the Church, he was in danger of trespassing on the fundamental truths of the Christian faith. The personality of Christ could scarcely be treated in an individual form, still less could angels and devils—and in the case of God Himself it was impossible. The result was that, despite the groundwork—the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Revelation of St John, and the model ready to hand in Milton’s Paradise Lost—material elements are largely wanting and the actors in the poem, Divine and human, lack plastic form. That the poem took twenty-five years to complete could not but be detrimental to its unity of design; the original enthusiasm was not sustained until the end, and the earlier cantos are far superior to the later. Thus the intense public interest the work aroused in its commencement had almost vanished before its completion. It was translated into seventeen languages and led to numerous imitations. In his odes Klopstock had more scope for his peculiar talent. Among the best are An Fanny; Der Zürchersee; Die tote Klarissa; An Cidli; Die beiden Musen; Der Rheinwein; Die frühen Gräber; Mein Vaterland. His religious odes mostly take the form of hymns, of which the most beautiful is Die Frühlingsfeier. His dramas, in some of which, notably Hermanns Schlacht (1769) and Hermann und die Fürsten (1784), he celebrated the deeds of the ancient German hero Arminius, and in others, Der Tod Adams (1757) and Salomo (1764), took his materials from the Old Testament, are essentially lyrical in character and deficient in action. In addition to Die Gelehrtenrepublik, he was also the author of Fragmente über Sprache und Dichtkunst (1779) and Grammatische Gespräche (1794), works in which he made important contributions to philology and to the history of German poetry.

Klopstock’s Werke first appeared in seven quarto volumes (1798-1809). At the same time a more complete edition in twelve octavo volumes was published (1798-1817), to which six additional volumes were added in 1830. More recent editions were published in 1844-1845, 1854-1855, 1879 (ed. by R. Boxberger), 1884 (ed. by R. Hamel) and 1893 (a selection edited by F. Muncker). A critical edition of the Odes was published by F. Muncker and J. Pawel in 1889; a commentary on these by H. Düntzer (1860; 2nd ed., 1878). For Klopstock’s correspondence see K. Schmidt, Klopstock und seine Freunde (1810); C. A. H. Clodius, Klopstocks Nachlass (1821); J. M. Lappenberg, Briefe von und an Klopstock (1867). Cf. further K. F. Cramer, Klopstock, er und über ihn (1780-1792); J. G. Gruber, Klopstocks Leben (1832); R. Hamel, Klopstock-Studien (1879-1880); F. Muncker, F. G. Klopstock, the most authoritative biography, (1888); E. Bailly, Étude sur la vie et les œuvres de Klopstock (Paris, 1888).

KLOSTERNEUBURG, a town of Austria, in Lower Austria, 5½ m. N.W. of Vienna by rail. Pop. (1900), 11,595. It is situated on the right bank of the Danube, at the foot of the Kahlenberg, and is divided by a small stream into an upper and a lower town. As an important pioneer station Klosterneuburg has various military buildings and stores, and among the schools it possesses an academy of wine and fruit cultivation.

On a hill rising directly from the banks of the Danube stand the magnificent buildings (erected 1730-1834) of the Augustine canonry, founded in 1106 by Margrave Leopold the Holy. This foundation is the oldest and richest of the kind in Austria; it owns much of the land upon which the north-western suburbs of Vienna stand. Among the points of interest within it are the old chapel of 1318, with Leopold’s tomb and the altar of Verdun, dating from the 12th century, the treasury and relic-chamber, the library with 30,000 volumes and many MSS., the picture gallery, the collection of coins, the theological hall, and the wine-cellar, containing an immense tun like that at Heidelberg. The inhabitants of Klosterneuburg are mainly occupied in making wine, of excellent quality. There is a large cement factory outside the town. In Roman times the castle of Citium stood in the region of Klosterneuburg. The town was founded by Charlemagne, and received its charter as a town in 1298.

KLOTZ, REINHOLD (1807-1870), German classical scholar, was born near Chemnitz in Saxony on the 13th of March 1807. In 1849 he was appointed professor in the university of Leipzig in succession to Gottfried Hermann, and held this post till his death on the 10th of August 1870. Klotz was a man of unwearied industry, and devoted special attention to Latin literature.

He was the author of editions of several classical authors, of which the most important were: the complete works of Cicero (2nd ed., 1869-1874); Clement of Alexandria (1831-1834); Euripides (1841-1867), in continuation of Pflugk’s edition, but unfinished; Terence (1838-1840), with the commentaries of Donatus and Eugraphius. Mention should also be made of: Handwörterbuch der lateinischen Sprache (5th ed., 1874); Römische Litteraturgeschichte (1847), of which only the introductory volume appeared; an edition of the treatise De Graecae linguae particulis (1835-1842) of Matthaeus Deverius (Devares), a learned Corfiote (c. 1500-1570), and corrector of the Greek MSS. in the Vatican; the posthumous Index Ciceronianus (1872) and Handbuch der lateinischen Stilistik (1874). From 1831-1855 Klotz was editor of the Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie (Leipzig). During the troubled times of 1848 and the following years he showed himself a strong conservative.

A memoir by his son Richard will be found in the Jahrbücher for 1871, pp. 154-163.

KNARESBOROUGH, a market town in the Ripon parliamentary division of the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, 16½ m. W. by N. from York by a branch of the North Eastern railway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 4979. Its situation is most picturesque, on the steep left bank of the river Nidd, which here follows a well-wooded valley, hemmed in by limestone cliffs. The church of St John the Baptist is Early English, but has numerous Decorated and Perpendicular additions; it is a cruciform building containing several interesting monuments. Knaresborough Castle was probably founded in 1070 by Serlo de Burgh. Its remains, however, are of the 14th century, and include a massive keep rising finely from a cliff above the Nidd. After the battle of Marston Moor it was taken by Fairfax, and in 1648 it was ordered to be dismantled. To the south of the castle is St Robert’s chapel, an excavation in the rock constructed into an ecclesiastical edifice in the reign of Richard I. Several of the excavations in the limestone, which is extensively quarried, are incorporated in dwelling-houses. A little farther down the river is St Robert’s cave, which is supposed to have been the residence of the hermit, and in 1744 was the scene of the murder of Daniel Clarke by Eugene Aram, whose story is told in Lytton’s well-known novel. Opposite the castle is the Dropping Well, the waters of which are impregnated with lime and have petrifying power, this action causing the curious and beautiful incrustations formed where the water falls over a slight cliff. The Knaresborough free grammar school was founded in 1616. There is a large agricultural trade, and linen and leather manufactures and the quarries also employ a considerable number of persons.

Knaresborough (Canardesburg, Cnarreburc, Cknareburg), which belonged to the Crown before the Conquest, formed part of William the Conqueror’s grant to his follower Serlo de Burgh. Being forfeited by his grandson Eustace FitzJohn in the reign of Stephen, Knaresborough was granted to Robert de Stuteville, from whose descendants it passed through marriage to Hugh de Morville, one of the murderers of Thomas Becket, who with his three accomplices remained in hiding in the castle for a whole year. During the 13th and 14th centuries the castle and lordship changed hands very frequently; they were granted successively to Hubert de Burgh, whose son forfeited them after the battle of Evesham, to Richard, earl of Cornwall, whose son Edmund died without issue; to Piers Gaveston, and lastly to John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, and so to the Crown as parcel of the duchy of Lancaster. In 1317 John de Lilleburn, who was holding the castle of Knaresborough for Thomas duke of Lancaster against the king, surrendered under conditions to William de Ros of Hamelak, but before leaving the castle managed to destroy all the records of the liberties and privileges of the town which were kept in the castle. In 1368 an inquisition was taken to ascertain these privileges, and the jurors found that the burgesses held “all the soil of their borough yielding 7s. 4d. yearly and doing suit at the king’s court.” In the reign of Henry VIII. Knaresborough is said by Leland to be “no great thing and meanely builded but the market there is quik.” During the civil wars Knaresborough was held for some time by the Royalists, but they were obliged to surrender, and the castle was among those ordered to be destroyed by parliament in 1646. A market on Wednesday and a fortnightly fair on the same day from the Feast of St Mark to that of St Andrew are claimed under a charter of Charles II. confirming earlier charters. Lead ore was found and worked on Knaresborough Common in the 16th century. From 1555 to 1867 the town returned two members to parliament, but in the latter year the number was reduced to one, and in 1885 the representation was merged in that of the West Riding.

KNAVE (O.E. cnafa, cognate with Ger. Knabe, boy), originally a male child, a boy (Chaucer, Canterbury Tales: “Clerk’s Tale,” I. 388). Like Lat. puer, the word was early used as a name for any boy or lad employed as a servant, and so of male servants in general (Chaucer: “Pardoner’s Tale,” 1. 204). The current use of the word for a man who is dishonest and crafty, a rogue, was however an early usage, and is found in Layamon (c. 1205). In playing-cards the lowest court card of each suit, the “jack,” representing a medieval servant, is called the “knave.” (See also [Valet].)

KNEBEL, KARL LUDWIG VON (1744-1834), German poet and translator, was born at the castle of Wallerstein in Franconia on the 30th of November 1744. After having studied law for a short while at Halle, he entered the regiment of the crown prince of Prussia in Potsdam and was attached to it as officer for ten years. Disappointed in his military career, owing to the slowness of promotion, he retired in 1774, and accepting the post of tutor to Prince Konstantin of Weimar, accompanied him and his elder brother, the hereditary prince, on a tour to Paris. On this journey he visited Goethe in Frankfort-on-Main, and introduced him to the hereditary prince, Charles Augustus. This meeting is memorable as being the immediate cause of Goethe’s later intimate connexion with the Weimar court. After Knebel’s return and the premature death of his pupil he was pensioned, receiving the rank of major. In 1798 he married the singer Luise von Rudorf, and retired to Ilmenau; but in 1805 he removed to Jena, where he lived until his death on the 23rd of February 1834. Knebel’s Sammlung kleiner Gedichte (1815), issued anonymously, and Distichen (1827) contain many graceful sonnets, but it is as a translator that he is best known. His translation of the elegies of Propertius, Elegien des Properz (1798), and that of Lucretius’ De rerum natura (2 vols., 1831) are deservedly praised. Since their first acquaintance Knebel and Goethe were intimate friends, and not the least interesting of Knebel’s writings is his correspondence with the eminent poet, Briefwechsel mit Goethe (ed. G. E. Guhrauer, 2 vols., 1851).

Knebel’s Literarischer Nachlass und Briefwechsel was edited by K. A. Varnhagen von Ense and T. Mundt in 3 vols. (1835; 2nd ed., 1840). See Hugo von Knebel-Döberitz, Karl Ludwig von Knebel (1890).

KNEE (O.E. cnéow, a word common to Indo-European languages, cf. Ger. Knie, Fr. genou, Span, hinojo, Lat. genu, Gr. γόνυ, Sansk. janu), in human anatomy, the articulation of the upper and lower parts of the leg, the joint between the femur and the tibia (see [Joints]). The word is also used of articulation resembling the knee-joint in shape or position in other animals; it thus is applied to the carpal articulation of the fore leg of a horse, answering to the ankle in man, or to the tarsal articulation or heel of a bird’s foot.

KNELLER, SIR GODFREY (1648-1723), a portrait painter whose celebrity belongs chiefly to England, was born in Lübeck in the duchy of Holstein, of an ancient family, on the 8th of August 1648. He was at first intended for the army, and was sent to Leyden to learn mathematics and fortification. Showing, however, a marked preference for the fine arts, he studied in the school of Rembrandt, and under Ferdinand Bol in Amsterdam. In 1672 he removed to Italy, directing his chief attention to Titian and the Caracci; Carlo Maratta gave him some guidance and encouragement. In Rome, and more especially in Venice, Kneller earned considerable reputation by historical paintings as well as portraits. He next went to Hamburg, painting with still increasing success. In 1674 he came to England at the invitation of the duke of Monmouth, was introduced to Charles II., and painted that sovereign, much to his satisfaction, several times. Charles also sent him to Paris, to take the portrait of Louis XIV. When Sir Peter Lely died in 1680, Kneller, who produced in England little or nothing in the historical department, remained without a rival in the ranks of portrait painting; there was no native-born competition worth speaking of. Charles appointed him court painter; and he continued to hold the same post into the days of George I. Under William III. (1692) he was made a knight, under George I. (1715) a baronet, and by order of the emperor Leopold I. a knight of the Roman Empire. Not only his court favour but his general fame likewise was large: he was lauded by Dryden, Addison, Steele, Prior, Tickell and Pope. Kneller’s gains also were very considerable; aided by habits of frugality which approached stinginess, he left property yielding an annual income of £2000. His industry was maintained till the last. His studio had at first been in Covent Garden, but in his closing years he lived in Kneller Hall, Twickenham. He died of fever, the date being generally given as the 7th of November 1723, though some accounts say 1726. He was buried in Twickenham church, and has a monument in Westminster Abbey. An elder brother, John Zachary Kneller, an ornamental painter, had accompanied Godfrey to England, and had died in 1702. The style of Sir Godfrey Kneller as a portrait painter represented the decline of that art as practised by Vandyck; Lely marks the first grade of descent, and Kneller the second. His works have much freedom, and are well drawn and coloured; but they are mostly slight in manner, and to a great extent monotonous, this arising partly from the habit which he had of lengthening the oval of all his heads. The colouring may be called brilliant rather than true. He indulged much in the common-places of allegory; and, though he had a quality of dignified elegance not unallied with simplicity, genuine simple nature is seldom to be traced in his works. His fame has greatly declined, and could not but do so after the advent of Reynolds. Among Kneller’s principal paintings are the “Forty-three Celebrities of the Kit-Cat Club,” and the “Ten Beauties of the Court of William III.,” now at Hampton Court; these were painted by order of the queen; they match, but match unequally, the “Beauties of the Court of Charles II.,” painted by Lely. He executed altogether the likenesses of ten sovereigns, and fourteen of his works appear in the National Portrait Gallery. It is said that Kneller’s own favourite performance was the portrait of the “Converted Chinese” in Windsor Castle. His later works are confined almost entirely to England, not more than two or three specimens having gone abroad after he had settled here.

(W. M. R.)

KNICKERBOCKER, HARMEN JANSEN (c. 1650-c. 1720), Dutch colonist of New Netherland (New York), was a native of Wyhe (Wie), Overyssel, Holland. Before 1683 he settled near what is now Albany, New York, and there in 1704 he bought through Harme Gansevoort one-fourth of the land in Dutchess county near Red Hook, which had been patented in 1688 to Peter Schuyler, who in 1722 deeded seven (of thirteen) lots in the upper fourth of his patent to the seven children of Knickerbocker. The eldest of these children, Johannes Harmensen, received from the common council of the city of Albany a grant of 50 acres of meadow and 10 acres of upland on the south side of Schaghticoke Creek. This Schaghticoke estate was held by Johannes Harmensen’s son Johannes (1723-1802), a colonel in the Continental Army in the War of Independence, and by his son Harmen (1779-1855), a lawyer, a federalist representative in Congress in 1809-1811, a member of the New York Assembly in 1816, and a famous gentleman of the old school, who for his courtly hospitality in his manor was called “the prince of Schaghticoke” and whose name was borrowed by Washington Irving for use in his (Diedrich) Knickerbocker’s History of New York (1809). Largely owing to this book, the name “Knickerbockers” has passed into current use as a designation of the early Dutch settlers in New York and their descendants. The son of Johannes, David Buel Knickerbacker (1833-1894), who returned to the earlier spelling of the family name, graduated at Trinity College in 1853 and at the General Theological Seminary in 1856, was a rector for many years at Minneapolis, Minnesota, and in 1883 was consecrated Protestant Episcopal bishop of Indiana.

See the series of articles by W. B. Van Alstyne on “The Knickerbocker Family,” beginning in vol. xxix., No. 1 (Jan. 1908) of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record.

KNIFE (O.E. cníf, a word appearing in different forms in many Teutonic languages, cf. Du. knijf, Ger. Kneif, a shoemaker’s knife, Swed. knif; the ultimate origin is unknown; Skeat finds the origin in the root of “nip,” formerly “knip”; Fr. canif is also of Teutonic origin), a small cutting instrument, with the blade either fixed to the handle or fastened with a hinge so as to clasp into the handle (see [Cutlery]). For the knives chipped from flint by prehistoric man see [Archaeology] and [Flint Implements].

KNIGGE, ADOLF FRANZ FRIEDRICH, Freiherr von (1752-1796), German author, was born on the family estate of Bredenbeck near Hanover on the 16th of October 1752. After studying law at Göttingen he was attached successively to the courts of Hesse-Cassel and Weimar as gentleman-in-waiting. Retiring from court service in 1777, he lived a private life with his family in Frankfort-on-Main, Hanau, Heidelberg and Hanover until 1791, when he was appointed Oberhauptmann (civil administrator) in Bremen, where he died on the 6th of May 1796. Knigge, under the name “Philo,” was one of the most active members of the Illuminati, a mutual moral and intellectual improvement society founded by Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830) at Ingolstadt, and which later became affiliated to the Freemasons. Knigge is known as the author of several novels, among which Der Roman meines Lebens (1781-1787; new ed., 1805) and Die Reise nach Braunschweig (1792), the latter a rather coarsely comic story, are best remembered. His chief literary achievement was, however, Über den Umgang mit Menschen (1788), in which he lays down rules to be observed for a peaceful, happy and useful life; it has been often reprinted.

Knigge’s Schriften were published in 12 volumes (1804-1806). See K. Goedeke, Adolf, Freiherr von Knigge (1844); and H. Klencke, Aus einer alten Kiste (Briefe, Handschriften und Dokumente aus dem Nachlasse Knigges) (1853).

