The Order of the Garter is the most senior order of knighthood in the British honours system. It is outranked in precedence only by the Victoria Cross and the George Cross. Members of the order wear a garter with the motto Honi soit qui mal y pense in gold lettering.
About Order of the Garter in brief
The Order of the Garter is the most senior order of knighthood in the British honours system. It is outranked in precedence only by the Victoria Cross and the George Cross. Members of the order wear a garter with the motto Honi soit qui mal y pense in gold lettering. The Order is dedicated to the image and arms of Saint George, England’s patron saint. Membership of the Order is limited to the Sovereign, the Prince of Wales, and no more than 24 living members, or Companions. The order also includes supernumerary knights and ladies. The traditional year of foundation is usually given as 1348. However, The Complete Peerage states the order was first instituted on 23 April 1344, listing each founding member as knighted in 1344. Other dates from 1344 to 1351 have also been proposed. The King’s wardrobe account shows Garter habits first issued in the autumn of 1348. At the time of its foundation, the Order consisted of King Edward III, together with 25 Founder Knights, listed in ascending order of stall number in St George’s Chapel: They are all depicted in individual portraits in the Bruges Garter Book made c. 1431, and now in theBritish Library. The earliest written mention of the. Order is found in Tirant lo Blanch, a chivalric romance written in Catalan mainly by Valencian Joanot Martorell.
It was first published in 1490 and is in the possession of John Fenn, Esq, a curious and ingenious gentleman of East-Dereham, Norfolk, who is in possession of the most rare book. The origin of the garter is said to be dated from Richard I* and that it owes its pomp and pompulence to Edward III. The garter was predominantly an item of male attire when the Order was established in the mid-14th century. It seems to have been conceived as a retrospective explanation for the adoption of the item of female underclothing as the symbol of a band of knights. According to another legend, King Richard I was inspired in the 12th century by St George the Martyr while fighting in the Crusades to tie garters around the legs of his knights, who subsequently won the battle. King Edward supposedly recalled the event in the 14th century when he founded the Order. In Rastel’s Chronicle, I. vi. under the life of Edward III is the following curious passage: ‘About the 19 yere of this kinge, he made a solempne feest at Wyndesore, and a greate justes and turnament, where he devysed, and perfyted substanegally, the order of the knyghtes of theGarter; howe be some afferme that this order began fyrst by kyngegete, Curene de Rycharde de Lyon, at the segee of the city of Acres; he caused all them to abode.’
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