The fount of honour (Latin: fons honorum) refers to a nation's head of state, who, by virtue of his or her official position, has the exclusive right of conferring legitimate titles of nobility and orders of chivalry to other persons. Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... Queen Elizabeth II, is the Head of State of 16 countries including: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Jamaica, New Zealand and the Bahamas, as well as crown colonies and overseas territories of the United Kingdom. ... The Lords and Barons prove their Nobility by hanging their Banners and exposing their Coats-of-arms at the door of the Lodge of the Heralds. ... See also Orders of Chivalry in the British honours system After the failure of the crusades, the crusading military orders became idealized and romanticized, resulting in the late medieval notion of chivalry, as reflected in the Arthurian romances of the time. ...

Origin

During the High Middle Ages, European knights were essentially armoured, mounted warriors; it was common practice for knights to confer knighthoods upon their finest soldiers, who in turn had the right to confer knighthood on others. The cathedral Notre Dame de Paris, a significant architectural contribution of the High Middle Ages. ... The silver Anglia knight, commissioned as a trophy in 1850, intended to represent the Black Prince. ... Man-at-arms was a medieval term for a soldier, almost always a professional. ...

This "master-apprentice" system of knighthood began to change during the Crusades, when military orders of chivalry were founded. As knights under these orders were bound by vows of obedience towards the orders' Grand Masters, they were prohibited from unilaterally granting knighthoods to others. This form of knighthood proved particularly attractive for monarchs, as a way to ensure their knights owed undivided allegiances to the monarchs themselves; to this end these monarchs either acquired grand masterships of existing orders, or created orders of their own. (In the case of the British Knight Bachelor, such knights have never been allowed to have their own soldiers in the first place, therefore their allegiances to the British Monarch have never been an issue.) This article is about historical Crusades . ... A military order is a Christian order of knighthood that is founded for crusading, i. ... Grand Master is the typical title of the supreme head of various military orders of knighthood, a type of religious order including the Knights Templar, a class of sectarian order such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Orange Order, but who in the case of a sovereign order such... Look up monarch in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... An Order is a decoration, awarded by a government to an individual, usually for distinguished service to a nation or to humanity. ... The dignity of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. ...

After the end of feudalism and the rise of the nation-states, such orders and knighthoods, along with titles of nobility (in the case of monarchies), became the exclusive domain for the monarchs (heads of state) to reward their loyal subjects (citizens) - in other words, the heads of state became their nations' "fountains of honour". Roland pledges his fealty to Charlemagne; from a manuscript of a chanson de geste. ... The term nation-state, while often used interchangeably with the terms unitary state and independent state, refers properly to the parallel occurence of a state and a nation. ...

Modern application

Contrary to a popular myth, for a person to be made a noble or a knight does not give him or her the right to confer titles of Nobility or Orders of Chivalry to others. Given the historical background of the Orders of Chivalry as mentioned above, no person or organization, other than the head of state, can be a fount of honour; persons and organizations other than the head of state, may confer such honours only with the explicit permission of the fount of honour (head of state). For example, in the United Kingdom, where the fount of honour is the Monarch (the King or Queen), some societies have permissions from the Monarch to award medals, but these are to be worn on the right side of the chest. In France, however, non-government orders and medals are not allowed to be worn at all.

See also

• British honours system