KNIGHT, CHARLES (1791-1873), English publisher and author, the son of a bookseller and printer at Windsor, was born on the 15th of March 1791. He was apprenticed to his father, but on the completion of his indentures he took up journalism and interested himself in several newspaper speculations. In 1823, in conjunction with friends he had made as publisher (1820-1821) of The Etonian, he started Knight’s Quarterly Magazine, to which W. M. Praed, Derwent Coleridge and Macaulay contributed. The venture was brought to a close with its sixth number, but it initiated for Knight a career as publisher and author which extended over forty years. In 1827 Knight was compelled to give up his publishing business, and became the superintendent of the publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, for which he projected and edited The British Almanack and Companion, begun in 1828. In 1829 he resumed business on his own account with the publication of The Library of Entertaining Knowledge, writing several volumes of the series himself. In 1832 and 1833 he started The Penny Magazine and The Penny Cyclopaedia, both of which had a large circulation. The Penny Cyclopaedia, however, on account of the heavy excise duty, was only completed in 1844 at a great pecuniary sacrifice. Besides many illustrated editions of standard works, including in 1842 The Pictorial Shakespeare, which had appeared in parts (1838-1841), Knight published a variety of illustrated works, such as Old England and The Land we Live in. He also undertook the series known as Weekly Volumes. He himself contributed the first volume, a biography of William Caxton. Many famous books, Miss Martineau’s Tales, Mrs Jameson’s Early Italian Painters and G. H. Lewes’s Biographical History of Philosophy, appeared for the first time in this series. In 1853 he became editor of The English Cyclopaedia, which was practically only a revision of The Penny Cyclopaedia, and at about the same time he began his Popular History of England (8 vols., 1856-1862). In 1864 he withdrew from the business of publisher, but he continued to write nearly to the close of his long life, publishing The Shadows of the Old Booksellers (1865), an autobiography under the title Passages of a Working Life during Half a Century (2 vols., 1864-1865), and an historical novel, Begg’d at Court (1867). He died at Addlestone, Surrey, on the 9th of March 1873.

See A. A. Clowes, Knight, a Sketch (1892); and F. Espinasse, in The Critic (May 1860).

KNIGHT, DANIEL RIDGWAY (1845-  ), American artist, was born at Philadelphia, Penn., in 1845. He was a pupil at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, under Gleyre, and later worked in the private studio of Meissonier. After 1872 he lived in France, having a house and studio at Poissy on the Seine. He painted peasant women out of doors with great popular success. He was awarded the silver medal and cross of the Legion of Honour, Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1889, and was made a knight of the Royal Order of St Michael of Bavaria, Munich, 1893, receiving the gold medal of honour from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1893. His son, Ashton Knight, is also known as a landscape painter.

KNIGHT, JOHN BUXTON (1843-1908), English landscape painter, was born at Sevenoaks, Kent; he started as a schoolmaster, but painting was his hobby, and he subsequently devoted himself to it. In 1861 he had his first picture hung at the Academy. He was essentially an open-air painter, constantly going on sketching tours in the most picturesque spots of England, and all his pictures were painted out of doors. He died at Dover on the 2nd of January 1908. The Chantrey trustees bought his “December’s Bareness Everywhere” for the nation in the following month. Most of his best pictures had passed into the collection of Mr Iceton of Putney (including “White Walls of Old England” and “Hereford Cathedral”), Mr Walter Briggs of Burley in Wharfedale (especially “Pinner”), and Mr S. M. Phillips of Wrotham (especially two water-colours of Richmond Bridge).

KNIGHTHOOD and CHIVALRY. These two words, which are nearly but not quite synonymous, designate a single subject of inquiry, which presents itself under three different although connected and in a measure intermingled aspects. It may be regarded in the first place as a mode or variety of feudal tenure, in the second place as a personal attribute or dignity, and in the third place as a scheme of manners or social arrangements. The first of these aspects is discussed under the headings [Feudalism] and [Knight Service]: we are concerned here only with the second and third. For the more important religious as distinguished from the military orders of knighthood or chivalry the reader is referred to the headings [St John of Jerusalem, Knights of]; [Teutonic Knights]; and [Templars].

“The growth of knighthood” (writes Stubbs) “is a subject on which the greatest obscurity prevails”: and, though J. H. Round has done much to explain the introduction of the system into England,[1] its actual origin on the continent of Europe is still obscure in many of its most important details.

The words knight and knighthood are merely the modern forms of the Anglo-Saxon or Old English cniht and cnihthád. Of these the primary signification of the first was a boy or youth, and of the second that period of life which intervenes between childhood and manhood. But some time before the middle of the 12th century they had acquired the meaning they still retain of the French chevalier and chevalerie. In a secondary sense cniht meant a servant or attendant answering to the German Knecht, and in the Anglo-Saxon Gospels a disciple is described as a leorning cniht. In a tertiary sense the word appears to have been occasionally employed as equivalent to the Latin miles—usually translated by thegn—which in the earlier middle ages was used as the designation of the domestic as well as of the martial officers or retainers of sovereigns and princes or great personages.[2] Sharon Turner suggests that cniht from meaning an attendant simply may have come to mean more especially a military attendant, and that in this sense it may have gradually superseded the word thegn.[3] But the word thegn itself, that is, when it was used as the description of an attendant of the king, appears to have meant more especially a military attendant. As Stubbs says “the thegn seems to be primarily the warrior gesith”—the gesithas forming the chosen band of companions (comites) of the German chiefs (principes) noticed by Tacitus—“he is probably the gesith who had a particular military duty in his master’s service”; and he adds that from the reign of Athelstan “the gesith is lost sight of except very occasionally, the more important class having become thegns, and the lesser sort sinking into the rank of mere servants of the king.”[4] It is pretty clear, therefore, that the word cniht could never have superseded the word thegn in the sense of a military attendant, at all events of the king. But besides the king, the ealdormen, bishops and king’s thegns themselves had their thegns, and to these it is more than probable that the name of cniht was applied.

Around the Anglo-Saxon magnates were collected a crowd of retainers and dependants of all ranks and conditions; and there is evidence enough to show that among them were some called cnihtas who were not always the humblest or least considerable of their number.[5] The testimony of Domesday also establishes the existence in the reign of Edward the Confessor of what Stubbs describes as a “large class” of landholders who had commended themselves to some lord, and he regards it as doubtful whether their tenure had not already assumed a really feudal character. But in any event it is manifest that their condition was in many respects similar to that of a vast number of unquestionably feudal and military tenants who made their appearance after the Norman Conquest. If consequently the former were called cnihtas under the Anglo-Saxon régime, it seems sufficiently probable that the appellation should have been continued to the latter—practically their successors—under the Anglo-Norman régime. And if the designation of knights was first applied to the military tenants of the earls, bishops and barons—who although they held their lands of mesne lords owed their services to the king—the extension of that designation to the whole body of military tenants need not have been a very violent or prolonged process. Assuming, however, that knight was originally used to describe the military tenant of a noble person, as cniht had sometimes been used to describe the thegn of a noble person, it would, to begin with, have defined rather his social status than the nature of his services. But those whom the English called knights the Normans called chevaliers, by which term the nature of their services was defined, while their social status was left out of consideration. And at first chevalier in its general and honorary signification seems to have been rendered not by knight but by rider, as may be inferred from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, wherein it is recorded under the year 1085 that William the Conqueror “dubbade his sunu Henric to ridere.”[6] But, as E. A. Freeman says, “no such title is heard of in the earlier days of England. The thegn, the ealdorman, the king himself, fought on foot; the horse might bear him to the field, but when the fighting itself came he stood on his native earth to receive the onslaught of her enemies.”[7] In this perhaps we may behold one of the most ancient of British insular prejudices, for on the Continent the importance of cavalry in warfare was already abundantly understood. It was by means of their horsemen that the Austrasian Franks established their superiority over their neighbours, and in time created the Western Empire anew, while from the word caballarius, which occurs in the Capitularies in the reign of Charlemagne, came the words for knight in all the Romance languages.[8] In Germany the chevalier was called Ritter, but neither rider nor chevalier prevailed against knight in England. And it was long after knighthood had acquired its present meaning with us that chivalry was incorporated into our language. It may be remarked too in passing that in official Latin, not only in England but all over Europe, the word miles held its own against both eques and caballarius.

Concerning the origin of knighthood or chivalry as it existed in the middle ages—implying as it did a formal assumption of and initiation into the profession of arms—nothing beyond more or less probable conjecture is possible. Origin of Medieval Knighthood. The medieval knights had nothing to do in the way of derivation with the “equites” of Rome, the knights of King Arthur’s Round Table, or the Paladins of Charlemagne. But there are grounds for believing that some of the rudiments of chivalry are to be detected in early Teutonic customs, and that they may have made some advance among the Franks of Gaul. We know from Tacitus that the German tribes in his day were wont to celebrate the admission of their young men into the ranks of their warriors with much circumstance and ceremony. The people of the district to which the candidate belonged were called together; his qualifications for the privileges about to be conferred upon him were inquired into; and, if he were deemed fitted and worthy to receive them, his chief, his father, or one of his near kinsmen presented him with a shield and a lance. Again, among the Franks we find Charlemagne girding his son Louis the Pious, and Louis the Pious girding his son Charles the Bald with the sword, when they arrived at manhood.[9] It seems certain here that some ceremony was observed which was deemed worthy of record not for its novelty, but as a thing of recognized importance. It does not follow that a similar ceremony extended to personages less exalted than the sons of kings and emperors. But if it did we must naturally suppose that it applied in the first instance to the mounted warriors who formed the most formidable portion of the warlike array of the Franks. It was among the Franks indeed, and possibly through their experiences in war with the Saracens, that cavalry first acquired the pre-eminent place which it long maintained in every European country. In early society, where the army is not a paid force but the armed nation, the cavalry must necessarily consist of the noble and wealthy, and cavalry and chivalry, as Freeman observes,[10] will be the same. Since then we discover in the Capitularies of Charlemagne actual mention of “caballarii” as a class of warriors, it may reasonably be concluded that formal investiture with arms applied to the “caballarii” if it was a usage extending beyond the sovereign and his heir-apparent. “But,” as Hallam says, “he who fought on horseback and had been invested with peculiar arms in a solemn manner wanted nothing more to render him a knight;” and so he concludes, in view of the verbal identity of “chevalier” and “caballarius,” that “we may refer chivalry in a general sense to the age of Charlemagne.”[11] Yet, if the “caballarii” of the Capitularies are really the precursors of the later knights, it remains a difficulty that the Latin name for a knight is “miles,” although “caballarius” became in various forms the vernacular designation.

Before it was known that the chronicle ascribed to Ingulf of Croyland is really a fiction of the 13th or 14th century, the knighting of Heward or Hereward by Brand, abbot of Burgh (now Peterborough), was accepted from Selden to Hallam as Knighthood in England. an historical fact, and knighthood was supposed, not only to have been known among the Anglo-Saxons, but to have had a distinctively religious character which was contemned by the Norman invaders. The genuine evidence at our command altogether fails to support this view. When William of Malmesbury describes the knighting of Athelstan by his grandfather Alfred the Great, that is, his investiture “with a purple garment set with gems and a Saxon sword with a golden sheath,” there is no hint of any religious observance. In spite of the silence of our records, Dr Stubbs thinks that kings so well acquainted with foreign usages as Ethelred, Canute and Edward the Confessor could hardly have failed to introduce into England the institution of chivalry then springing up in every country of Europe; and he is supported in this opinion by the circumstance that it is nowhere mentioned as a Norman innovation. Yet the fact that Harold received knighthood from William of Normandy makes it clear either that Harold was not yet a knight, which in the case of so tried a warrior would imply that “dubbing to knighthood” was not yet known in England even under Edward the Confessor, or, as Freeman thinks, that in the middle of the 11th century the custom had grown in Normandy into “something of a more special meaning” than it bore in England.

Regarded as a method of military organization, the feudal system of tenures was always far better adapted to the purposes of defensive than of offensive warfare. Against invasion it furnished a permanent provision both in men-at-arms and strongholds; nor was it unsuited for the campaigns of neighbouring counts and barons which lasted for only a few weeks, and extended over only a few leagues. But when kings and kingdoms were in conflict, and distant and prolonged expeditions became necessary, it was speedily discovered that the unassisted resources of feudalism were altogether inadequate. It became therefore the manifest interest of both parties that personal services should be commuted into pecuniary payments. Then there grew up all over Europe a system of fining the knights who failed to respond to the sovereign’s call or to stay their full time in the field; and in England this fine developed, from the reign of Henry II. to that of Edward II., into a regular war-tax called escuage or scutage (q.v.). In this way funds for war were placed at the free disposal of sovereigns, and, although the feudatories and their retainers still formed the most considerable portion of their armies, the conditions under which they served were altogether changed. Their military service was now far more the result of special agreement. In the reign of Edward I., whose warlike enterprises after he was king were confined within the four seas, this alteration does not seem to have proceeded very far, and Scotland and Wales were subjugated by what was in the main, if not exclusively, a feudal militia raised as of old by writ to the earls and barons and the sheriffs.[12] But the armies of Edward III., Henry V. and Henry VI. during the century of intermittent warfare between England and France were recruited and sustained to a very great extent on the principle of contract.[13] On the Continent the systematic employment of mercenaries was both an early and a common practice.

Besides consideration for the mutual convenience of sovereigns and their feudatories, there were other causes which materially contributed towards bringing about those changes in the military system of Europe which were finally The Crusades. accomplished in the 13th and 14th centuries. During the Crusades vast armies were set on foot in which feudal rights and obligations had no place, and it was seen that the volunteers who flocked to the standards of the various commanders were not less but even more efficient in the field than the vassals they had hitherto been accustomed to lead. It was thus established that pay, the love of enterprise and the prospect of plunder—if we leave zeal for the sacred cause which they had espoused for the moment out of sight—were quite as useful for the purpose of enlisting troops and keeping them together as the tenure of land and the solemnities of homage and fealty. Moreover, the crusaders who survived the difficulties and dangers of an expedition to Palestine were seasoned and experienced although frequently impoverished and landless soldiers, ready to hire themselves to the highest bidder, and well worth the wages they received. Again, it was owing to the crusades that the church took the profession of arms under her peculiar protection, and thenceforward the ceremonies of initiation into it assumed a religious as well as a martial character.

To distinguished soldiers of the cross the honours and benefits of knighthood could hardly be refused on the ground that they did not possess a sufficient property qualification—of which perhaps they had denuded themselves in Knighthood independent of Feudalism. order to their equipment for the Holy War. And thus the conception of knighthood as of something distinct from feudalism both as a social condition and a personal dignity arose and rapidly gained ground. It was then that the analogy was first detected between the order of knighthood and the order of priesthood, and that an actual union of monachism and chivalry was effected by the establishment of the religious orders of which the Knights Templars and the Knights Hospitallers were the most eminent examples. As comprehensive in their polity as the Benedictines or Franciscans, they gathered their members from, and soon scattered their possessions over, every country in Europe. And in their indifference to the distinctions of race and nationality they merely accommodated themselves to the spirit which had become characteristic of chivalry itself, already recognized, like the church, as a universal institution which knit together the whole warrior caste of Christendom into one great fraternity irrespective alike of feudal subordination and territorial boundaries. Somewhat later the adoption of hereditary surnames and armorial bearings marked the existence of a large and noble class who either from the subdivision of fiefs or from the effects of the custom of primogeniture were very insufficiently provided for. To them only two callings were generally open, that of the churchman and that of the soldier, and the latter as a rule offered greater attractions than the former in an era of much licence and little learning. Hence the favourite expedient for men of birth, although not of fortune, was to attach themselves to some prince or magnate in whose military service they were sure of an adequate maintenance and might hope for even a rich reward in the shape of booty or of ransom.[14] It is probably to this period and these circumstances that we must look for at all events the rudimentary beginnings of the military as well as the religious orders of chivalry. Of the existence of any regularly constituted companionships of the first kind there is no trustworthy evidence until between two and three centuries after fraternities of the second kind had been organized. Soon after the greater crusading societies had been formed similar orders, such as those of St James of Compostella, Calatrava and Alcantara, were established to fight the Moors in Spain instead of the Saracens in the Holy Land. But the members of these orders were not less monks than knights, their statutes embodied the rules of the cloister, and they were bound by the ecclesiastical vows of celibacy, poverty and obedience. From a very early stage in the development of chivalry, however, we meet with the singular institution of brotherhood in arms; and from it the ultimate origin if not of the religious fraternities at any rate of the military companionships is usually derived.[15] By this institution a relation was created between two or more monks by voluntary agreement, which was regarded as of far more intimacy and stringency than any which the mere accident of consanguinity implied. Brothers in arms were supposed to be partners in all things save the affections of their “lady-loves.” They shared in every danger and in every success, and each was expected to vindicate the honour of another as promptly and zealously as his own. The plot of the medieval romance of Amis and Amiles is built entirely on such a brotherhood. Their engagements usually lasted through life, but sometimes only for a specified period or during the continuance of specified circumstances, and they were always ratified by oath, occasionally reduced to writing in the shape of a solemn bond and often sanctified by their reception of the Eucharist together. Romance and tradition speak of strange rites—the mingling and even the drinking of blood—as having in remote and rude ages marked the inception of these martial and fraternal associations.[16] But in later and less barbarous times they were generally evidenced and celebrated by a formal and reciprocal exchange of weapons and armour. In warfare it was customary for knights who were thus allied to appear similarly accoutred and bearing the same badges or cognisances, to the end that their enemies might not know with which of them they were in conflict, and that their friends might be unable to accord more applause to one than to the other for his prowess in the field. It seems likely enough therefore that there should grow up bodies of knights banded together by engagements of fidelity, although free from monastic obligations; wearing a uniform or livery, and naming themselves after some special symbol or some patron saint of their adoption. And such bodies placed under the command of a sovereign or grand master, regulated by statutes, and enriched by ecclesiastical endowments would have been precisely what in after times such orders as the Garter in England, the Golden Fleece in Burgundy, the Annunziata in Savoy and the St Michael and Holy Ghost in France actually were.[17]

During the 14th and 15th centuries, as well as somewhat earlier and later, the general arrangements of a European army were always and everywhere pretty much the same.[18] Under the sovereign the constable and the marshal Grades of Knighthood. or marshals held the chief commands, their authority being partly joint and partly several. Attendant on them were the heralds, who were the officers of their military court, wherein offences committed in the camp and field were tried and adjudged, and among whose duties it was to carry orders and messages, to deliver challenges and call truces, and to identify and number the wounded and the slain. The main divisions of the army were distributed under the royal and other principal standards, smaller divisions under the banners of some of the greater nobility or of knights banneret, and smaller divisions still under the pennons of knights or, as in distinction from knights banneret they came to be called, knights bachelors. All knights whether bachelors or bannerets were escorted by their squires. But the banner of the banneret always implied a more or less extensive command, while every knight was entitled to bear a pennon and every squire a pencel. All three flags were of such a size as to be conveniently attached to and carried on a lance, and were emblazoned with the arms or some portion of the bearings of their owners. But while the banner was square the pennon, which resembled it in other respects, was either pointed or forked at its extremity, and the pencel, which was considerably less than the others, always terminated in a single tail or streamer.[19]

