Order of the Golden Fleece
The Distinguished Order of the Golden Fleece is a Catholic order of chivalry founded in 1430 in Brugge by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, to celebrate his marriage to Isabella of Portugal. Today, two branches of the order exist, the Spanish Fleece and the Austrian Fleece; the current grand masters are King Felipe VI of Spain and Karl von Habsburg, head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, respectively. The Grand Chaplain of the Austrian branch is Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna.
The separation of the two existing branches took place as a result of the War of the Spanish Succession of 1701–1714. The grand master of the order, Charles II of Spain, had died childless in 1700, and so the right to succeed to the throne of Spain initiated a continental conflict. On one hand, Charles, brother of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I, claimed the Spanish crown as an agnatic member of the House of Habsburg, which had inherited the Burgundian titles and had held the Spanish throne for almost two centuries. However, the late king of Spain had named Philip of Bourbon, his sister's grandchild, as his successor in his will. After the conclusion of the war in 1714, the European powers recognized Philip of Bourbon as King of Spain, but the old Burgundian Habsburg territories became the Austrian Netherlands, and with them went the Treasure of the Order and its archive. The two dynasties, the Bourbons of Spain and the Habsburgs of Austria, have ever since continued heading the separate orders of the Golden Fleece.
The Golden Fleece, particularly the Spanish branch, became one of the most prestigious and historic orders of chivalry in the world. De Bourgoing wrote in 1789 that "the number of knights of the Golden Fleece is very limited in Spain, and this is the order, which of all those in Europe, has best preserved its ancient splendour". Each collar is solid gold and is estimated to be worth around €50,000 as of 2018, making it the most expensive chivalrous order. Current knights of the Spanish order include Emperor Akihito of Japan, former Tsar Simeon of Bulgaria, and Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, among 13 others. Knights of the Austrian branch include King Philippe of Belgium, his father former King Albert II, and Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg, among 22 others.
Origin
The Order of the Golden Fleece was established on 10 January 1430, by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, in celebration of the prosperous and wealthy domains united in his person that ran from Flanders to Switzerland. The jester and dwarf Madame d'Or performed at the creation of the order of the Golden Fleece in Bruges. It is restricted to a limited number of knights, initially 24 but increased to 30 in 1433, and 50 in 1516, plus the sovereign. The order's first king of arms was Jean Le Fèvre de Saint-Remy. It received further privileges unusual to any order of knighthood: the sovereign undertook to consult the order before going to 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, and to this the sovereign was expressly subject; 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 in the gentle custody of his fellow knights. The order, conceived in an ecclesiastical spirit in which mass and obsequies were prominent and the knights were seated in choirstalls like canons, was explicitly denied to heretics, and so became an exclusively Catholic honour during the Reformation. The officers of the order were the chancellor, the treasurer, the registrar, and the king of arms.The Duke's stated reason for founding this institution had been given in a proclamation issued following his marriage, in which he wrote that he had done so "for the reverence of God and the maintenance of our Christian Faith, and to honor and exalt the noble order of knighthood, and also ... to do honor to old knights;... so that those who are at present still capable and strong of body and do each day the deeds pertaining to chivalry shall have cause to continue from good to better; and ... so that those knights and gentlemen who shall see worn the order ... should honor those who wear it, and be encouraged to employ themselves in noble deeds ...".
The Order of the Golden Fleece was defended from possible accusations of prideful pomp by the Burgundian court poet Michault Taillevent, who asserted that it was instituted:
Translated into English:
The choice of the Golden Fleece of Colchis as the symbol of a Christian order caused some controversy, not so much because of its pagan context, which could be incorporated in chivalric ideals, as in the Nine Worthies, but because the feats of Jason, familiar to all, were not without causes of reproach, expressed in anti-Burgundian terms by Alain Chartier in his Ballade de Fougères referring to Jason as "Who, to carry off the fleece of Colchis, was willing to commit perjury." The bishop of Châlons, chancellor of the order, identified it instead with the fleece of Gideon that received the dew of Heaven.
The badge of the order, in the form of a sheepskin, was suspended from a jewelled collar of firesteels in the shape of the letter B, for Burgundy, linked by flints; with the motto Pretium Laborum Non Vile engraved on the front of the central link, and Philip's motto Non Aliud on the back.
