Flag of the Knights Templar
A
military order is a Christian
order of knighthood that is founded for
crusading, i.e. propagating and/or defending the
faith (originally
Catholic, after the
reformation sometimes
Protestant), either in the
Holy Land or against
Islam (
Reconquista) or
pagans (mainly
Baltic region) in
Europe. Many orders became
secularized later.
History
Catholic military orders appeared following the
First Crusade. The foundation of the
Templars in 1118 provided the first in a series of tightly organized military forces which protected the Christian colonies in the
Outremer, as well as fighting non-Christians in the
Iberian Peninsula and
Eastern Europe.
Purpose and function
The principal feature of the military order is the combination of military and
religious ways of life. Some of them, like the
Knights of St John and the
Knights of St Thomas, also cared for the sick and poor. However, they were not purely male institutions, as
nuns could attach themselves as
convents of the orders. One significant feature of the military orders is that
clerical brothers could be, and indeed often were, subordinate to non-ordained brethren.
In 1818
Joseph von Hammer compared the Catholic military orders, in particular the Templars, with certain Islamic models such as the
Shiite sect of
Assassins. In 1820
José Antonio Conde has suggested they were modeled on the
ribat, a fortified religious institution which brought together a religious way of life with fighting the enemies of Islam. However popular such views may have become, others have criticized this view suggesting there were no such ribats around
Palestine until after the military orders had been founded. Yet the innovation of fighting
monks was something new to Catholicism.
The role and function of the military orders has sometimes been obscured by the concentration on their military exploits in
Syria,
Palestine,
Prussia, and
Livonia. In fact they had extensive holdings and staff throughout
Western Europe. The majority were laymen. They provided a conduit for cultural and technical innovation, for example the introduction of
fulling into
England by the Knights of St John, or the banking facilities of the Templars.
Because of the necessity to have a standing army, the military orders were created, being adopted as the fourth
monastic vow.
List of military orders
This list is intended to be comprehensive. The orders are listed chronologically according to their dates of foundation (in parentheses), which are sometimes approximate, and may in significance vary from case to case, the foundation of an order, its ecclesiastical approval, and its militarisation occurring at times on different dates.
Other uses
It is possible for a non-crusading order to be founded explicitly as a military order.
This is the case of the
Orden Militar de la Constancia ('the Military Order of Loyalty'), founded by the authorities in the Spanish protectorate zone of
Morocco on 18 August 1946. Awarded to military officers and men, Moroccan and Spanish, in a single class. Obsolete 1956.
It was in the military orders, where the perfect fusion of the religious and the military spirit was realized, that chivalry reached its apogee. It was during this apogee when the secular brotherhood was created.
The Dutch
Military Order of William and the Austrian Military
Order of Maria-Theresia are not military orders although they use that name. They are orders of merit, not societies of knights or warrior-monks like the original military orders.
There are some
self-styled orders, that claim to be military orders.