If indeed we look at the scale of chivalric subordination from another point of view, it seems to be more properly divisible into four than into three stages, of which two may be called provisional and two final. The bachelor and the banneret were both equally knights, only the one was of greater distinction and authority than the other. In like manner the squire and the page were both in training for knighthood, but the first had advanced further in the process than the second. It is true that the squire was a combatant while the page was not, and that many squires voluntarily served as squires all their lives owing to the insufficiency of their fortunes to support the costs and charges of knighthood. But in the ordinary course of a chivalrous education the successive conditions of page and squire were passed through in boyhood and youth, and the condition of knighthood was reached in early manhood. Every feudal court and castle was in fact a school of chivalry, and although princes and great personages were rarely actually pages or squires, the moral and physical discipline through which they passed was not in any important particular different from that to which less exalted candidates for knighthood were subjected.[20] The page, or, as he was more anciently and more correctly called, the “valet” or “damoiseau,” commenced his service and instruction when he was between seven and eight years old, and the initial phase continued for seven or eight years longer. He acted as the constant personal attendant of both his master and mistress. He waited on them in their hall and accompanied them in the chase, served the lady in her bower and followed the lord to the camp.[21] From the chaplain and his mistress and her damsels he learnt the rudiments of religion, of rectitude and of love,[22] from his master and his squires the elements of military exercise, to cast a spear or dart, to sustain a shield, and to march with the measured tread of a soldier; and from his master and his huntsmen and falconers the “mysteries of the woods and rivers,” or in other words the rules and practices of hunting and hawking. When he was between fifteen and sixteen he became a squire. But no sudden or great alteration was made in his mode of life. He continued to wait at dinner with the pages, although in a manner more dignified according to the notions of the age. He not only served but carved and helped the dishes, proffered the first or principal cup of wine to his master and his guests, and carried to them the basin, ewer or napkin when they washed their hands before and after meat. He assisted in clearing the hall for dancing or minstrelsy, and laid the tables for chess or draughts, and he also shared in the pastimes for which he had made preparation. He brought his master the “vin de coucher” at night, and made his early refection ready for him in the morning. But his military exercises and athletic sports occupied an always increasing portion of the day. He accustomed himself to ride the “great horse,” to tilt at the quintain, to wield the sword and battle-axe, to swim and climb, to run and leap, and to bear the weight and overcome the embarrassments of armour. He inured himself to the vicissitudes of heat and cold, and voluntarily suffered the pains or inconveniences of hunger and thirst, fatigue and sleeplessness. It was then too that he chose his “lady-love,” whom he was expected to regard with an adoration at once earnest, respectful, and the more meritorious if concealed. And when it was considered that he had made sufficient advancement in his military accomplishments, he took his sword to the priest, who laid it on the altar, blessed it, and returned it to him.[23] Afterwards he either remained with his early master, relegating most of his domestic duties to his younger companions, or he entered the service of some valiant and adventurous lord or knight of his own selection. He now became a “squire of the body,” and truly an “armiger” or “scutifer,” for he bore the shield and armour of his leader to the field, and, what was a task of no small difficulty and hazard, cased and secured him in his panoply of war before assisting him to mount his courser or charger. It was his function also to display and guard in battle the banner of the baron or banneret or the pennon of the knight he served, to raise him from the ground if he were unhorsed, to supply him with another or his own horse if his was disabled or killed, to receive and keep any prisoners he might take, to fight by his side if he was unequally matched, to rescue him if captured, to bear him to a place of safety if wounded, and to bury him honourably when dead. And after he had worthily and bravely, borne himself for six or seven years as a squire, the time came when it was fitting that he should be made a knight. This, at least, was the current theory; but it is specially dangerous in medieval history to assume too much correspondence between theory and fact. In many castles, and perhaps in most, the discipline followed simply a natural and unwritten code of “fagging” and seniority, as in public schools or on board men-of-war some hundred years or so ago.

Two modes of conferring knighthood appear to have prevailed from a very early period in all countries where chivalry was known. In both of them the essential portion seems to have been the accolade or stroke of the sword. Modes of conferring Knighthood. But while in the one the accolade constituted the whole or nearly the whole of the ceremony, in the other it was surrounded with many additional observances. The former and simpler of these modes was naturally that used in war: the candidate knelt before “the chief of the army or some valiant knight,” who struck him thrice with the flat of a sword, pronouncing a brief formula of creation and of exhortation which varied at the creator’s will.[24]

In this form a number of knights were made before and after almost every battle between the 11th and the 16th centuries, and its advantages on the score of both convenience and economy gradually led to its general adoption both in time of peace and time of war. On extraordinary occasions indeed the more elaborate ritual continued to be observed. But recourse was had to it so rarely that in England about the beginning of the 15th century it came to be exclusively appropriated to a special king of knighthood. When Segar, garter king of arms, wrote in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, this had been accomplished with such completeness that he does not even mention that there were two ways of creating knights bachelors. “He that is to be made a knight,” he says, “is striken by the prince with a sword drawn upon his back or shoulder, the prince saying, ‘Soys Chevalier,’ and in times past was added ‘Saint George.’ And when the knight rises the prince sayeth ‘Avencez.’ This is the manner of dubbing knights at this present, and that term ‘dubbing’ was the old term in this point, not ‘creating.’ This sort of knights are by the heralds called knights bachelors.” In our days when a knight is personally made he kneels before the sovereign, who lays a sword drawn, ordinarily the sword of state, on either of his shoulders and says, “Rise,” calling him by his Christian name with the addition of “Sir” before it.

Very different were the solemnities which attended the creation of a knight when the complete procedure was observed. “The ceremonies and circumstances at the giving this dignity,” says Selden, “in the elder time were of two kinds especially, which we may call courtly and sacred. The courtly were the feasts held at the creation, giving of robes, arms, spurs and the like. The sacred were the holy devotions and what else was used in the church at or before the receiving of the dignity.”[25] But the leading authority on the subject is an ancient tract written in French, which will be found at length either in the original or translated by Segar, Dugdale, Byshe and Nicolas, among other English writers.[26] Daniel explains his reasons for transcribing it, “tant à cause du detail que de la naïveté du stile et encore plus de la bisarrerie des ceremonies que se faisoient pourtant alors fort sérieusement,” while he adds that these ceremonies were essentially identical in England, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

The process of inauguration was commenced in the evening by the placing of the candidate under the care of two “esquires of honour grave and well seen in courtship and nurture and also in the feats of chivalry,” who were to be “governors in all things relating to him.” Under their direction, to begin with, a barber shaved him and cut his hair. He was then conducted by them to his appointed chamber, where a bath was prepared hung within and without with linen and covered with rich cloths, into which after they had undressed him he entered. While he was in the bath two “ancient and grave knights” attended him “to inform, instruct and counsel him touching the order and feats of chivalry,” and when they had fulfilled their mission they poured some of the water of the bath over his shoulders, signing the left shoulder with the cross, and retired. He was then taken from the bath and put into a plain bed without hangings, in which he remained until his body was dry, when the two esquires put on him a white shirt and over that “a robe of russet with long sleeves having a hood thereto like unto that of an hermit.” Then the “two ancient and grave knights” returned and led him to the chapel, the esquires going before them “sporting and dancing” with “the minstrels making melody.” And when they had been served with wines and spices they went away leaving only the candidate, the esquires, “the priest, the chandler and the watch,” who kept the vigil of arms until sunrise, the candidate passing the night “bestowing himself in orisons and prayers.” At daybreak he confessed to the priest, heard matins, and communicated in the mass, offering a taper and a piece of money stuck in it as near the lighted end as possible, the first “to the honour of God” and the second “to the honour of the person that makes him a knight.” Afterwards he was taken back to his chamber, and remained in bed until the knights, esquires and minstrels went to him and aroused him. The knights then dressed him in distinctive garments, and they then mounted their horses and rode to the hall where the candidate was to receive knighthood; his future squire was to ride before him bareheaded bearing his sword by the point in its scabbard with his spurs hanging from its hilt. And when everything was prepared the prince or subject who was to knight him came into the hall, and, the candidate’s sword and spurs having been presented to him, he delivered the right spur to the “most noble and gentle” knight present, and directed him to fasten it on the candidate’s right heel, which he kneeling on one knee and putting the candidate’s right foot on his knee accordingly did, signing the candidate’s knee with the cross, and in like manner by another “noble and gentle” knight the left spur was fastened to his left heel. And then he who was to create the knight took the sword and girded him with it, and then embracing him he lifted his right hand and smote him on the neck or shoulder, saying, “Be thou a good knight,” and kissed him. When this was done they all went to the chapel with much music, and the new knight laying his right hand on the altar promised to support and defend the church, and ungirding his sword offered it on the altar. And as he came out from the chapel the master cook awaited him at the door and claimed his spurs as his fee, and said, “If you do anything contrary to the order of chivalry (which God forbid), I shall hack the spurs from your heels.”[27]

The full solemnities for conferring knighthood seem to have been so largely and so early superseded by the practice of dubbing or giving the accolade alone that in England it became at last restricted to such knights as were made at coronations and some other occasions of state. And to them the particular name of Knights of the Bath was assigned, while knights made in the ordinary way were called in distinction from them knights of the sword, as they were also called knights bachelors in distinction from knights banneret.[28] It is usually supposed that the first creation of knights of the Bath under that designation was at the coronation of Henry IV.; and before the order of the Bath as a companionship or capitular body was instituted the last creation of them was at the coronation of Charles II. But all knights were also knights of the spur or “equites aurati,” because their spurs were golden or gilt,—the spurs of squires being of silver or white metal,—and these became their peculiar badge in popular estimation and proverbial speech. In the form of their solemn inauguration too, as we have noticed, the spurs together with the sword were always employed as the leading and most characteristic ensigns of knighthood.[29]

With regard to knights banneret, various opinions have been entertained as to both the nature of their dignity and the qualifications they were required to possess for receiving it at different periods and in different countries. On the Continent the distinction which is commonly but incorrectly made between the nobility and the gentry has never arisen, and it was unknown here while chivalry existed and heraldry was understood. Here, as elsewhere in the old time, a nobleman and a gentleman meant the same thing, namely, a man who under certain conditions of descent was entitled to armorial bearings. Hence Du Cange divides the medieval nobility of France and Spain into three classes: first, barons or ricos hombres; secondly, chevaliers or caballeros; and thirdly, écuyers or infanzons; and to the first, who with their several special titles constituted the greater nobility of either country, he limits the designation of banneret and the right of leading their followers to war under a banner, otherwise a “drapeau quarré” or square flag.[30] Selden shows especially from the parliament rolls that the term banneret has been occasionally employed in England as equivalent to baron.[31] In Scotland, even as late as the reign of James VI., lords of parliament were always created bannerets as well as barons at their investiture, “part of the ceremony consisting in the display of a banner, and such ‘barones majores’ were thereby entitled to the privilege of having one borne by a retainer before them to the field of a quadrilateral form.”[32] In Scotland, too, lords of parliament and bannerets were also called bannerents, banrents or baronets, and in England banneret was often corrupted to baronet. “Even in a patent passed to Sir Ralph Fane, knight under Edward VI., he is called ‘baronettus’ for ‘bannerettus.’”[33] In this manner it is not improbable that the title of baronet may have been suggested to the advisers of James I. when the order of Baronets was originally created by him, for it was a question whether the recipients of the new dignity should be designated by that or some other name.[34] But there is no doubt that as previously used it was merely a corrupt synonym for banneret, and not the name of any separate dignity. On the Continent, however, there are several recorded examples of bannerets who had an hereditary claim to that honour and its attendant privileges on the ground of the nature of their feudal tenure.[35] And generally, at any rate to commence with, it seems probable that bannerets were in every country merely the more important class of feudatories, the “ricos hombres” in contrast to the knights bachelors, who in France in the time of St Louis were known as “pauvres hommes.” In England all the barons or greater nobility were entitled to bear banners, and therefore Du Cange’s observations would apply to them as well as to the barons or greater nobility of France and Spain. But it is clear that from a comparatively early period bannerets whose claims were founded on personal distinction rather than on feudal tenure gradually came to the front, and much the same process of substitution appears to have gone on in their case as that which we have marked in the case of simple knights. According to the Sallade and the Division du Monde, as cited by Selden, bannerets were clearly in the beginning feudal tenants of a certain magnitude and importance and nothing more, and different forms for their creation are given in time of peace and in time of war.[36] But in the French Gesta Romanorum the warlike form alone is given, and it is quoted by both Selden and Du Cange. From the latter a more modern version of it is given by Daniel as the only one generally in force.

Plate I.

INSIGNIA OF SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD,DRAWN BY GRACIOUS PERMISSION FROM THOSE IN THE POSSESSIONOF HIS LATE MAJESTY KING EDWARD VII AND ARRANGEDIN ACCORDANCE WITH HIS MAJESTY’S WISHES AND COMMAND.
THE ORDER OF THE GARTER. (i.) The Garter; (ii) The Collar and George; (iii.) The Lesser Georgeand Ribbon; (iv.) Star.
Drawn by William Gibb.	Niagara Litho. Co., Buffalo, N. Y.

The knight bachelor whose services and landed possessions entitled him to promotion would apply formally to the commander in the field for the title of banneret. If this were granted, the heralds were called to cut publicly the tails from his pennon: or the commander, as a special honour, might cut them off with his own hands.[37] The earliest contemporary mention of knights banneret is in France, Daniel says, in the reign of Philip Augustus, and in England, Selden says in the reign of Edward I. But in neither case is reference made to them in such a manner as to suggest that the dignity was then regarded as new or even uncommon, and it seems pretty certain that its existence on one side could not have long preceded its existence on the other side of the Channel. Sir Alan Plokenet, Sir Ralph Daubeney and Sir Philip Daubeney are entered as bannerets on the roll of the garrison of Caermarthen Castle in 1282, and the roll of Carlaverock records the names and arms of eighty-five bannerets who accompanied Edward I. in his expedition into Scotland in 1300.

What the exact contingent was which bannerets were expected to supply to the royal host is doubtful.[38] But, however this may be, in the reign of Edward III. and afterwards bannerets appear as the commanders of a military force raised by themselves and marshalled under their banners: their status and their relations both to the crown and to their followers were mainly the consequences of voluntary contract not of feudal tenure. It is from the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. also that the two best descriptions we possess of the actual creation of a banneret have been transmitted to us.[39] Sir Thomas Smith, writing towards the end of the 16th century, says, after noticing the conditions to be observed in the creation of bannerets, “but this order is almost grown out of use in England”;[40] and, during the controversy which arose between the new order of baronets and the crown early in the 17th century respecting their precedence, it was alleged without contradiction in an argument on behalf of the baronets before the privy council that “there are not bannerets now in being, peradventure never shall be.”[41] Sir Ralph Fane, Sir Francis Bryan and Sir Ralph Sadler were created bannerets by the Lord Protector Somerset after the battle of Pinkie in 1547, and the better opinion is that this was the last occasion on which the dignity was conferred. It has been stated indeed that Charles I. created Sir John Smith a banneret after the battle of Edgehill in 1642 for having rescued the royal standard from the enemy. But of this there is no sufficient proof. It was also supposed that George III. had created several naval officers bannerets towards the end of the last century, because he knighted them on board ship under the royal standard displayed. This, however, is unquestionably an error.[42]

On the continent of Europe the degree of knight bachelor disappeared with the military system which had given rise to it. It is now therefore peculiar to the British Empire, where, although very frequently conferred by letters Existing Orders of Knighthood. patent, it is yet the only dignity which is still even occasionally created—as every dignity was formerly created—by means of a ceremony in which the sovereign and the subject personally take part. Everywhere else dubbing or the accolade seems to have become obsolete, and no other species of knighthood, if knighthood it can be called, is known except that which is dependent on admission to some particular order. It is a common error to suppose that baronets are hereditary knights. Baronets are not knights unless they are knighted like anybody else; and, so far from being knights because they are baronets, one of the privileges granted to them shortly after the institution of their dignity was that they, not being knights, and their successors and their eldest sons and heirs-apparent should, when they attained their majority, be entitled if they desired to receive knighthood.[43] It is a maxim of the law indeed that, as Coke says, “the knight is by creation and not by descent,” and, although we hear of such designations as the “knight of Kerry” or the “knight of Glin,” they are no more than traditional nicknames, and do not by any means imply that the persons to whom they are applied are knights in a legitimate sense. Notwithstanding, however, that simple knighthood has gone out of use abroad, there are innumerable grand crosses, commanders and companions of a formidable assortment of orders in almost every part of the world.[44] (See the section on “Orders of Knighthood” below.)

The United Kingdom has eight orders of knighthood—the Garter, the Thistle, St Patrick, the Bath, the Star of India, St Michael and St George, the Indian Empire and the Royal Victorian Order; and, while the first is undoubtedly the oldest as well as the most illustrious anywhere existing, a fictitious antiquity has been claimed and is even still frequently conceded to the second and fourth, although the third, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth appear to be as contentedly as they are unquestionably recent.

It is, however, certain that the “most noble” Order of the Garter at least was instituted in the middle of the 14th century, when English chivalry was outwardly brightest and the court most magnificent. But in what particular Order of the Garter. year this event occurred is and has been the subject of much difference of opinion. All the original records of the order until after 1416 have perished, and consequently the question depends for its settlement not on direct testimony but on inference from circumstances. The dates which have been selected vary from 1344 (given by Froissart, but almost certainly mistaken) to 1351. The evidence may be examined at length in Nicolas and Beltz; it is indisputable that in the wardrobe account from September 1347 to January 1349, the 21st and 23rd Edward III., the issue of certain habits with garters and the motto embroidered on them is marked for St George’s Day; that the letters patent relating to the preparation of the royal chapel of Windsor are dated in August 1348; and that in the treasury accounts of the prince of Wales there is an entry in November 1348 of the gift by him of “twenty-four garters to the knights of the Society of the Garter.”[45] But that the order, although from this manifestly already fully constituted in the autumn of 1348, was not in existence before the summer of 1346 Sir Harris Nicolas proves pretty conclusively by pointing out that nobody who was not a knight could under its statutes have been admitted to it, and that neither the prince of Wales nor several others of the original companions were knighted until the middle of that year.

