Golden Fleece, The Order of the

▪ European knighthood order

French  L'Ordre de la Toison d'Or,  German  Der Orden vom Goldenen Vlies,  Spanish  La Orden del Toisón de Oro  

      order of knighthood founded in Burgundy in 1430 and associated later especially with Habsburg Austria and with Spain.

      The order was founded by Philip III the Good, duke of Burgundy, at Bruges in Flanders in 1430, to commemorate his wedding there to Isabella of Portugal. Its first chapter was held at Lille in 1431, and in 1432 its seat was fixed at Dijon, capital of the duchy of Burgundy. Dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and to St. Andrew, it was first constituted to have a grand master (the sovereign duke) and 23 knights, but membership was subsequently increased to 31 and eventually to 51. The order—founded to defend the Roman Catholic religion, to uphold the usages of chivalry, and to increase the prestige of the dukes of Burgundy—was ideally supposed to settle all disputes between its knights, whose actions were to be appraised, commended, or censured at its chapters; the knights had the right to trial by their fellows on charges of rebellion, treason, or heresy.

      Through the marriage of Mary of Burgundy to the Austrian archduke Maximilian (1477), the grand mastership passed to the house of Habsburg. The Holy Roman emperor Charles V (Charles I of Spain), who granted the order exclusive jurisdiction over all crimes that might be committed by its members, left the grand mastership to his son Philip II of Spain, to whose successors it was confirmed by Pope Clement VIII in 1600; but, following the extinction of the Spanish Habsburgs (1700), it was disputed between the Bourbon kings of Spain and the Austrian Habsburgs. The emperor Charles VI instituted the order in Vienna in 1713, and thenceforward both the Austrian and the Spanish sovereigns and pretenders continued to award the Golden Fleece as their principal order of knighthood. It was exclusively reserved to Roman Catholics of the highest nobility.

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