ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

The list of civilian and military orders summarizes the different orders according to the country.

The orders below are classified by country and date of foundation. In bold the most important national orders are indicated in the order of precedence.

General
An order is strictly speaking a gathering of persons constituting a legal personality; the third state constitutes an order in the French society of the Ancien Régime. The idea of distinguishing members of society by their merits and of integrating them into a valued community goes back to the but is really effective only with the creation of the honorary orders of the .

Honorary orders are heirs to military orders, from the point of view of symbolism, through orders of chivalry. It is from the -s that these develop. Originally created to reward deserving people, they also serve as ornaments, some decorations being real jewels, and have become for some of the national emblems.

From one order to another similar characteristics can be found:
Membership of a State
Existence of a great master (sovereign or head of state)
Existence of statutes regulating the life of the order
Existence of Chancery
Existence of specific badges (crosses, plates, ribbon)
Free recruitment to all groups in society and no longer limited to a privileged group

Other points are found in most but not all orders:
Existence of several classes: , , , etc. (the order of precedence can be crescendo or decrescendo) and/or rank: knight, officer, commander, great officer, great cross...
Existence of a necklace

There are several periods in the organization of orders. One can consider that their most distant ancestors are hospital orders, like the Hospitallers, followed by military orders of the Middle Ages, like the Templars, who are orders of religious dedicated to the service of the faith but also by weapons. A second epoch was that of the orders of chivalry, created by the princes of the late Middle Ages to build up a clientele of noble faithful. These orders of chivalry include aspects of military orders, such as the wearing of a uniform and specific badges or the presence of a rule, but they are distinguished by the fact that the members are not religious. Among the most famous orders of chivalry are the Order of the Garter, the Order of the Golden Fleece or the Order of the Holy Spirit.

At the end of the year the first honorary orders appear, which are intended to reward the services rendered to the State. One of the most important and undoubtedly influential is the Order of the Legion of Honour created by Napoleon. Some orders have survived by gradually adapting to all functions expected of an order; This is the case, for example, with the order of Avi