Regarding the occasion there has been almost as much controversy as regarding the date of its foundation. The “vulgar and more general story,” as Ashmole calls it, is that of the countess of Salisbury’s garter. But commentators are not at one as to which countess of Salisbury was the heroine of the adventure, whether she was Katherine Montacute or Joan the Fair Maid of Kent, while Heylyn rejects the legend as “a vain and idle romance derogatory both to the founder and the order, first published by Polydor Vergil, a stranger to the affairs of England, and by him taken upon no better ground than fama vulgi, the tradition of the common people, too trifling a foundation for so great a building.”[46]

Another legend is that contained in the preface to the Register or Black Book of the order, compiled in the reign of Henry VIII., by what authority supported is unknown, that Richard I., while his forces were employed against Cyprus and Acre, had been inspired through the instrumentality of St George with renewed courage and the means of animating his fatigued soldiers by the device of tying about the legs of a chosen number of knights a leathern thong or garter, to the end that being thereby reminded of the honour of their enterprise they might be encouraged to redoubled efforts for victory. This was supposed to have been in the mind of Edward III. when he fixed on the garter as the emblem of the order, and it was stated so to have been by Taylor, master of the rolls, in his address to Francis I. of France on his investiture in 1527.[47] According to Ashmole the true account of the matter is that “King Edward having given forth his own garter as the signal for a battle which sped fortunately (which with Du Chesne we conceive to be that of Crécy), the victory, we say, being happily gained, he thence took occasion to institute this order, and gave the garter (assumed by him for the symbol of unity and society) preeminence among the ensigns of it.” But, as Sir Harris Nicolas points out—although Ashmole is not open to the correction—this hypothesis rests for its plausibility on the assumption that the order was established before the invasion of France in 1346. And he further observes that “a great variety of devices and mottoes were used by Edward III.; they were chosen from the most trivial causes and were of an amorous rather than of a military character. Nothing,” he adds, “is more likely than that in a crowded assembly a lady should accidentally have dropped her garter; that the circumstance should have caused a smile in the bystanders; and that on its being taken up by Edward he should have reproved the levity of his courtiers by so happy and chivalrous an exclamation, placing the garter at the same time on his own knee, as ‘Dishonoured be he who thinks ill of it.’ Such a circumstance occurring at a time of general festivity, when devices, mottoes and conceits of all kinds were adopted as ornaments or badges of the habits worn at jousts and tournaments, would naturally have been commemorated as other royal expressions seem to have been by its conversion into a device and motto for the dresses at an approaching hastilude.”[48] Moreover, Sir Harris Nicolas contends that the order had no loftier immediate origin than a joust or tournament. It consisted of the king and the Black Prince, and 24 knights divided into two bands of 12 like the tilters in a hastilude——at the head of the one being the first, and of the other the second; and to the companions belonging to each, when the order had superseded the Round Table and had become a permanent institution, were assigned stalls either on the sovereign’s or the prince’s side of St George’s Chapel. That Sir Harris Nicolas is accurate in this conjecture seems probable from the selection which was made of the “founder knights.” As Beltz observes, the fame of Sir Reginald Cobham, Sir Walter Manny and the earls of Northampton, Hereford and Suffolk was already established by their warlike exploits, and they would certainly have been among the original companions had the order been then regarded as the reward of military merit only. But, although these eminent warriors were subsequently elected as vacancies occurred, their admission was postponed to that of several very young and in actual warfare comparatively unknown knights, whose claims to the honour may be most rationally explained on the assumption that they had excelled in the particular feats of arms which preceded the institution of the order. The original companionship had consisted of the sovereign and 25 knights, and no change was made in this respect until 1786, when the sons of George III. and his successors were made eligible notwithstanding that the chapter might be complete. In 1805 another alteration was effected by the provision that the lineal descendants of George II. should be eligible in the same manner, except the Prince of Wales for the time being, who was declared to be “a constituent part of the original institution”; and again in 1831 it was further ordained that the privilege accorded to the lineal descendants of George II. should extend to the lineal descendants of George I. Although, as Sir Harris Nicolas observes, nothing is now known of the form of admitting ladies into the order, the description applied to them in the records during the 14th and 15th centuries leaves no doubt that they were regularly received into it. The queen consort, the wives and daughters of knights, and some other women of exalted position, were designated “Dames de la Fraternité de St George,” and entries of the delivery of robes and garters to them are found at intervals in the Wardrobe Accounts from the 50th Edward III. (1376) to the 10th of Henry VII. (1495), the first being Isabel, countess of Bedford, the daughter of the one king, and the last being Margaret and Elizabeth, the daughters of the other king. The effigies of Margaret Byron, wife of Sir Robert Harcourt, K.G., at Stanton Harcourt, and of Alice Chaucer, wife of William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, K.G., at Ewelme, which date from the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV., have garters on their left arms. (See further under “Orders of Knighthood” below.)

It has been the general opinion, as expressed by Sainte Palaye and Mills, that formerly all knights were qualified to confer knighthood.[49] But it may be questioned whether the privilege was thus indiscriminately enjoyed even in the earlier days Persons empowered to confer Knighthood. of chivalry. It is true that as much might be inferred from the testimony of the romance writers; historical evidence, however, tends to limit the proposition, and the sounder conclusion appears to be, as Sir Harris Nicolas says, that the right was always restricted in operation to sovereign princes, to those acting under their authority or sanction, and to a few other personages of exalted rank and station.[50] In several of the writs for distraint of knighthood from Henry III. to Edward III. a distinction is drawn between those who are to be knighted by the king himself or by the sheriffs of counties respectively, and bishops and abbots could make knights in the 11th and 12th centuries.[51] At all periods the commanders of the royal armies had the power of conferring knighthood; as late as the reign of Elizabeth it was exercised among others by Sir Henry Sidney in 1583, and Robert, earl of Essex, in 1595, while under James I. an ordinance of 1622, confirmed by a proclamation of 1623, for the registration of knights in the college of arms, is rendered applicable to all who should receive knighthood from either the king or any of his lieutenants.[52] Many sovereigns, too, both of England and of France, have been knighted after their accession to the throne by their own subjects, as, for instance, Edward III. by Henry, earl of Lancaster, Edward VI. by the lord protector Somerset, Louis XI. by Philip, duke of Burgundy, and Francis I. by the Chevalier Bayard. But when in 1543 Henry VIII. appointed Sir John Wallop to be captain of Guisnes, it was considered necessary that he should be authorized in express terms to confer knighthood, which was also done by Edward VI. in his own case when he received knighthood from the duke of Somerset.[53] But at present the only subject to whom the right of conferring knighthood belongs is the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and to him it belongs merely by long usage and established custom. But, by whomsoever conferred, knighthood at one time endowed the recipient with the same status and attributes in every country wherein chivalry was recognized. In the middle ages it was a common practice for sovereigns and princes to dub each other knights much as they were afterwards, and are now, in the habit of exchanging the stars and ribbons of their orders. Henry II. was knighted by his great-uncle David I. of Scotland, Alexander III. of Scotland by Henry III., Edward I. when he was prince by Alphonso X. of Castile, and Ferdinand of Portugal by Edmund of Langley, earl of Cambridge.[54] And, long after the military importance of knighthood had practically disappeared, what may be called its cosmopolitan character was maintained: a knight’s title was recognized in all European countries, and not only in that country in which he had received it. In modern times, however, by certain regulations, made in 1823, and repeated and enlarged in 1855, not only is it provided that the sovereign’s permission by royal warrant shall be necessary for the reception by a British subject of any foreign order of knighthood, but further that such permission shall not authorize “the assumption of any style, appellation, rank, precedence, or privilege appertaining to a knight bachelor of the United Kingdom.”[55]

Since knighthood was accorded either by actual investiture or its equivalent, a counter process of degradation was regarded as necessary for the purpose of depriving anybody who had once received it of the rank and condition Degradation. it implied.[56] The cases in which a knight has been formally degraded in England are exceedingly few, so few indeed that two only are mentioned by Segar, writing in 1602, and Dallaway says that only three were on record in the College of Arms when he wrote in 1793. The last case was that of Sir Francis Michell in 1621, whose spurs were hacked from his heels, his sword-belt cut, and his sword broken over his head by the heralds in Westminster Hall.[57]

Roughly speaking, the age of chivalry properly so called may be said to have extended from the beginning of the crusades to the end of the Wars of the Roses. Even in the way of pageantry and martial exercise it did not long survive the middle ages. In England tilts and tourneys, in which her father had so much excelled, were patronized to the last by Queen Elizabeth, and were even occasionally held until after the death of Henry, prince of Wales. But on the Continent they were discredited by the fatal accident which befell Henry II. of France in 1559. The golden age of chivalry has been variously located. Most writers would place it in the early 13th century, but Gautier would remove it two or three generations further back. It may be true that, in the comparative scarcity of historical evidence, 12th-century romances present a more favourable picture of chivalry at that earlier time; but even such historical evidence as we possess, when carefully scrutinized, is enough to dispel the illusion that there was any period of the middle ages in which the unselfish championship of “God and the ladies” was anything but a rare exception.

It is difficult to describe the true spirit and moral influence of knighthood, if only because the ages in which it flourished differed so widely from our own. At its very best, it was always hampered by the limitations of medieval society. Moreover, many of the noblest precepts of the knightly code were a legacy from earlier ages, and have survived the decay of knighthood just as they will survive all transitory human institutions, forming part of the eternal heritage of the race. Indeed, the most important of these precepts did not even attain to their highest development in the middle ages. As a conscious effort to bring religion into daily life, chivalry was less successful than later puritanism; while the educated classes of our own day far surpass the average medieval knight in discipline, self-control and outward or inward refinement. Freeman’s estimate comes far nearer to the historical facts than Burke’s: “The chivalrous spirit is above all things a class spirit. The good knight is bound to endless fantastic courtesies towards men and still more towards women of a certain rank; he may treat all below that rank with any decree of scorn and cruelty. The spirit of chivalry implies the arbitrary choice of one or two virtues to be practised in such an exaggerated degree as to become vices, while the ordinary laws of right and wrong are forgotten. The false code of honour supplants the laws of the commonwealth, the law of God and the eternal principles of right. Chivalry again in its military aspect not only encourages the love of war for its own sake without regard to the cause for which war is waged, it encourages also an extravagant regard for a fantastic show of personal daring which cannot in any way advance the objects of the siege or campaign which is going on. Chivalry in short is in morals very much what feudalism is in law: each substitutes purely personal obligations devised in the interests of an exclusive class, for the more homely duties of an honest man and a good citizen” (Norman Conquest, v. 482). The chivalry from which Burke drew his ideas was, so far as it existed at all, the product of a far later age. In its own age, chivalry rested practically, like the highest civilization of ancient Greece and Rome, on slave labour;[58] and if many of its most brilliant outward attractions have now faded for ever, this is only because modern civilization tends so strongly to remove social barriers. The knightly ages will always enjoy the glory of having formulated a code of honour which aimed at rendering the upper classes worthy of their exceptional privileges; yet we must judge chivalry not only by its formal code but also by its practical fruits. The ideal is well summed up by F. W. Cornish: “Chivalry taught the world the duty of noble service willingly rendered. It upheld courage and enterprise in obedience to rule, it consecrated military prowess to the service of the Church, glorified the virtues of liberality, good faith, unselfishness and courtesy, and above all, courtesy to women. Against these may be set the vices of pride, ostentation, love of bloodshed, contempt of inferiors, and loose manners. Chivalry was an imperfect discipline, but it was a discipline, and one fit for the times. It may have existed in the world too long: it did not come into existence too early; and with all its shortcomings it exercised a great and wholesome influence in raising the medieval world from barbarism to civilization” (p. 27). This was the ideal, but to give the reader a clear view of the actual features of knightly society in their contrast with that of our own day, it is necessary to bring out one or two very significant shadows.

Far too much has been made of the extent to which the knightly code, and the reverence paid to the Virgin Mary, raised the position of women (e.g. Gautier, p. 360). As Gautier himself admits, the feudal system made it difficult to separate the woman’s person from her fief: instead of the freedom of Christian marriage on which the Church in theory insisted, lands and women were handed over together, as a business bargain, by parents or guardians. In theory, the knight was the defender of widows and orphans; but in practice wardships and marriages were bought and sold as a matter of everyday routine like stocks and shares in the modern market. Lord Thomas de Berkeley (1245-1321) counted on this as a regular and considerable source of income (Smyth, Lives, i. 157). Late in the 15th century, in spite of the somewhat greater liberty of that age, we find Stephen Scrope writing nakedly to a familiar correspondent “for very need [of poverty], I was fain to sell a little daughter I have for much less than I should have done by possibility,” i.e. than the fair market price (Gairdner, Paston Letters, Introduction, p. clxxvi; cf. ccclxxi). Startling as such words are, it is perhaps still more startling to find how frequently and naturally, in the highest society, ladies were degraded by personal violence. The proofs of this which Schultz and Gautier adduce from the Chansons de Geste might be multiplied indefinitely. The Knight of La Tour-Landry (1372) relates, by way of warning to his daughters, a tale of a lady who so irritated her husband by scolding him in company, that he struck her to the earth with his fist and kicked her in the face, breaking her nose. Upon this the good knight moralizes: “And this she had for her euelle and gret langage, that she was wont to saie to her husbonde. And therfor the wiff aught to suffre and lete her husbonde haue the wordes, and to be maister, for that is her worshippe; for it is shame to here striff betwene hem, and in especial before folke. But y saie not but whanne thei be allone, but she may tolle hym with goodly wordes, and counsaile hym to amende yef he do amys” (La Tour, chap. xviii.; cf. xvii. and xix.). The right of wife-beating was formally recognized by more than one code of laws, and it was already a forward step when, in the 13th century, the Coutumes du Beauvoisis provided “que le mari ne doit battre sa femme que raisonnablement” (Gautier, p. 349). This was a natural consequence not only of the want of self-control which we see everywhere in the middle ages, but also of the custom of contracting child-marriages for unsentimental considerations. Between 1288 and 1500 five marriages are recorded in the direct line of the Berkeley family in which the ten contracting parties averaged less than eleven years of age: the marriage contract of another Lord Berkeley was drawn up before he was six years old. Moreover, the same business considerations which dictated those early marriages clashed equally with the strict theory of knighthood. In the same Berkeley family, the lord Maurice IV. was knighted in 1338 at the age of seven to avoid the possible evils of wardship, and Thomas V. for the same reason in 1476 at the age of five. Smyth’s record of this great family shows that, from the middle of the 13th century onwards, the lords were not only statesmen and warriors, but still more distinguished as gentlemen-farmers on a great scale, even selling fruit from the castle gardens, while their ladies would go round on tours of inspection from dairy to dairy. The lord Thomas III. (1326-1361), who was noted as a special lover of tournaments, spent in two years only £90, or an average of about £15 per tournament; yet he was then laying money by at the rate of £450 a year, and, a few years later, at the rate of £1150, or nearly half his income! Indeed, economic causes contributed much to the decay of romantic chivalry. The old families had lost heavily from generation to generation, partly by personal extravagances, but also by gradual alienations of land to the Church and by the enormous expenses of the crusades. Already, in the 13th century, they were hard pressed by the growing wealth of the burghers, and even the greatest nobles could scarcely keep up their state without careful business management. It is not surprising therefore, to find that at least as early as the middle of the 13th century the commercial side of knighthood became very prominent. Although by the code of chivalry no candidate could be knighted before the age of twenty-one, we have seen how great nobles like the Berkeleys obtained that honour for their infant heirs in order to avoid possible pecuniary loss; and French writers of the 14th century complained of this knighting of infants as a common and serious abuse.[59] Moreover, after the knight’s liability to personal service in war had been modified in the 12th century by the scutage system, it became necessary in the first quarter of the 13th to compel landowners to take up the knighthood which in theory they should have coveted as an honour—a compulsion which was soon systematically enforced (Distraint of Knighthood, 1278), and became a recognized source of royal income. An indirect effect of this system[60] was to break down another rule of the chivalrous code—that none could be dubbed who was not of gentle birth.[61] This rule, however, had often been broken before; even the romances of chivalry speak not infrequently of the knighting of serfs or jongleurs;[62] and other causes besides distraint of knighthood tended to level the old distinctions. While knighthood was avoided by poor nobles, it was coveted by rich citizens. It is recorded in 1298 as “an immemorial custom” in Provence that rich burghers enjoyed the honour of knighthood; and less than a century later we find Sacchetti complaining that the dignity is open to any rich upstart, however disreputable his antecedents.[63] Similar causes contributed to the decay of knightly ideas in warfare. Even in the 12th century, when war was still rather the pastime of kings and knights than a national effort, the strict code of chivalry was more honoured in the breach than in the observance.[64] But when the Hundred Years’ War brought a real national conflict between England and France, when archery became of supreme importance, and a large proportion even of the cavalry were mercenary soldiers, then the exigencies of serious warfare swept away much of that outward display and those class-conventions on which chivalry had always rested. Siméon Luce (chap. vi.) has shown how much the English successes in this war were due to strict business methods. Several of the best commanders (e.g. Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Thomas Dagworth) were of obscure birth, while on the French side even Du Guesclin had to wait long for his knighthood because he belonged only to the lesser nobility. The tournament again, which for two centuries had been under the ban of the Church, was often almost as definitely discouraged by Edward III. as it was encouraged by John of France; and while John’s father opened the Crécy campaign by sending Edward a challenge in due form of chivalry, Edward took advantage of this formal delay to amuse the French king with negotiations while he withdrew his army by a rapid march from an almost hopeless position. A couple of quotations from Froissart will illustrate the extent to which war had now become a mere business. Much as he admired the French chivalry, he recognized their impotence at Crécy. “The sharp arrows ran into the men of arms and into their horses, and many fell, horse and men.... And also among the Englishmen there were certain rascals that went afoot with great knives, and they went in among the men of arms, and slew and murdered many as they lay on the ground, both earls, barons, knights and squires, whereof the king of England was after displeased, for he had rather they had been taken prisoners.” How far Edward’s solicitude was disinterested may be gauged from Froissart’s parallel remark about the battle of Aljubarrota, where, as at Agincourt, the handful of victors were obliged by a sudden panic to slay their prisoners. “Lo, behold the great evil adventure that fell that Saturday. For they slew as many good prisoners as would well have been worth, one with another, four hundred thousand franks.” In 1402 Lord Thomas de Berkeley bought, as a speculation, 24 Scottish prisoners. Similar practical considerations forced the nobles of other European countries either to conform to less sentimental methods of warfare and to growing conceptions of nationality, or to become mere Ishmaels of the type which outlived the middle ages in Götz von Berlichingen and his compeers.

