One medieval order of knights now has two rival grand masters
Philip the Good founded the Order of the Golden Fleece at his wedding in 1430. Three centuries later a succession war split it in two, and ever since the King of Spain and the head of the House of Habsburg have each led their own branch, both claiming the same Burgundian inheritance.
Philip, Duke of Burgundy, created the order in Bruges on 10 January 1430 to mark his marriage to Isabella of Portugal and to celebrate the rich lands he ruled from Flanders to Switzerland. Membership started with a cap of 24 knights besides the sovereign; the limit grew to 30 in 1433 and later to 50 in 1516. The privileges were unusual: the duke promised to consult his knights before going to war, their conduct was reviewed at every chapter meeting with the sovereign himself open to rebuke, and an accused knight waited for trial in the courteous keeping of his fellows rather than in a cell.
The emblem raised eyebrows. Jason's theft of the fleece in Colchis involved oath-breaking, and the poet Alain Chartier used that against the Burgundians, so the order's chancellor recast the symbol as the fleece of Gideon from the Book of Judges. The badge, a sheepskin, hung from a collar of flints and steels shaped like the letter B, for Burgundy. Today each solid gold collar is valued at around 50,000 euros, reputedly the most costly of any chivalric order.
When Charles the Bold died in 1477 the Burgundian line ended, and the order passed to the Habsburgs through Maximilian's marriage to Mary of Burgundy. The Spanish Habsburgs held it until Charles II died childless in 1700. The resulting War of the Spanish Succession left a Bourbon, Philip V, on the Spanish throne, while the old Burgundian lands, the treasure and the archive went to Austria. Each dynasty kept its own Fleece, and the Austrian branch sticks closer to the original statutes.
Because heretics were barred, the Fleece became a purely Catholic honour during the Reformation. That changed in 1812, when Spain gave it to the Duke of Wellington, the first Protestant recipient; King Bhumibol of Thailand later received it too. Awards to Napoleon and his brother Joseph so angered Louis XVIII that he sent his collar back. Living Spanish knights include Emperor Emeritus Akihito and Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands.
Source: Order of the Golden Fleece