File:Gothic Quarter, Barcelona, Spain - panoramio.jpg|thumb|300px|Choir at the Cathedral of Barcelona with the arms of the knights of the order in the 1519 chapter. From left to right, Fadrique Enríquez de Velasco, the dukes of Cardona, Béjar, Infantado and Alba followed by others
During this time, the Burgundian court was culturally leading in Europe and so the new order, with its festivals, ceremonies, rituals and constitution, was seen by many as a role model in the sense of a princely order based on the ideals of Christian chivalry. Aid to the Byzantine Empire or the pushing back of the Ottomans was repeatedly promoted by the Burgundian dukes in connection with their order. The Burgundian fleet actually crossed Rhodes and the Black Sea, but all of the ideas came from an extended planning phase that was not yet complete.
After the death of Charles the Bold in an attempt to conquer the Duchy of Lorraine caused the extinction of the House of Burgundy in 1477, the order passed to the House of Habsburg. A few months after his marriage to the heiress Mary of Burgundy, Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg was knighted in Bruges on April 30, 1478, and then appointed sovereign of the order. All renegade or disloyal knights of the order in the course of the subsequent War of the Burgundian Succession were expelled from the order by Maximilian. The memory of the dead was erased and their coats of arms were broken.
From Emperor Charles V or King Philip II of Spain, the sovereign was on the one hand the head of the Spanish line of the Habsburgs and on the other hand also king of Spain. Charles V was appointed head of the order at the age of 9 and identified himself strongly with this community throughout his life. The ideal of chivalrous and brave living was brought to him by William de Croÿ. When in 1700 Charles II of Spain died childless, both the Habsburgs from the Habsburg lands and the Bourbons, as the new kings of Spain, claimed sovereignty of the order. Both noble houses basically invoked their claims regarding the Spanish crown. The House of Habsburg's claim relied on Article 65 of the Statutes. Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI was able to claim sovereignty of the Netherlands, the Burgundian heartland, during the War of the Spanish Succession and thus he could celebrate the order's festival in Vienna in 1713. As with Maximilian I or Charles V, the order was again closely associated with the Holy Roman Empire.
Regardless of this, the order was divided into two lines. The Habsburg order owns the archive and the old insignia and adheres more to the original statutes.
Spanish order
With the absorption of the Burgundian lands into the Spanish Habsburg empire, the sovereignty of the order passed to the Habsburg kings of Spain, where it remained until the death of the last of the Spanish Habsburgs, Charles II, in 1700. He was succeeded as king by Philip V, a Bourbon. The dispute between Philip and the Habsburg pretender to the Spanish throne, the Archduke Charles, led to the War of the Spanish Succession, and also resulted in the division of the order into Spanish and Austrian branches. In either case the sovereign, as Duke of Burgundy, writes the letter of appointment in French.The controversial conferral of the Fleece on Napoleon and his brother Joseph, while Spain was occupied by French troops, angered the exiled king of France, Louis XVIII, and caused him to return his collar in protest. These, and other awards by Joseph, were revoked by King Ferdinand VII on the restoration of Bourbon rule in 1813. Napoleon created by order of 15 August 1809 the Order of the Three Golden Fleeces, in view of his sovereignty over Austria, Spain and Burgundy. This was opposed by Joseph I of Spain and appointments to the new order were never made.
In 1812, the acting government of Spain conferred the Fleece upon the Duke of Wellington, an act confirmed by Ferdinand on his resumption of power, with the approval of Pope Pius VII. Wellington therefore became the first Protestant to be honoured with the Golden Fleece. It has subsequently also been conferred upon non-Christians, such as Bhumibol Adulyadej, King of Thailand.
There was another crisis in 1833 when Isabella II became Queen of Spain in defiance of Salic Law that did not allow women to become heads of state. Her right to confer the Fleece was challenged by Spanish Carlists.
Sovereignty remained with the head of the Spanish House of Bourbon during the republican and Francoist periods, and is held today by the present king of Spain, Felipe VI. There is confusion towards the conferral of the Fleece on Francisco Franco in 1972. The order was illegally offered by Infante Jaime to him on the occasion of his son's wedding to the dictator's granddaughter, Carmen. Franco kindly refused the order on the basis of legitimacy, stating that the Golden Fleece could only be granted by the reigning king of Spain. Moreover, the right of conferral was in any case a prerogative of Jaime's younger brother, Infante Juan, as designated heir to the throne of Spain by his father Alfonso XIII.
Knights of the order are entitled to be addressed with the style His/Her Excellency in front of their name.