Bibliography.—Froissart is perhaps the source from which we may gather most of chivalry in its double aspect, good and bad. The brilliant side comes out most clearly in Joinville, the Chronique de Du Guesclin, and the Histoire de Bayart; the darker side appears in the earlier chronicles of the crusades, and is especially emphasized by preachers and moralists like Jacques de Vitry, Étienne de Bourbon, Nicole Bozon and John Gower. John Smyth’s Lives of the Berkeleys (Bristol and Gloucs. Archaeol. Soc, 2 vols.) and the Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry (ed. A. de Montaiglon, or in the old English trans. published by the Early English Text Soc.) throw a very vivid light on the inner life of noble families. Of modern books, besides those quoted by their full titles in the notes, the best are A. Schultz, Höfisches Leben z. Zeit der Minnesänger (Leipzig, 1879); S. Luce, Hist. de Du Guesclin et de son Époque (2nd ed., Paris, 1882), masterly but unfortunately unfinished at the author’s death; Léon Gautier, La Chevalerie (Paris, 1883), written with a strong apologetic bias, but full and correct in its references; and F. W. Cornish, Chivalry (London, 1901), too little reference to the more prosaic historical documents, but candid and without intentional partiality.

(G. G. Co.)

Orders of Knighthood

When orders ceased to be fraternities and became more and more marks of favour and a means of recognizing meritorious services to the Crown and country, the term “orders” became loosely applied to the insignia and decorations themselves. Thus “orders,” irrespective of the title or other specific designation they confer, fall in Great Britain generally into three main categories, according as the recipients are made “knights grand cross,” “knights commander,” or “companions.” In some orders the classes are more numerous, as in the Royal Victorian, for instance, which has five, numerous foreign orders a like number, some six, while the Chinese “Dragon” boasts no less than eleven degrees. Generally speaking, the insignia of the “knights grand cross” consist of a star worn on the left breast and a badge, usually some form either of the cross patée or of the Maltese cross, worn suspended from a ribbon over the shoulder or, in certain cases, on days of high ceremonial from a collar. The “commanders” wear the badge from a ribbon round the neck, and the star on the breast; the “companions” have no star and wear the badge from a narrow ribbon at the button-hole.

Orders may, again, be grouped according as they are (1) Prime Orders of Christendom, conferred upon an exclusive class only. Here belong, inter alia, the well-known orders of the Garter (England), Golden Fleece (Austria and Spain), Annunziata (Italy), Black Eagle (Prussia), St Andrew (Russia), Elephant (Denmark) and Seraphim (Sweden). Of these the first three only, which are usually held to rank inter se in the order given, are historically identified with chivalry. (2) Family Orders, bestowed upon members of the royal or princely class, or upon humbler individuals according to classes, in respect of “personal” services rendered to the family. To this category belong such orders as the Royal Victorian and the Hohenzollern (Prussia). (3) Orders of Merit, whether military, civil or joint orders. Such have, as a rule, at least three, oftener five classes, and here belong such as the Order of the Bath (British), Red Eagle (Prussia), Legion of Honour (France). There are also certain orders, such as the recently instituted Order of Merit (British), and the Pour le Mérite (Prussia), which have but one class, all members being on an equality of rank within the order.

Of the three great military and religious orders, branches survive of two, the Teutonic Order (Der hohe deutsche Ritter Orden or Marianen Orden) and the Knights of St John of Jerusalem (Johanniter Orden, Malteser Orden), for the history of which and the present state see [Teutonic Order] and [St John of Jerusalem, Knights of the Order of].

Great Britain.—The history and constitution of the “most noble” Order of the Garter has been treated above. The officers of the order are five—the prelate, chancellor, registrar, king of arms and usher—the first, third and fifth having been attached to it from the commencement, while the fourth was added by Henry V. and the second by Edward IV. The prelate has always been the bishop of Winchester; the chancellor was formerly the bishop of Salisbury, but is now the bishop of Oxford; the registrarship and the deanery of Windsor have been united since the reign of Charles I.; the king of arms, whose duties were in the beginning discharged by Windsor herald, is Garter Principal King of Arms; and the usher is the gentleman usher of the Black Rod. The chapel of the order is St George’s Chapel, Windsor. The insignia of the order are illustrated on Plate I.

The “most ancient” Order of the Thistle, was founded by James II. in 1687, and dedicated to St Andrew. It consisted of the sovereign and eight knights companions, and fell into abeyance at the Revolution of 1688. In 1703 it was revived by Queen Anne, when it was ordained to consist of the sovereign and 12 knights companions, the number being increased to 16 by statute in 1827. The officers of the order are the dean, the secretary, Lyon King of Arms and the gentleman usher of the Green Rod. The chapel, in St Giles’s, Edinburgh, was begun in 1909. The star, badge and ribbon of the order are illustrated on Plate II., figs. 5 and 6. The collar is formed of thistles, alternating with sprigs of rue, and the motto is Nemo me impune lacessit.

Plate II.

INSIGNIA OF SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD,DRAWN BY GRACIOUS PERMISSION FROM THOSE IN THE POSSESSIONOF HIS LATE MAJESTY KING EDWARD VII AND ARRANGEDIN ACCORDANCE WITH HIS MAJESTY’S WISHES AND COMMAND.
THE BATH. (i) Star; (ii.) Grand Cross (Mil.); (iii) Star; (iv.) Grand Cross (Civ.); THE THISTLE. (v.) Star; (vi.) Badge. THE ST. PATRICK.(vii.) Badge; (viii.) Star. THE ST. MICHAEL AND ST. GEORGE. (ix.) Star; (x.) Grand Cross.
Drawn by William Gibb.	Niagara Litho. Co., Buffalo, N. Y.

The “most illustrious” Order of St Patrick was instituted by George III. in 1788, to consist of the sovereign, the lord lieutenant of Ireland as grand master and 15 knights companions, enlarged to 22 in 1833. The chancellor of the order is the chief secretary to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, and the king of arms is Ulster King of Arms; Black Rod is the usher. The chapel is in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. The star, badge and ribbon are illustrated on Plate II., figs. 7 and 8. The collar is formed of alternate roses with red and white leaves, and gold harps linked by gold knots; the badge is suspended from a harp surmounted by an imperial jewelled crown. The motto is Quis separabit?

The “most honourable” Order of the Bath was established by George I. in 1725, to consist of the sovereign, a grand master and 36 knights companions. This was a pretended revival of an order supposed to have been created by Henry IV. at his coronation in 1399. But, as has been shown in the preceding section, no such order existed. Knights of the Bath, although they were allowed precedence before knights bachelors, were merely knights bachelors who were knighted with more elaborate ceremonies than others and on certain great occasions. In 1815 the order was instituted, in three classes, “to commemorate the auspicious termination of the long and arduous contest in which the Empire has been engaged”; and in 1847 the civil knights commanders and companions were added. Exclusive of the sovereign, royal princes and distinguished foreigners, the order is limited to 55 military and 27 civil knights grand cross, 145 military and 108 civil knights commanders, and 705 military and 298 civil companions. The officers of the order are the dean (the dean of Westminster), Bath King of Arms, the registrar, and the usher of the Scarlet Rod. The ribbon and badges of the knights grand cross (civil and military) and the stars are illustrated on Plate II., figs. 1, 2, 3 and 4.

The “most distinguished” Order of St Michael and St George was founded by the prince regent, afterwards George IV., in 1818, in commemoration of the British protectorate of the Ionian Islands, “for natives of the Ionian Islands and of the island of Malta and its dependencies, and for such other subjects of his majesty as may hold high and confidential situations in the Mediterranean.” By statute of 1832 the lord high commissioner of the Ionian Islands was to be the grand master, and the order was directed to consist of 15 knights grand crosses, 20 knights commanders and 25 cavaliers or companions. After the repudiation of the British protectorate of the Ionian Islands, the order was placed on a new basis, and by letters patent of 1868 and 1877 it was extended and provided for such of “the natural born subjects of the Crown of the United Kingdom as may have held or shall hold high and confidential offices within her majesty’s colonial possessions, and in reward for services rendered to the crown in relation to the foreign affairs of the Empire.” It is now (by the enlargement of 1902) limited to 100 knights grand cross, of whom the first or principal is grand master, exclusive of extra and honorary members, of 300 knights commanders and 600 companions. The officers are the prelate, chancellor, registrar, secretary and officer of arms. The chapel of the order, in St Paul’s Cathedral, was dedicated in 1906. The badge of the knights grand cross and the ribbon are illustrated on Plate II., figs. 9 and 10. The star of the knights grand cross is a seven-rayed star of silver with a small ray of gold between each, in the centre is a red St George’s cross bearing a medallion of St Michael encountering Satan, surrounded by a blue fillet with the motto Auspicium melioris aevi.

The Order of St Michael and St George ranks between the “most exalted” Order of the Star of India and the “most eminent” Order of the Indian Empire, of both of which the viceroy of India for the time being is ex officio grand master. Of these the first was instituted in 1861 and enlarged in 1876, 1897 and 1903, in three classes, knights grand commanders, knights commanders and companions, and the second was established (for “companions” only) in 1878 and enlarged in 1887, 1892, 1897 and 1903, also in the same three classes, in commemoration of Queen Victoria’s assumption of the imperial style and title of the Empress of India. The badges, stars and ribbons of the knights grand commanders of the two orders are illustrated on Plate III., figs. 3, 4, 5 and 6. The collar of the Star of India is composed of alternate links of the lotus flower, red and white roses and palm branches enamelled on gold, with an imperial crown in the centre; that of the Indian Empire is composed of elephants, peacocks and Indian roses.

The Royal Victorian Order was instituted by Queen Victoria on the 25th of April 1896, and conferred for personal services rendered to her majesty and her successors on the throne. It consists of the sovereign, chancellor, secretary and five classes—knights grand commanders, knights commanders, commanders and members of the fourth and fifth classes, the distinction between these last divisions lying in the badge and in the precedence enjoyed by the members. The knights of this order rank in their respective classes immediately after those of the Indian Empire, and its numbers are unlimited. The badge, star and ribbon of the knights grand cross are illustrated on Plate III., figs. 1 and 2.

To the class of orders without the titular appellation “knight” belongs the Order of Merit, founded by King Edward VII. on the occasion of his coronation. The order is founded on the lines of the Prussian Ordre pour le mérite (see below), yet more comprehensive, including those who have gained distinction in the military and naval services of the Empire, and such as have made themselves a great name in the fields of science, art and literature. The number of British members has been fixed at twenty-four, with the addition of such foreign persons as the sovereign shall appoint. The names of the first recipients were: Earl Roberts, Viscount Wolseley, Viscount Kitchener, Sir Henry Keppel, Sir Edward Seymour, Lord Lister, Lord Rayleigh, Lord Kelvin, John Morley, W. E. H. Lecky, G. F. Watts and Sir William Huggins. The only foreign recipients up to 1910 were Field Marshals Yamagata and Oyama and Admiral Togo. A lady, Miss Florence Nightingale, received the order in 1907. The badge is a cross of red and blue enamel surmounted by an imperial crown; the central blue medallion bears the inscription “For Merit” in gold, and is surrounded by a wreath of laurel. The badge of the military and naval members bears two crossed swords in the angles of the cross. The ribbon is garter blue and crimson and is worn round the neck.

The Distinguished Service Order, an order of military merit, was founded on the 6th of September 1886 by Queen Victoria, its object being to recognize the special services of officers in the army and navy. Its numbers are unlimited, and its designation the letters D.S.O. It consists of one class only, who take precedence immediately after the 4th class of the Royal Victorian Order. The badge is a white and gold cross with a red centre bearing the imperial crown surrounded by a laurel wreath. The ribbon is red edged with blue. The Imperial Service Order was likewise instituted on the 26th of June 1902, and finally revised in 1908, to commemorate King Edward’s coronation, and is specially designed as a recognition of faithful and meritorious services rendered to the British Crown by the administrative members of the civil service in various parts of the Empire, and is to consist of companions only. The numbers are limited to 475, of whom 250 belong to the home and 225 to the civil services of the colonies and protectorates (Royal Warrant, June 1909). Women as well as men are eligible. The members of the order have the distinction of adding the letters I.S.O. after their names. In precedence the order ranks after the Distinguished Service Order. The badge is a gold medallion bearing the royal cipher and the words “For Faithful Service” in blue; for men it rests on a silver star, for women it is surrounded by a silver wreath. The ribbon is one blue between two crimson stripes.

In addition to the above, there are two British orders confined to ladies. The Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, which was instituted in 1862, is a purely court distinction. It consists of four classes, and it has as designation the letters V.A. The Imperial Order of the Crown of India is conferred for like purposes as the Order of the Indian Empire. Its primary object is to recognize the services of ladies connected with the court of India. The letters C.I. are its designation.

The sovereign’s permission by royal warrant is necessary before a British subject can receive a foreign order of knighthood. For other decorations, see under [Medals].

The Golden Fleece (La Toison d’Or) ranks historically and in distinction as one of the great knightly orders of Europe. It is now divided into two branches, of Austria and Spain. It was founded on the 10th of January, 1429/30 by Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, on the day of his marriage with Isabella of Portugal at Bruges, in her honour and dedicated to the Virgin and St Andrew. No certain origin can be given for the name. It seems to have been in dispute even in the early history of the order. Four different sources have been suggested; the classical myth of the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts for the golden fleece, the scriptural story of Gideon, the staple trade of Flanders in wool, and the fleece of golden hair of Marie de Rambrugge, the duke’s mistress. Motley (Rise of Dutch Rep., i. 48) says: “What could be more practical and more devout than the conception? Did not the Lamb of God, suspended at each knight’s heart, symbolize at once the woollen fabrics to which so much of Flemish wealth and Burgundian power was owing, and the gentle humility of Christ which was ever to characterize the order?” At its constitution the number of the knights was limited to 24, exclusive of the grand master, the sovereign. The members were to be gentilshommes de nom et d’armes et sans reproche, not knights of any other order, and vowed to join their sovereign in the defence of the Catholic faith, the protection of Holy Church, and the upholding of virtue and good morals. The sovereign undertook to consult the knights before embarking on a war, all disputes between the knights were to be settled by the order, at each chapter the deeds of each knight were held in review, and punishments and admonitions were dealt out to offenders; to this the sovereign was expressly subject. Thus we find that the emperor Charles V. accepted humbly the criticism of the knights of the Fleece on his over-centralization of the government and the wasteful personal attention to details (E. A. Armstrong, Charles V., 1902, ii. 373). The knights could claim as of right to be tried by their fellows on charges of rebellion, heresy and treason, and Charles V. conferred on the order exclusive jurisdiction over all crimes committed by the knights. The arrest of the offender had to be by warrant signed by at least six knights, and during the process of charge and trial he remained not in prison but dans l’aimable compagnie du dit ordre. It was in defiance of this right that Alva refused the claim of Counts Egmont and Horn to be tried by the knights of the Fleece in 1568. During the 16th century the order frequently acted as a consultative body in the state; thus in 1539 and 1540 Charles summons the knights with the council of state and the privy council to decide what steps should be taken in face of the revolt of Ghent (Armstrong, op. cit., i. 302), in 1562 Margaret of Parma, the regent, summons them to Brussels to debate the dangerous condition of the provinces (Motley, i. 48), and they were present at the abdication of Charles in the great hall at Brussels in 1555. The history of the order and its subsequent division into the two branches of Austria and Spain may be briefly summarized. By the marriage of Mary, only daughter of Charles the Bold of Burgundy to Maximilian, archduke of Austria, 1477, the grand mastership of the order came to the house of Habsburg and, with the Netherlands provinces, to Spain in 1504 on the accession of Philip, Maximilian’s son, to Castile. On the extinction of the Habsburg dynasty in Spain by the death of Charles II. in 1700 the grand-mastership, which had been filled by the kings of Spain after the loss of the Netherlands, was claimed by the emperor Charles VI., and he instituted the order in Vienna in 1713. Protests were made at various times by Philip V., but the question has never been finally decided by treaty, and the Austrian and Spanish branches have continued as independent orders ever since as the principal order of knighthood in the respective states. It may be noticed that while the Austrian branch excludes any other than Roman Catholics from the order, the Spanish Fleece may be granted to Protestants. The badges of the two branches vary slightly in detail, more particularly in the attachment of fire-stones (fusils or furisons) and steels by which the fleece is attached to the ribbon of the collar. The Spanish form is given on Plate IV., fig. 2. The collar is composed of alternate links of furisons and double steels interlaced to form the letter B for Burgundy. A magnificent exhibition of relics, portraits of knights and other objects connected with the order of the Golden Fleece was held at Bruges in 1907.

The chief history of the order is Baron de Reiffenberg’s Histoire de l’Ordre de la Toison d’Or (1830); see also an article by Sir J. Balfour Paul, Lyon King of Arms, in the Scottish Historical Review (July 1908).

