Fount of honour
Template:Short description The fount of honour (Template:Langx) is a person, who, by virtue of their official position, has the exclusive right of conferring legitimate titles of nobility and orders of chivalry on other persons.
OriginEdit
During the High Middle Ages, European knights were essentially armoured, mounted warriors.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In feudalism, by virtue of its defining characteristic of subinfeudation, it was common practice for knights commander to confer knighthoods upon their finest soldiers, who in turn had the right to confer knighthood on others upon attaining command.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> For most of the Middle Ages, it was possible for private individuals to form orders of chivalry.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The oldest existing order of chivalry, the Order of Saint John of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> was formed as a private organization<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> which later received official sanction from church and state.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The 13th century witnessed the trend of monarchs, beginning with Emperor Frederick II (as King of Sicily) in 1231,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> retaining the right of {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Latin: 'fount of honour') as a royal prerogative, gradually abrogating the right of knights to elevate their esquires to knighthood.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> After the end of feudalism and the rise of the nation-state, orders and knighthoods, along with titles of nobility (in the case of monarchies), became the domain of the monarchs (heads of state) to reward their loyal subjects (citizens)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> – in other words, the heads of state became their nations' "fountains of honour".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Many of the old-style military knights resented what they considered to be a royal encroachment on their independence. The British social anthropologist, Julian A. Pitt-Rivers, noted that "while the sovereign is the 'fount of honour' in one sense, he is also the enemy of honour in another, since he claims to arbitrate in regard to it."<ref>Pitt-Rivers, Julian, "Honor and Social Status", in Jean G. Peristany, ed., Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), p. 30.</ref> By the early thirteenth century, when an unknown author composed {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}<ref>Paul Meyer, L'Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal (Paris: {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, 1891–1901), with partial translation of the original sources into Modern French. English translation: History of William Marshal (3 vols): Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3.</ref> (a verse biography of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, often regarded as the greatest medieval English knight<ref name=Kaeuper />), Richard W. Kaeuper notes that "the author bemoans the fact that, in his day, the spirit of chivalry has been imprisoned; the life of the knight errant, he charges, has been reduced to that of the litigant in courts."<ref name=Kaeuper>Template:Cite book</ref>
Legality of honours todayEdit
The question whether an order is a legitimate chivalric order or a self-styled order coincides with the subject of the fons honorum.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> A legitimate fount of honour is a person or entity who holds sovereignty when the order is awarded. Ultimately, it is the authority of the state, whether exercised by a reigning monarch or the president of a republic, that distinguishes orders of chivalry from private organizations.<ref name=Duren>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=Hieronymussen>Template:Cite book</ref> In Canada, for example, other persons – whether commoners, knights or nobles – no longer have the right to confer titles of nobility, knighthoods or orders of chivalry on others.<ref name=McCreery>Template:Cite book</ref>
The official website of the British monarchy<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> states: "As the 'fountain of honour' in the United Kingdom, The [Monarch] has the sole right of conferring all titles of honour, including life peerages, knighthoods and gallantry awards."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Some private societies in the United Kingdom (such as the Royal Humane Society)<ref name=JDS761>Template:Cite book</ref> have permission from the monarch to award medals which may be worn by those in uniform provided the private society's medal is worn on the right-side rather than the usual left.<ref name=JDS761 /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In Spain the fount of honour is King Felipe VI as the head of state.<ref name=Spain>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In France, only decorations recognised by the Grand Chancery of the Legion of Honour may be worn publicly, and permission must be sought and granted to wear any foreign awards or decorations. Dynastic orders are prohibited unless the dynasty in question is currently recognised as sovereign.<ref>Code de la légion d'honneur et de la médaille militaire, article R160</ref> (For example, the Royal Victorian Order is explicitly recognised, whereas the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus is not.)<ref name="drimm" /> Failure to comply is punishable by law. A non-exhaustive list of collectively authorised orders is published by the government.<ref name="drimm">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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These two dispositions are meant to protect the ensemble of authentic national and foreign distinctions by attempting to prevent the attire of fake decorations. These may stem from territorial entities which have not acceded to sovereignty or even from countries, nations, empires or kingdoms that are the pure and simple products of someone's overactive imagination, a fan of fiction or even a megalomaniac, if not purely mercantile acts or even the patent intention to abuse and swindle others.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}
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The President of the Portuguese Republic has inherited the duties of fount of honour from the Portuguese monarchs, since, unlike titles of nobility, the Portuguese orders of chivalry were not extinguished with the Republican Revolution in 1910. The current Constitution of Portugal alternatively styles the President as the "Grand Master of the Portuguese Honorific Orders" (Template:Langx);<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> in this capacity, the President can wear as a private insignia the Sash of the Three Orders,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> which has become a symbol of the Portuguese presidential magistracy.
The Papal Orders of Knighthood comprise five orders awarded directly by the Holy See and two others which it 'recognises and supports': the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the Order of the Holy Sepulchre. In response to queries regarding the Catholic Church's relationship to a large number of self-proclaimed Roman Catholic chivalric orders, the Holy See issued a statement in 2012 stating that any body other than its own seven approved orders, 'whether of recent origin or mediaeval foundation, are not recognised by the Holy See' and that 'the Holy See does not guarantee their historical or juridical legitimacy, their ends or organisational structures... to prevent the continuation of abuses which may result in harm to people of good faith, the Holy See confirms that it attributes absolutely no value whatsoever to certificates of membership or insignia issued by these groups, and it considers inappropriate the use of churches or chapels for their so-called "ceremonies of investiture".'<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref>Template:Third-party inline