Austria-Hungary.—The following are the principal orders other than that of the Golden Fleece (supra). The Order of St Stephen of Hungary, the royal Hungarian order, founded in 1764 by the empress Maria Theresa, consists of the grand master (the sovereign), 20 knights grand cross, 30 knights commanders and 50 knights. The badge is a green enamelled cross with gold borders, suspended from the Hungarian crown; the red enamelled medallion in the centre of the cross bears a white patriarchal cross issuing from a coroneted green mound; on either side of the cross are the letters M.T. in gold, and the whole is surrounded by a white fillet with the legend Publicum Meritorum Praemium. The ribbon is green with a crimson central stripe. The collar, only worn by the knights grand cross, is of gold, and consists of Hungarian crowns linked together alternately by the monograms of St Stephen, S.S., and the foundress, M.T.; the centre of the collar is formed by a flying lark encircled by the motto Stringit amore. An illustration of the star of the grand cross is given on Plate V. fig. 4. The Order of Leopold, for civil and military service, was founded in 1808 by the emperor Francis I. in memory of his father Leopold II. The three classes take precedence next after the corresponding classes of the order of St Stephen. The badge is a red enamelled cross bordered with white and gold and surmounted by the imperial crown; the red medallion in the centre bears the letters F.I.A., and on the encircling white fillet is the inscription Integritati et Merito. When conferred for service in war the cross rests on a green laurel wreath. The ribbon is scarlet with two white stripes. The collar consists of imperial crowns, the initials F. and L. and oak wreaths. The Order of the Iron Crown, i.e. of Lombardy, was founded by Napoleon as king of Italy in 1809, and refounded as an Austrian order of civil and military merit in 1816 by the emperor Francis I.; the number of knights is limited to 100—20 grand cross, 30 commanders, 50 knights. The badge consists of the double-headed imperial eagle with sword and orb; below it is the jewelled iron crown of Lombardy, and above the imperial crown; on the breast of the eagle is a gold-bordered blue shield with the letter F. in gold. The military decoration for war service also bears two green laurel branches. The ribbon is yellow edged with narrow blue stripes. The collar is formed of Lombard crowns, oak wreaths and the monogram F. P. (Franciscus Primus). The Order of Francis Joseph, for personal merit of every kind, was founded in 1849 by the emperor Francis Joseph I. It is of the three usual classes and is unlimited in numbers. The badge is a black and gold imperial eagle surmounted by the imperial crown. The eagle bears a red cross with a white medallion, containing the letters F. J., and to the beaks of the two heads of the eagle is attached a chain on which is the legend Viribus Unitis. The ribbon is deep red. The Order of Maria Theresa was founded by the empress Maria Theresa in 1757. It is a purely military order and is given to officers for personal distinguished conduct in the field. There are three classes. There were originally only two, grand cross and knights. The emperor Joseph II. added a commanders’ class in 1765. The badge is a white cross with gold edge, in the centre a red medallion with a white gold-edged fesse, surrounded by a fillet with the inscription Fortitudini. The ribbon is red with a white central stripe. The Order of Elizabeth Theresa, also a military order for officers, was founded in 1750 by the will of Elizabeth Christina, widow of the emperor Charles VI. It was renovated in 1771 by her daughter, the empress Maria Theresa. The order is limited to 21 knights in three divisions. The badge is an oval star with eight points, enamelled half red and white, dependent from a gold imperial crown. The central medallion bears the initials of the founders, with the encircling inscription M. Theresa parentis gratiam perennem voluit. The ribbon is black. The Order of the Starry Cross, for high-born ladies of the Roman Catholic faith who devote themselves to good works, spiritual and temporal, was founded in 1668 by the empress Eleanor, widow of the emperor Ferdinand III. and mother of Leopold I., to commemorate the recovery of a relic of the true cross from a dangerous fire in the imperial palace at Vienna. The relic was supposed to have been peculiarly treasured by the emperor Maximilian I. and the emperor Frederick III. The patroness of the order must be a princess of the imperial Austrian house. The badge is the black double-headed eagle surrounded by a blue-enamelled ornamented border, with the inscription Salus et Gloria on a white fillet; the eagle bears a red Greek cross with gold and blue borders. The Order of Elizabeth, also for ladies, was founded in 1898.

Plate III.

INSIGNIA OF SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD,DRAWN BY GRACIOUS PERMISSION FROM THOSE IN THE POSSESSIONOF HIS LATE MAJESTY KING EDWARD VII AND ARRANGEDIN ACCORDANCE WITH HIS MAJESTY’S WISHES AND COMMAND.
ROYAL VICTORIAN ORDER. (i.) Grand Cross; (ii.) Star. ORDER OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE. (iii.) Badge Of KnightGrand Commander; (iv.) Star. THE STAR OF INDIA. (v.) Star; (vi.) Badge of Knight Grand Commander.
Drawn by William Gibb.	Niagara Litho. Co., Buffalo, N. Y.

Belgium.—The Order of Leopold, for civil and military merit, was founded in 1832 by Leopold I., with four classes, a fifth being added in 1838. The badge is a white enamelled cross, with gold borders and balls, suspended from a royal crown and resting on a green laurel and oak wreath. In the centre a medallion, surrounded by a red fillet with the motto of the order, L’union fait la force, bears a golden Belgian lion on a black field. The ribbon is watered red. The Order of the Iron Cross, the badge of which is a black cross with gold borders, with a gold centre bearing a lion, was instituted by Leopold II. in 1867 as an order of civil merit. The military cross was instituted in 1885. There are also the following orders instituted by Leopold II. for service in the Congo State: the Order of the African Star (1888), the Royal Order of the Lion (1891) and the Congo Star (1889).

Bulgaria.—The Order of SS Cyril and Methodius was instituted in 1909 by King Ferdinand to commemorate the elevation of the principality to the position of an independent kingdom. It now takes precedence of the Order of St Alexander, which was founded by Prince Alexander in 1881, and reconstituted by Prince Ferdinand in 1888. There are six classes. The plain white cross, suspended from the Bulgarian crown, bears the name of the patron saint in old Cyrillic letters in the centre.

Denmark.—The Order of the Elephant, one of the chief European orders of knighthood, was, it is said, founded by Christian I. in 1462; a still earlier origin has been assigned to it, but its regular institution was that of Christian V. in 1693. The order, exclusive of the sovereign and his sons, is limited to 30 knights, who must be of the Protestant religion. The badge of the order is illustrated on Plate IV. fig. 5. The ribbon is light watered blue, the collar of alternate gold elephants with blue housings and towers, the star of silver with a purple medallion bearing a silver or brilliant cross surrounded by a silver laurel wreath. The motto is Magnanime pretium. The Order of the Dannebrog is, according to Danish tradition, of miraculous origin, and was founded by Valdemar II. in 1219 as a memorial of a victory over the Esthonians, won by the appearance in the sky of a red banner bearing a white cross. Historically the order dates from the foundation in 1671 by Christian V. at the birth of his son Frederick, the statutes being published in 1693. Originally restricted to 50 knights and granted as a family or court decoration, it was reconstituted as an unlimited order of merit in 1808 by Frederick VI.; alterations have been made in 1811 and 1864. It now consists of three classes—grand cross, commander (two grades), knight, and of one rank of ordinary members (Dannebrogs maender). The badge of the order is, with variations for the different classes, a white enamelled Danish cross with red and gold borders, bearing in the centre the letter W (V) and on the four arms the inscription Gud og Kongen (For God and King). The ribbon is white with red edging.

France.—The Legion of Honour, the only order of France, and one which in its higher grades ranks in estimation with the highest European orders, was instituted by Napoleon Bonaparte on the 19th of May 1802 (29 Floreal of the year X.) as a general military and civil order of merit. All soldiers on whom “swords of honour” had been already conferred were declared legionaries ipso facto, and all citizens after 25 years’ service were declared eligible, whatever their birth, rank or religion. On admission all were to swear to co-operate so far as in them lay for the assertion of the principles of liberty and equality. The organization as laid down by Napoleon in 1804 was as follows: Napoleon was grand master; a grand council of 7 grand officers administered the order; the order was divided into 15 “cohorts” of 7 grand officers, 20 commanders, 30 officers and 350 legionaries, and at the headquarters of the cohorts, for which the territory of France was separated into 15 divisions, were maintained hospitals for the support of the sick and infirm legionaries. Salaries (traitements) varying in each rank were attached to the order. In 1805 the rank of “Grand Eagle” (now Grand Cross, or Grand Cordon) was instituted, taking precedence of the grand officers. At the Restoration many changes were made, the old military and religious orders were restored, and the Legion of Honour, now Ordre Royale de la Légion d’Honneur, took the lowest rank. The revolution of July 1830 restored the order to its unique place. The constitution of the order now rests on the decrees of the 16th of March and 24th of November 1852, the law of the 25th of July 1873, the decree of the 29th of December 1892, and the laws of the 16th of April 1895 and the 28th of January 1897, and a decree of the 26th of June 1900. The president of the republic is the grand master of the order; the administration is in the hands of a grand chancellor, who has a council of the order nominated by the grand master. The chancellery is housed in the Palais de la Légion de l’Honneur, which, burnt during the Commune, was rebuilt in 1878. The order consists of the five classes of grand cross (limited to 80), grand officer (200), commander (1000), officers (4000), and chevalier or knight, in which the number is unlimited. These limitations in number do not affect the foreign recipients of the order. Salaries (traitements) are attached to the military and naval recipients of the order when on the active list, viz. 3000 francs for grand cross, 2000 francs for grand officers, 1000 francs for commanders, 250 francs for chevaliers. The numbers of the recipients of the order sans traitement are limited through all classes. In ordinary circumstances twenty years of military, naval or civil service must have been performed before a candidate can be eligible for the rank of chevalier, and promotions can only be made after definite service in the lower rank. Extraordinary service in time of war and extraordinary services in civil life admit to any rank. Women have been decorated, notably Rosa Bonheur, Madame Curie and Madame Bartet. The Napoleonic form of the grand cross and ribbon is illustrated on Plate IV, fig. 6; the cross from which the drawing was made was given to King Edward VII. when prince of Wales in 1863. In the present order of the French Republic the symbolical head of the Republic appears in the centre, and a laurel wreath replaces the imperial crown; the inscription round the medallion is République française. Since 1805 there has existed an institution, Maison d’éducation de la Legion d’Honneur, for the education of the daughters, granddaughters, sisters and nieces of members of the Legion of Honour. There are three houses, at Saint Denis, at Écouen and Les Loges (see Dictionnaire de l’administration française, by M. Block and E. Magnéro, 1905, s.v. “Decorations”).

Among the orders swept away at the French Revolution, restored in part at the Restoration, and finally abolished at the revolution of July 1830 were the following: The Order of St Michael was founded by Louis XI. in 1469 for a limited number of knights of noble birth. Later the numbers were so much increased under Charles IX. that it became known as Le Collier à toutes bêtes. In 1816 the order was granted for services in art and science. In view of the low esteem into which the Order of St Michael had fallen, Henry III. founded in 1578 the Order of the Holy Ghost (St Esprit). The badge of the order was a white Maltese cross decorated in gold, with the gold lilies of France at the angles, in the centre a white dove with wings outstretched, the ribbon was sky blue (cordon bleu). The motto of the order was Duce et auspice. The Order of St Louis was founded by Louis XIV. in 1693 for military merit, and the Order of Military Merit by Louis XV. in 1759, originally for Protestant officers.

Germany.—i. Anhalt. The Order of Albert the Bear, a family order or Hausorden, was founded in 1836 by the dukes Henry of Anhalt-Köthen, Leopold Frederick of Anhalt-Dessau and Alexander Charles of Anhalt-Bernburg. Changes in the constitution have been made at various dates. It now consists of five classes, grand cross, commander (2 classes) and knights (2 classes). The badge is a gold oval bearing in gold a crowned and collared bear on a crenellated wall; below the ring by which the badge is attached to the ribbon is a shield with the arms of the house of Anhalt, on the reverse those of the house of Ascania. Round the oval is the motto Fürchte Gott und folge seine Befehle. The ribbon is green with two red stripes. The grand master alone wears a collar.

ii. Baden. The Order of Fidelity or Loyalty (Hausorden der Treue) was instituted by William, margrave of Baden-Durlach in 1715, and reconstituted in 1803 by the elector Charles Frederick. There is now only one class, for princes of the reigning house, foreign sovereigns and eminent men of the state. The badge is a red enamelled cross with gold borders and double C’s interlaced in the angles; in the centre a white medallion with red monogram over a green mound surmounted by the word Fidelitas in black; the cross is suspended from a ducal crown. The ribbon is orange with silver edging. The military Order of Charles Frederick was founded in 1807. There are three classes. The badge is a white cross resting on a green laurel wreath, the ribbon is red with a yellow stripe bordered with white. The order is conferred for long and meritorious military service. The Order of the Zähringen Lion was founded in 1812 in commemoration of the descent of the reigning house of Baden from the dukes of Zähringen. It has been reconstituted in 1840 and 1877. It now consists of five classes. The badge is a green enamel cross with gold clasps in the angles; in the central medallion an enamelled representation of the ruined castle of Zähringen. The ribbon is green with two orange stripes. Since 1896 the Order of Berthold I. has been a distinct order; it was founded in 1877 as a higher class of the Zähringen Lion.

iii. Bavaria. The Order of St Hubert, one of the oldest and most distinguished knightly orders, was founded in 1444 by duke Gerhard V. of Jülich-Berg in honour of a victory over Count Arnold of Egmont at Ravensberg on the 3rd of November, St Hubert’s day. The knights wore a collar of golden hunting horns, whence the order was also known as the Order of the Horn. Statutes were granted in 1476, but the order fell into abeyance at the extinction of the dynasty in 1609. It was revived in 1708 by the elector palatine, John William of Neuberg, and its constitution was altered at various times, its final form being given by the elector Maximilian Joseph, first king of Bavaria, in 1808. Exclusive of the sovereign and princes of the blood, and foreign sovereigns and princes, it consists of twelve capitular knights of the rank of count or Freiherr. The badge of the order and the ribbon are illustrated in Plate V. fig. 3. The central medallion represents the conversion of St Hubert. The collar is composed of gold and blue enamel figures of the conversion linked by the Gothic monogram I.T.V., In Trau Vast, the motto of the order, alternately red and green. The Order of St George, said to have been founded in the 12th century as a crusading order and revived by the emperor Maximilian I. in 1494, dates historically from its institution in 1729 by the elector Charles Albert, afterwards the emperor Charles VII. It was confirmed by the elector Charles Theodore in 1778 and by the elector Maximilian Joseph IV. as the second Bavarian order. Various new statutes have been granted from 1827 to 1875. The order is divided into two branches, “of German and foreign languages,” and it also has a “spiritual class.” The members of the order must be Roman Catholics. The badge is a blue enamelled cross with white and gold edging suspended from the mouth of a gold lion’s head; in the angles of the cross are blue lozenges containing the letters V.I.B.I., Virgini Immaculatae Bavaria Immaculata. The central medallion contains a figure of the Immaculate Conception. The medallion on the reverse contains a figure of St George and the Dragon and the corresponding initials J.U.P.F., Justus ut Palma Florebit, the motto of the order. Besides the above Bavaria possesses the Military Order of Maximilian Joseph, 1806, and the Civil Orders of Merit of St Michael, 1693, and of the Bavarian Crown, 1808, and other minor orders and decorations, civil and military. There are also the two illustrious orders for ladies, the Order of Elizabeth, founded in 1766, and the Order of Theresa, in 1827. The foundations of St Anne of Munich and of St Anne of Würzburg for ladies are not properly orders.

iv. Brunswick. The Order of Henry the Lion, for military and civil merit, was founded by Duke William in 1834. There are five classes, and a cross of merit of two classes. The badge is a blue enamelled cross dependent from a lion surmounted by the ducal crown; the angles of the cross are filled by crowned W’s and the centre bears the arms of Brunswick, a crowned pillar and a white horse, between two sickles. The ribbon is deep red bordered with yellow.

v. Hanover. The Order of St George (one class only) was instituted by King Ernest Augustus I. in 1839 as the family order of the house of Hanover; the Royal Guelphic Order (three classes) by George, prince regent, afterwards George IV. of Great Britain, in 1815; and the Order of Ernest Augustus by George V. of Hanover in 1865. These orders have not been conferred since 1866, when Hanover ceased to be a kingdom, and the Royal Guelphic Order, which from its institution was more British than Hanoverian, not since the death of William IV. in 1837. The last British grand cross was the late duke of Cambridge.

vi. Hesse. Of the various orders founded by the houses of Hesse-Cassel and Hesse-Darmstadt the following are still bestowed in the grand duchy of Hesse. The Order of Louis, founded by the grand duke Louis I. of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1807; there are five classes; the black, red and gold bordered cross bears the initial L. in the centre, the ribbon is black with red borders; the Order of Philip the Magnanimous, founded by the grand duke Louis II. in 1840 has five classes; the white cross of the badge bears the effigy of Philip surrounded by the motto Si Deus vobiscum quis contra nos. The Order of the Golden Lion was founded in 1770 by the landgrave Frederick II. of Hesse-Cassel, the knights are 41 in number and take precedence of the members of the two former orders. The badge is an open oval of gold with the Hessian lion in the centre. The ribbon is crimson.

vii. Mecklenburg. The grand duchies of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz possess jointly the Order of the Wendish Crown, founded in 1864 by the grand dukes Frederick Francis II. of Schwerin and Frederick William of Strelitz; there are four classes, with two divisions of the grand cross, and also an affiliated cross of merit; the grand cross can be granted to ladies. The badge is a white cross bearing on a blue centre the Wendish crown, surrounded by the motto, for the Schwerin knights, Per aspera ad astra, for the Strelitz knights, Avito viret honore. The Order of the Griffin, founded in 1884 by Frederick Francis III. of Schwerin, was made common to the duchies in 1904.

viii. Oldenberg. The Order of Duke Peter Frederick Louis, a family order and order of merit, was founded by the grand duke Paul Frederick Augustus in memory of his father in 1838. It has two divisions, each of five classes, of capitular knights and honorary members. The badge is a white gold bordered cross suspended from a crown, in the centre the crowned monogram P.F.L. surrounded by the motto Ein Gott, Ein Recht, Eine Wahrheit; the ribbon is dark blue bordered with red.

ix. Prussia. The Order of the Black Eagle, one of the most distinguished of European orders, was founded in 1701 by the elector of Brandenburg, Frederick I., in memory of his coronation as king of Prussia. The order consists of one class only and the original statutes limited the number, exclusive of the princes of the royal house and foreign members, to 30. But the number has been exceeded. It is only conferred on those of royal lineage and upon high officers of state. It confers the nobiliary particle von. Only those who have received the Order of the Red Eagle are eligible. An illustration of the badge of the order with ribbon is given on Plate IV. fig. 3. The star of silver bears the black eagle on an orange ground surrounded by a silver fillet on which is the motto of the order Suum Cuique. The collar is formed of alternate black eagles and a circular medallion with the motto on a white centre surrounded by the initials F.R. repeated in green, the whole in a circle of blue with four gold crowns on the exterior rim. The Order of the Red Eagle, the second of the Prussian orders, was founded originally as the Order of Sincerity (L’Ordre de la Sincerité) in 1705 by George William, hereditary prince of Brandenburg-Bayreuth. The original constitution and insignia are now entirely changed, with the exception of the red eagle which formed the centre of the cross of the badge. The order had almost fallen into oblivion when it was revived in 1734 by the margrave George Frederick Charles as the Order of the Brandenburg Red Eagle. It consisted of 30 nobly born knights. The numbers were increased and a grand cross class added in 1759. On the cession of the principality to Prussia in 1791 the order was transferred and King Frederick William raised it to that place in Prussian orders which it has since maintained. The order was divided into four classes in 1810 and there are now five classes with numerous subdivisions. It is an order of civil and military merit. The grand cross resembles the badge of the Black Eagle, but is white and the eagles in the corners red, the central medallion bearing the initials W.R. (those of William I.) surrounded by a blue fillet with the motto Sincere et Constanter. The numerous classes and subdivisions have exceedingly complicated distinguishing marks, some bearing crossed swords, a crown, or an oak-leaf surmounting the cross. The ribbon is white with two orange stripes.

The Order for Merit (Ordre pour le Mérite), one of the most highly prized of European orders of merit, has now two divisions, military and for science and art. It was originally founded by the electoral prince Frederick, afterwards Frederick I. of Prussia, in 1667 as the Order of Generosity; it was given its present name and granted for civil and military distinction by Frederick the Great, 1740. In 1810 the order was made one for military merit against the enemy in the field exclusively. In 1840 the class for distinction for science and art, or peace class (Friedensklasse) was founded by Frederick William IV., for those “who have gained an illustrious name by wide recognition in the spheres of science and art.” The number is limited to 30 German and 30 foreign members. The Academy of Sciences and Arts on a vacancy nominates three candidates, from which one is selected by the king. It is interesting to note that this was the only distinction which Thomas Carlyle would accept. The badge of the military order is a blue cross with gold uncrowned eagles in the angles; on the topmost arm is the initial F., with a crown; on the other arms the inscription Pour le Mérite. The ribbon is black with a silver stripe at the edges. In 1866 a special grand cross was instituted for the crown prince (afterwards Frederick III.) and Prince Frederick Charles. It was in 1879 granted to Count von Moltke as a special distinction. The badge of the class for science or art is a circular medallion of white, with a gold eagle in the centre surrounded by a blue border with the inscription Pour le Mérite; on the white field the letters

F. II. four times repeated, and four crowns in gold projecting from the rim. The ribbon is the same as for the military class. The Order of the Crown, founded by William I. in 1861, ranks with the Red Eagle. There are four classes, with many subdivisions. Other Prussian orders are the Order of William, instituted by William II. in 1896; a Prussian branch of the knights of St John of Jerusalem, Johanniter Orden, in its present form dating from 1893; and the family Order of the House of Hohenzollern, founded in 1851 by Frederick William IV. There are two divisions, military and civil, divided into four classes. The military badge is a white cross with black and gold edging, resting on a green oak and laurel wreath; the central medallion bears the Prussian Eagle with the arms of Hohenzollern, and is surrounded by a blue fillet with the motto Vom Fels zum Meer; the civil badge is a black eagle, with the head encircled with a blue fillet with the motto. There are also for ladies the Order of Service, founded in 1814 by Frederick William III., in one class, but enlarged in 1850 and in 1865. The decoration of merit for ladies (Verdienst-kreuz), founded in 1870, was raised to an order in 1907. For the famous military decoration, the Iron Cross, see [Medals].

x. Saxony.—The Order of the Crown of Rue (Rauten Krone) was founded as a family order by Frederick Augustus I. in 1807. It is of one class only, and the sons and nephews of the sovereign are born knights of the order. It is granted to foreign ruling princes and subjects of high rank. The badge is a pale green enamelled cross resting on a gold crown with eight rue leaves, the centre is white with the crowned monogram of the founder surrounded by a green circlet of rue; the star bears in its centre the motto Providentiae Memor. The ribbon is green. Other Saxon orders are the military Order of St Henry, for distinguished service in the field, founded in 1736 in one class; since 1829 it has had four classes; the ribbon is sky blue with two yellow stripes, the gold cross bears in the centre the effigy of the emperor Henry II.; the Order of Albert, for civil and military merit, founded in 1850 by Frederick Augustus II. in memory of Duke Albert the Bold, the founder of the Albertine line of Saxony, has six classes; the Order of Civil Merit, was founded in 1815. For ladies there are the Order of Sidonia, 1870, in memory of the wife of Albert the Bold, the mother (Stamm-Mutter) of the Albertine line; and the Maria Anna Order, 1906.

Plate IV.

INSIGNIA OF SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD,DRAWN BY GRACIOUS PERMISSION FROM THOSE IN THE POSSESSIONOF HIS LATE MAJESTY KING EDWARD VII AND ARRANGEDIN ACCORDANCE WITH HIS MAJESTY’S WISHES AND COMMAND.
(i.) The St. Andrew (Russia). (ii.) The Golden Fleece (Spain). (iii.) The Black Eagle (Prussia). (iv.) The Tower and Sword (Portugal). (v.) TheElephant (Denmark). (vi.) The Legion of Honour (France-Napoleonic). (vii.) The Annunziata (Italy).
Drawn by William Gibb.	Niagara Litho. Co., Buffalo, N. Y.

xi. The duchies of Saxe Altenburg, Saxe Coburg Gotha and Saxe Meiningen have in common the family Order of Ernest, founded in 1833 in memory of Duke Ernest the Pious of Saxe Gotha and as a revival of the Order of German Integrity (Orden der deutschen Redlichkeit) founded in 1690. Saxe Coburg Gotha and Saxe Meiningen have also separate crosses of merit in science and art.

xii. Saxe Weimar.—The Order of the White Falcon or of Vigilance was founded in 1732 and renewed in 1815.

xiii. Württemberg.—The Order of the Crown of Württemberg was founded in 1818, uniting the former Order of the Golden Eagle and an order of civil merit. It has five classes. The badge is a white cross surmounted by the royal crown, in the centre the initial F surrounded by a crimson fillet on which is the motto Furchtlos und Treu; in the angles of the cross are four golden leopards; the ribbon is crimson with two black stripes. Besides the military Order of Merit founded in 1759, and the silver cross of merit, 1900, Württemberg has also the Order of Frederick, 1830, and the Order of Olga, 1871, which is granted to ladies as well as men.

Greece.—The Order of the Redeemer was founded as such in 1833 by King Otto, being a conversion of a decoration of honour instituted in 1829 by the National Assembly at Argos. There are five classes, the numbers being regulated for each. An illustration of the badge and ribbon of the grand cross is given on Plate V. fig. 1.

Holland.—The Order of William, for military merit, was founded in 1815 by William I.; there are four classes; the badge is a white cross resting on a green laurel Burgundian cross, in the centre the Burgundian flint-steel, as in the order of the Golden Fleece. The motto Voer Moed, Belied, Trouw (For Valour, Devotion, Loyalty), appears on the arms of the cross. The cross is surmounted by a jewelled crown; the ribbon is orange with dark blue edging. The Order of the Netherlands Lion, for civil merit, was founded in 1818; there are four classes. The family Order of the Golden Lion of Nassau passed in 1890 to the grand duchy of Luxembourg (see under [Luxemburg]). In 1892 Queen Wilhelmina instituted the Order of Orange-Nassau with five classes. The Teutonic Order (q.v.), surviving in the Ballarde (Bailiwick) of Utrecht, was officially established in the Netherlands by the States General in 1580. It was abolished by Napoleon in 1811 and was restored in 1815.

Italy.—The Order of the Annunziata, the highest order of knighthood of the Italian kingdom, was instituted in 1362 by Amadeus VI., count of Savoy, as the Order of the Collare or Collar, from the silver collar made up of love-knots and roses, which was its badge, in honour of the fifteen joys of the Virgin; hence the number of the knights was restricted to fifteen, the fifteen chaplains recited fifteen masses each day, and the clauses of the original statute of the order were fifteen (Amadeus VIII. added five others in 1434). Charles III. decreed that the order should be called the Annunziata, and made some other alterations in 1518. His son and successor, Emmanuel Philibert, made further modifications in the statute and the costume. The church of the order was originally the Carthusian monastery of Pierre-châtel in the district of Bugey, but after Charles Emmanuel I. had given Bugey and Bresse to France in 1601 the church of the order was transferred to the Camaldolese monastery near Turin. That religious order having been suppressed at the time of the French Revolution, King Charles Albert decreed in 1840 that the Carthusian church of Collegno should be the chapel of the order. The knights of the Annunziata have the title of “cousins of the king,” and enjoy precedence over all the other officials of the state. The costume of the order is of white satin embroidered in silk, with a purple velvet cloak adorned with roses and gold embroidery, but it is now never worn; in the collar the motto Fert is inserted, on the meaning of which there is great uncertainty,[65] and from it hangs a pendant enclosing a medallion representing the Annunciation (see Plate IV. fig. 7). An account of the order is given in Count Luigi Cibrario’s Ordini Cavallereschi (Turin, 1846) with coloured plates of the costume and badges.

The Order of St Maurice and St Lazarus (SS Maurizio e Lazzaro), is a combination of two ancient orders. The Order of St Maurice was originally founded by Amadeus VIII., duke of Savoy, in 1434, when he retired to the hermitage of Ripaille, and consisted of a group of half-a-dozen councillors who were to advise him on such affairs of state as he continued to control. When he became pope as Felix V. the order practically ceased to exist. It was re-established at the instance of Emmanuel Philibert by Pope Pius V. in 1572 as a military and religious order, and the following year it was united to that of St Lazarus by Gregory XIII. The latter order had been founded as a military and religious community at the time of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem with the object of assisting lepers, many of whom were among its members. Popes, princes and nobles endowed it with estates and privileges, including that of administering and succeeding to the property of lepers, which eventually led to grave abuses. With the advance of the Saracens the knights of St Lazarus, when driven from the Holy Land and Egypt, migrated to France (1291) and Naples (1311), where they founded leper hospitals. The order in Naples, which alone was afterwards recognized as the legitimate descendant of the Jerusalem community, was empowered to seize and confine anyone suspected of leprosy, a permission which led to the establishment of a regular inquisitorial system of blackmail. In the 15th and 16th centuries dissensions broke out among the knights, and the order declined in credit and wealth, until finally the grand master, Giannotto Castiglioni, resigned his position in favour of Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy, in 1571. Two years later the orders of St Lazarus and St Maurice were incorporated into one community, the members of which were to devote themselves to the defence of the Holy See and to fight its enemies as well as to continue assisting lepers. The galleys of the order subsequently took part in various expeditions against the Turks and the Barbary pirates. Leprosy, which had almost disappeared in the 17th century, broke out once more in the 18th, and in 1773 a hospital was established by the order at Aosta, made famous by Xavier de Maistre’s tale, Le Lépreux de la cité d’Aoste. The statutes were published in 1816, by which date the order had lost its military character; it was reformed first by Charles Albert (1831), and later by Victor Emmanuel II., king of Italy (1868). The knighthood of St Maurice and St Lazarus is now a dignity conferred by the king of Italy (the grand master) on persons distinguished in the public service, science, art and letters, trade, and above all in charitable works, to which its income is devoted. There are five classes. The badge of the combined order is composed of the white cross with trefoil termination of St Lazarus resting on the green cross of St Maurice; both crosses are bordered gold. The first four classes wear the badge suspended from a royal crown. The ribbon is dark green.

See L. Cibrario, Descrizione storica degli Ordini Cavallereschi, vol. i. (Turin, 1846); Calendario Reale, an annual publication issued in Rome.

The military Order of Savoy was founded in 1815 by Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia; badge modified 1855 and 1857. It has now five classes. The badge is a white cross, the arms of which expand and terminate in an obtuse angle; round the cross is a green laurel and oak wreath; the central medallion is red, bearing in gold two crossed swords, the initials of the founder and the date 1855. The ribbon is red with a central stripe of blue. The Civil Order of Savoy, founded in 1831 by Charles Albert of Sardinia, is of one class, and in statutes of 1868 is limited to 60 members. The badge is the plain Savoy cross in blue, with silver medallion, the ribbon is blue with white borders. The Order of the Crown of Italy was founded in 1868 by Victor Emmanuel II. in commemoration of the union of Italy into a kingdom. There are five classes.

Luxemburg.—The Order of the Golden Lion was founded as a family order of the house of Nassau by William III. of the Netherlands and Adolphus of Nassau jointly. On the death of William in 1890 it passed to the grand duke of Luxemburg; it has only one class. The Order of Adolphus of Nassau, for civil and military merit, in four classes, was founded in 1858, and the Order of the Oak Crown as a general order of merit, in five classes, in 1841, modified 1858.

Monaco.—The Order of St Charles, five classes, was founded in 1858 by Prince Charles III. and remodelled in 1863. It is a general order of merit.

Montenegro.—The Order of St Peter, founded in 1852, is a family order, in one class, and only given to members of the princely family; the Order of Danilo, or of the Independence of Montenegro, is a general order of merit, in four classes, with subdivisions, also founded in 1852.

Norway.—The Order of St Olaf was founded in 1847 by Oscar I. in honour of St Olaf, the founder of Christianity in Norway, as a general order of merit, military and civil. There are three classes, the last two being, in 1873 and 1890, subdivided into two grades each. The badge and ribbon is illustrated on Plate V, fig. 5. The reverse bears the motto Ret og Sandhed (Right and Truth). The Order of the Norwegian Lion, founded in 1904 by Oscar II., has only one class; foreigners on whom the order is conferred must be sovereigns or heads of states or members of reigning houses.

Papal.—The arrangement and constitution of the papal orders was remodelled by a brief of Pius X. in 1905. The Order of Christ, the supreme pontifical order, is of one class only; for the history of this ancient order see Portugal (infra). The badge and ribbon is the same as the older Portuguese form. The Order of Pius was founded in 1847 by Pius IX.; there are now three classes; the badge is an eight-pointed blue star with golden flames between the rays, a white centre bears the founder’s name; the ribbon is blue with two red stripes at each border. The Order of St Gregory the Great, founded in 1831, is in two divisions, civil and military, each having three classes. The Order of St Sylvester was originally founded as the Order of the Golden Spur by Paul IV. in 1559 as a military body, though tradition assigns it to Constantine the Great and Pope Sylvester. It was reorganized as an order of merit by Gregory XVI. in 1841. In 1905 the order was divided into three classes, and a separate order, that of the Golden Spur or Golden Legion (Militia Aurata) was established, in one class, with the numbers limited to a hundred. The cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, instituted by Leo XIII. in 1888 is a decoration, not an order. There remains the venerable Order of the Holy Sepulchre, of which tradition assigns the foundation to Godfrey de Bouillon. It was, however, probably founded as a military order for the protection of the Holy Sepulchre by Alexander VI. in 1496. The right to nominate to the order was shared with the pope as grand master by the guardian of the Patres Minores in Jerusalem, later by the Franciscans, and then by the Latin patriarch in Jerusalem. In 1905 the latter was nominated grand master, but the pope reserves the joint right of nomination. The badge of the order is a red Jerusalem cross with red Latin crosses in the angles.

Portugal.—The Order of Christ was founded on the abolition of the Templars by Dionysius or Diniz of Portugal and in 1318 in conjunction with Pope John XXII., both having the right to nominate to the order. The papal branch survives as a distinct order. In 1522 it was formed as a distinct Portuguese order and the grand mastership vested in the crown of Portugal. In 1789 its original religious aspect was abandoned, and with the exception that its members must be of the Roman Catholic faith, it is entirely secularized. There are three classes. The original badge of the order was a long red cross with expanded flat ends bearing a small cross in white; the ribbon is red. The modern badge is a blue enamelled cross resting on a green laurel wreath; the central medallion, in white, contains the old red and white cross. The older form is worn with the collar by the grand-crosses. The Order of the Tower and Sword was founded in 1808 in Brazil by the regent, afterwards king John VI. of Portugal, as a revival of the old Order of the Sword, said to have been founded by Alfonso V. in 1459. It was remodelled in 1832 under its present name and constitution as a general order of military and civil merit. There are five classes. The badge of the order and ribbon is illustrated on Plate IV. fig 4. The Order of St Benedict of Aviz (earlier of Evora), founded in 1162 as a religious military order, was secularized in 1789 as an order of military merit, in four classes. The badge is a green cross fleury; the ribbon is green. The Order of St James of the Sword, or James of Compostella, is a branch of the Spanish order of that name (see under [Spain]). It also was secularized in 1789, and in 1862 was constituted an order of merit for science, literature and art, in five classes. The badge is the lily-hilted sword of St James, enamelled red with gold borders; the ribbon is violet. In 1789 these three orders were granted a common badge uniting the three separate crosses in a gold medallion; the joint ribbon is red, green and violet, and to the separate crosses was added a red sacred heart and small white cross. There are also the Order of Our Lady of Villa Viçosa (1819), for both sexes, and the Order of St Isabella, 1801, for ladies.

Rumania.—The Order of the Star of Rumania was founded in 1877, and the Order of the Crown of Rumania in 1881, both in five classes, for civil and military merit; the ribbon of the first is red with blue borders, of the second light blue with two silver stripes.

Russia.—The Order of St Andrew was founded in 1698 by Peter the Great. It is the chief order of the empire, and admission carries with it according to the statutes of 1720 the orders of St Anne, Alexander Nevsky, and the White Eagle; there is only one class. The badge and ribbon is illustrated in Plate IV. fig 5. The collar is composed of three members alternately, the imperial eagle bearing on a red medallion a figure of St George slaying the Dragon, the badge of the grand duchy of Moskow, the cipher of the emperor Paul I. in gold on a blue ground, surmounted by the imperial crown, and surrounded by a trophy of weapons and green and white flags, and a circular red and gold star with a blue St Andrew’s cross. The Order of St Catherine, for ladies, ranks next to the St Andrew. It was founded under the name of the Order of Rescue by Peter the Great in 1714 in honour of the empress Catherine and the part she had taken in rescuing him at the battle of the Pruth in 1711. There are two classes. The grand cross is only for members of the imperial house and ladies of the highest nobility. The second class was added in 1797. The badge of the order is a cross of diamonds bearing in a medallion the effigy of St Catherine. The ribbon is red with the motto For Love and Fatherland in silver letters. The Order of St Alexander Nevsky was founded in 1725 by the empress Catherine I. There is only one class. The badge is a red enamelled cross with gold eagles in the angles, bearing in a medallion the mounted effigy of St Alexander Nevsky. The ribbon is red. The Order of the White Eagle was founded in 1713 by Augustus II. of Poland and was adopted as a Russian order in 1831; there is one class. The Order of St Anne was founded by Charles Frederick, duke of Holstein-Gottorp in 1735 in honour of his wife, Anna Petrovna, daughter of Peter the Great. It was adopted as a Russian order in 1797 by their grandson, the emperor Paul. There are four classes. Other orders are those of St Vladimir, founded by Catherine II., 1782, four classes, and of St Stanislaus, founded originally as a Polish order by Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski in 1765, and adopted as a Russian order in 1831.

The military Order of St George was founded by the empress Catherine II. in 1769 for military service on land and sea, with four classes; a fifth class for non-commissioned officers and men, the St George’s Cross, was added in 1807. The badge is a white cross with gold borders, with a red central medallion on which is the figure of St George slaying the dragon. The ribbon is orange with three black stripes.

Servia.—The Order of the White Eagle, the principal order, was founded by Milan I. in 1882, statutes 1883, in five classes; the ribbon is blue and red; the Order of St Sava, founded 1883, also in five classes, is an order of merit for science and art; the Order of the Star of Karageorgevitch, four classes, was founded by Peter I. in 1904. The orders of Milosch the Great, founded by Alexander I. in 1898 and of Takovo, founded originally by Michael Obrenovitch in 1863, reconstituted in 1883, are since the dynastic revolution of 1903 no longer bestowed. The Order of St Lazarus is not a general order, the cross and collar being only worn by the king.

Spain.—The Spanish branch of the Order of the Golden Fleece has been treated above. The three most ancient orders of Spain—of St James of Compostella, or St James of the Sword, of Alcantara and of Calatrava—still exist as orders of merit, the first in three classes, the last two as orders of military merit in one class. They were all originally founded as military religious orders, like the crusading Templars and the Hospitallers, but to fight for the true faith against the Moors in Spain. The present badges of the orders represent the crosses that the knights wore on their mantles. That of St James of Compostella is the red lily-hilted sword of St James; the ribbon is also red. The other two orders wear the cross fleury—Alcantara red, Calatrava green, with corresponding ribbons. A short history of these orders may be here given. Tradition gives the foundation of the Order of Knights of St James of Compostella to Ramiro II., king of Leon, in the 10th century, to commemorate a victory over the Moors, but, historically the order dates from the confirmation in 1175 by Pope Alexander III. It gained great reputation in the wars against the Moors and became very wealthy. In 1493 the grand-mastership was annexed by Ferdinand the Catholic, and was vested permanently in the crown of Spain by Pope Adrian VI. in 1522.

The Order of Knights of Alcantara, instituted about 1156 by the brothers Don Suarez and Don Gomez de Barrientos for protection against the Moors. In 1177 they were confirmed as a religious order of knighthood under Benedictine rule by Pope Alexander III. Until about 1213 they were known as the Knights of San Julian del Pereyro; but when the defence of Alcantara, newly wrested from the Moors by Alphonso IX. of Castile, was entrusted to them they took their name from that city. For a considerable time they were in some degree subject to the grand master of the kindred order of Calatrava. Ultimately, however, they asserted their independence by electing a grand master of their own, the first holder of the office being Don Diego Sanche. During the rule of thirty-seven successive grand masters, similarly chosen, the influence and wealth of the order gradually increased until the Knights of Alcantara were almost as powerful as the sovereign. In 1494-1495 Juan de Zuñiga was prevailed upon to resign the grand-mastership to Ferdinand, who thereupon vested it in his own person as king; and this arrangement was ratified by a bull of Pope Alexander VI., and was declared permanent by Pope Adrian VI. in 1523. The yearly income of Zuñiga at the time of his resignation amounted to 150,000 ducats. In 1540 Pope Paul III. released the knights from the strictness of Benedictine rule by giving them permission to marry, though second marriage was forbidden. The three vows were henceforth obedientia, castitas conjugalis and conversio morum. In modern times the history of the order has been somewhat chequered. When Joseph Bonaparte became king of Spain in 1808, he deprived the knights of their revenues, which were only partially recovered on the restoration of Ferdinand VII. in 1814. The order ceased to exist as a spiritual body in 1835.

The Order of Knights of Calatrava was founded in 1158 by Don Sancho III. of Castile, who presented the town of Calatrava, newly wrested from the Moors, to them to guard. In 1164 Pope Alexander III. granted confirmation as a religious military order under Cistercian rule. In 1197 Calatrava fell into the hands of the Moors and the order removed to the castle of Salvatierra, but recovered their town in 1212. In 1489 Ferdinand seized the grand-mastership, and it was finally vested in the crown of Spain in 1523. The order became a military order of merit in 1808 and was reorganized in 1874. The Royal and Illustrious Order of Charles III. was founded in 1771 by Charles III., in two classes; altered in 1804, it was abolished by Joseph Bonaparte in 1809, together with all the Spanish orders except the Golden Fleece, and the Royal Order of the Knights of Spain was established. In 1814 Ferdinand VII. revived the order, and in 1847 it received its present constitution, viz. of three classes (the commanders in two divisions). The badge of the order is a blue and white cross suspended from a green laurel wreath, in the angles are golden lilies, and the oval centre bears a figure of the Virgin in a golden glory. The ribbon is blue and white. The Order of Isabella the Catholic was founded in 1815 under the patronage of St Isabella, wife of Diniz of Portugal; originally instituted to reward loyalty in defence of the Spanish possessions in America, it is now a general order of merit, in three classes. The badge is a red rayed cross with gold rays in the angles, in the centre a representation of the pillars of Hercules; the cross is attached to the yellow and white ribbon by a green laurel wreath. Other Spanish orders are the Maria Louisa, 1792, for noble ladies; the military and naval orders of merit of St Ferdinand, founded by the Cortes in 1811, five classes; of St Ermenegild (Hermenegildo), 1814, three classes, of Military Merit and Naval Merit, 1866, and of Maria Christina, 1890; the Order of Beneficencia for civil merit, 1856; that of Alfonso XII. for merit in science, literature and art, 1902, and the Civil Order of Alfonso XII., 1902.

Plate V.

INSIGNIA OF SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD,DRAWN BY GRACIOUS PERMISSION FROM THOSE IN THE POSSESSIONOF HIS LATE MAJESTY KING EDWARD VII AND ARRANGEDIN ACCORDANCE WITH HIS MAJESTY’S WISHES AND COMMAND.
(i) The Redeemer (Greece). (ii) The Order of the Knights of St. Johnof Jerusalem (English Branch, Badge of the Sovereign and Patron).(iii) The St. Hubert (Bavaria). (iv) The St. Stephen (Hungary).(v). The St. Olaf (Norway). (vi). The Seraphim (Sweden).
Drawn by William Gibb.	Niagara Litho. Co., Buffalo, N. Y.

Sweden.—The Order of the Seraphim (the “Blue Ribbon”). Tradition attributes the foundation of this most illustrious order of knighthood to Magnus I. in 1280, more certainty attaches to the fact that the order was in existence in 1336. In its modern form the order dates from its reconstitution in 1748 by Frederick I., modified by statutes of 1798 and 1814. Exclusive of the sovereign and the princes of the blood, the order is limited to 23 Swedish and 8 foreign members. The native members must be already members of the Order of the Sword or the Pole Star. There is a prelate of the order which is administered by a chapter; the chapel of the knights is in the Riddar Holmskyrka at Stockholm. The badge and ribbon of the grand cross is illustrated on Plate V. fig. 6. The collar is formed of alternate gold seraphim and blue enamelled patriarchal crosses. The motto is Iesus Hominum Salvator. The Order of the Sword (the “Yellow Ribbon”), the principal Swedish military order, was founded, it is said, by Gustavus I. Vasa in 1522, and was re-established by Frederick I., with the Seraphim and the Pole Star in 1748; modifications have been made in 1798, 1814 and 1889. There are five classes, with subdivisions. The badge is a white cross, in the angles gold crowns, the points of the cross joined by gold swords entwined with gold and blue belts, in the blue centre an upright sword with the three crowns in gold, the whole surmounted by the royal crown. The ribbon is yellow with blue edging. The Order of the Pole Star (Polar Star, North Star, the “Black Ribbon”), founded in 1748 for civil merit, has since 1844 three classes. The white cross bears a five-pointed silver star on a blue medallion. The ribbon is black. The Order of Vasa (the “Green Ribbon”), founded by Gustavus III. in 1772 as an order of merit for services rendered to the national industries and manufactures, has three classes, with subdivisions. The white cross badge bears on a blue centre the charge of the house of Vasa, a gold sheaf shaped like a vase with two handles. The ribbon is green. The Order of Charles XIII., founded in 1811, is granted to Freemasons of high degree. It is thus quite unique.

Turkey.—The Nischan-i-Imtiaz, or Order of Privilege, was founded by Abdul Hamid II. in 1879 as a general order of merit in one class; the Nischan-el-Iftikhar, or Order of Glory, also one class, founded 1831 by Mahmoud II.; the Nischan-i-Mejidi, the Mejidieh, was founded as a civil and military order of merit in 1851 by Abdul Medjid. There are five classes; the badge is a silver sun of seven clustered rays, with crescent and star between each cluster; on a gold centre is the sultan’s name in black Turkish lettering, surrounded by a red fillet inscribed with the words Zeal, Devotion, Loyalty; it is suspended from a red crescent and star; the ribbon is red with green borders. The khedive of Egypt has authority, delegated by the sultan, to grant this order. The Nischan-i-Osmanie, the Osmanieh, for civil and military merit, was founded by Abdul Aziz in 1862; it has four classes. The badge is a gold sun with seven gold-bordered green rays; the red centre bears the crescent, and it is also suspended from a gold crescent and star; the ribbon is green bordered with red. The Nischan-i-Schefakat of Compassion or Benevolence, was instituted for ladies, in three classes, in 1878 by the sultan in honour of the work done for the non-combatant victims of the Russo-Turkish war of 1877 in connexion with the Turkish Compassionate Fund started by the late Baroness Burdett-Coutts. She was one of the first to receive the order. There are also the family order, for Turkish princes, the Hanédani-Ali-Osman, founded in 1893, and the Ertogroul, in 1903.

Non-European Orders.—Of the various states of Central and South America, Nicaragua has the American Order of San Juan or Grey Town, founded in 1857, in three classes; and Venezuela that of the Bust of Bolivar, 1854, five classes; the ribbon is yellow, blue and red. Mexico has abolished its former orders, the Mexican Eagle, 1865, and Our Lady of Guadalupe, 1853; as has Brazil those of the Southern Cross, 1822, Dom Pedro I., 1826, the Rose, 1829, and the Brazilian branches of the Portuguese orders of Christ, St Benedict of Aviz and St James. The republican Order of Columbus, founded in 1890, was abolished in 1891.

China.—There are no orders for natives, and such distinctions as are conferred by the different coloured buttons of the mandarins, the grades indicated by the number of peacocks’ feathers, the gift of the yellow jacket and the like, are rather insignia of rank or personal marks of honour than orders, whether of knighthood or merit, in the European sense. For foreigners, however, the emperor in 1882 established the sole order, that of the Imperial Double Dragon, in five classes, the first three of which are further divided into three grades each, making eleven grades in all. The recipients eligible for the various classes are graded, from the first grade of the first class for reigning sovereigns down to the fifth class for merchants and manufacturers. The insignia of the order are unique in shape and decoration. Of the three grades of the first class the badge is a rectangular gold and yellow enamel plaque, decorated with two upright blue dragons, with details in green and white, between the heads for the first grade a pearl, for the second a ruby, for the third a coral, set in green, white and gold circles. The size of the plaque varies for the different classes. The badges of the other four classes are round plaques, the first three with indented edges, the last plain; in the second class the dragons are in silver on a yellow and gold ground, the jewel is a cut coral; the grades differ in the colour, shape, &c., of the borders and indentations; in the third class the dragons are gold, the ground green, the jewel a sapphire; in the fourth the silver dragons are on a blue ground, the jewel a lapis lazuli; in the fifth green dragons on a silver ground, the jewel a pearl. The ribbons, decorated with embroidered dragons, differ for the various grades and classes.

Japan.—The Japanese orders have all been instituted by the emperor Mutsu Hito. In design and workmanship the insignia of the orders are beautiful examples of the art of the native enamellers. The Order of the Chrysanthemum (Kikkwa Daijasho), founded in 1877, has only one class. It is but rarely conferred on others than members of the royal house or foreign rulers or princes. The badge of the order may be described as follows: From a centre of red enamel representing the sun issue 32 white gold-bordered rays in four sharply projecting groups, between the angles of which are four yellow conventional chrysanthemum flowers with green leaves forming a circle on which the rays rest; the whole is suspended from a larger yellow chrysanthemum. The ribbon is deep red bordered with purple. The collar, which may be granted with the order or later, is composed of four members repeated, two gold chrysanthemums, one with green leaves, the other surrounded by a wreath of palm, and two elaborate arabesque designs. The Order of the Paulownia Sun (Tokwa Daijasho), founded in 1888, in one class, may be in a sense regarded as the highest class of the Rising Sun (Kiokujitsasho) founded in eight classes, in 1875. The badge of both orders is essentially the same, viz. the red sun with white and gold rays; in the former the lilac flowers of the Paulownia tree, the flower of the Tycoon’s arms, take a prominent part. The ribbon of the first order is deep red with white edging, of the second scarlet with white central stripe. The last two classes of the Rising Sun wear a decoration formed of the Paulownia flower and leaves. The Order of the Mirror or Happy Sacred Treasure (Zaihosho) was founded in 1888, with eight classes. The cross of white and gold clustered rays bears in a blue centre a silver star-shaped mirror. The ribbon is pale blue with orange stripes. There is also an order for ladies, that of the Crown, founded in five classes in 1888. The military order of Japan is the Order of the Golden Kite, founded in 1890, in seven classes. The badge has an elaborate design; it consists of a star of purple, red, yellow, gold and silver rays, on which are displayed old Japanese weapons, banners and shields in various coloured enamels, the whole surmounted by a golden kite with outstretched wings. The ribbon is green with white stripes.

Persia.—The Order of the Sun and Lion, founded by Fath ‘Ali Shāh in 1808, has five classes. There is also the Nischan-i-Aftab, for ladies, founded in 1873.

Siam.—The Sacred Order, or the Nine Precious Stones, was founded in 1869, in one class only, for the Buddhist princes of the royal house. The Order of the White Elephant, founded in 1861, is in five classes. This is the principal general order. The badge is a striking example of Oriental design adapted to a European conventional form. The circular plaque is formed of a triple circle of lotus leaves in gold, red and green, within a blue circlet with pearls a richly caparisoned white elephant on a gold ground, the whole surmounted by the jewelled gold pagoda crown of Siam; the collar is formed of alternate white elephants, red, blue and white royal monograms and gold pagoda crowns. The ribbon is red with green borders and small blue and white stripes. Other orders are the Siamese Crown (Mongkut Siam), five classes, founded 1869; the family Order of Chulah-Chon-Clao, three classes, 1873; and the Maha Charkrkri, 1884, only for princes and princesses of the reigning family.

(C. We.)

[1] Feudal England, pp. 225 sqq.

[2] Du Cange, Gloss., s.v. “Miles.”

[3] History of England, iii. 12.

[4] Stubbs, Constitutional History, i. 156.

[5] Ibid. i. 156, 366; Turner, iii. 125-129.

[6] Ingram’s edition, p. 290.

[7] Comparative Politics, p. 74.

[8] Baluze, Capitularia Regum Francorum, ii. 794, 1069.

[9] Du Cange, Gloss., s.v. “Arma.”

[10] Freeman, Comparative Politics, p. 73.

[11] Hallam, Middle Ages, iii. 392.

[12] Stubbs, Const. Hist. ii. 278; also compare Grosse, Military Antiquities, i. 65 seq.

[13] There has been a general tendency to ignore the extent to which the armies of Edward III. were raised by compulsory levies even after the system of raising troops by free contract had begun. Luce (ch. vi.) points out how much England relied at this time on what would now be called conscription: and his remarks are entirely borne out by the Norwich documents published by Mr W. Hudson (Norf, and Norwich Archaeological Soc. xiv. 263 sqq.), by a Lynn corporation document of 18th Edw. III. (Hist. MSS. Commission Report XI. Appendix pt. iii. p. 189), and by Smyth’s Lives of the Berkeleys, i. 312, 319, 320.

[14] J. B. de Lacurne de Sainte Palaye, Mémoires sur l’Ancienne Chevalerie, i. 363, 364 (ed. 1781).

[15] Du Cange, Dissertation sur Joinville, xxi.; Sainte Palaye, Mémoires, i. 272; G. F. Beltz, Memorials of the Order of the Garter (1841,) p. xxvii.

[16] Du Cange, Dissertation, xxi., and Lancelot du Lac, among other romances.

[17] Anstis, Register of the Order of the Garter, i. 63.

[18] Grose, Military Antiq. i. 207 seq.; Stubbs, Const. Hist. ii. 276 seq., and iii. 278 seq.

[19] Grose’s Military Antiquities, ii. 256.

[20] Sainte Palaye, Mémoires, i. 36; Froissart, bk. iii. ch. 9.

[21] Sainte Palaye, Mémoires, pt. i. and Mills, History of Chivalry, vol. i. ch. 2.

[22] See the long sermon in the romance of Petit Jehan de Saintré, pt. i. ch. v., and compare the theory there set forth with the actual behaviour of the chief personages. Even Gautier, while he contends that chivalry did much to refine morality, is compelled to admit the prevailing immorality to which medieval romances testify, and the extraordinary free behaviour of the unmarried ladies. No doubt these romances, taken alone, might give as unfair an idea as modern French novels give of Parisian morals, but we have abundant other evidence for placing the moral standard of the age of chivalry definitely below that of educated society in the present day.

[23] Sainte Palaye, Mémoires, i. 11 seq.: “C’est peut-être à cette cérémonie et non à celles de la chevalerie qu’on doit rapporter ce qui se lit dans nos historiens de la première et de la seconde race au sujet des premières armes que les Rois et les Princes remettoient avec solemnité au ieunes Princes leurs enfans.”