He is said to have appeared over the crusading armies in the course of an early battle against the Muslims, in some accounts at the battle for Jerusalem itself. In any event, Saint George was particularly venerated in Palestine. (It may be noteworthy that a girdle also figures in the contemporaneous legend of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” a tale which lays claim to the Garter motto as well.) And I wonder if the “garter” may, in fact, have originally been intended to represent the maiden’s girdle. In that tale, the maiden at one point uses her girdle - i.e., her belt - as a leash for the dragon. George’s most famous feat, according to the account in Jacob of Vorgaine’s Golden Legend, was the slaying of a dragon while rescuing a maiden.
The popular legend portrays him as a “knight” martyred in the days of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. Gurja) whose cult had become prominent during the crusades. George the patron saint of England, displacing his own namesake and predecessor, St. George and the Garter.” It was, in fact, Edward III who made St. So, somewhere around 1348-1350 Edward founded a different order dedicated to “St. What is known for sure is that around 1344 Edward III announced his intention to revive the Arthurian round table, but that effort quickly came to naught. (But, it is a tale that fits very well with the ethos of the court of Charles II, which was Ashmole’s contemporary context.) Other hints and clues to an alternative story of the Order’s origins lie buried in earlier fragments, and in some of the symbols of the Order. And I must say that I find the story the least credible among the several tales connected to the founding of the Order. Joan of Kent, the niece of Edward II, wife of Edward the “Black Prince,” and mother of Richard II - dates from almost two hundred years after the fact. The well-known legend of Edward III and the fallen garter of the Countess of Salisbury - a.k.a. Hampering Ashmole’s historical project, however, was the fact that the records of the first century of the Order are lost, and only a few contemporary chronicles mention the founding. His history of the Order written in the era of Charles II (1672) is still widely cited as authoritative. The most cited historian of the Order of the Garter is the seventeenth-century scholar Elias Ashmole, for whom the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford is named. George and the Garter” … which is a more ancient version of the name. So, in recognition of the occasion, I thought it appropriate to focus this month on a bit of the history of “the Order of St. The modern version of the Garter Day ceremonial was established by the Queen’s father as recently as 1948 when the annual church service was restored, and it remains intimately tied to the identity of the House of Windsor. All of the Queen’s children and several of her cousins are Knights and Ladies of the Garter, the various royals also being eligible “extras” above and beyond the official twenty-four. It is the oldest and most venerated order of chivalry in Europe, and most of the current crowned heads of Europe are so-called “Stranger Knights” above and beyond the statutory twenty-four. The tie between the Crown and the Order is unbroken across the nearly seven centuries of its history, and across most of that time the Garter has been the honor above all honors revered by the royal family itself.
More than any other event thus far in his life, becoming a Knight of the Garter marks William’s full entry into the ceremonial life of the British monarchy. The day marked what is believed to be the 660th anniversary of the founding of the Order by the royal family’s ancestor, King Edward III of England and it was also the 60th anniversary of the Queen and Prince Philip’s induction into the Order by her father King George VI. Prince Harry and Kate Middleton were among the onlookers from the chapel’s Galilee Porch.
George’s Chapel for the annual service of the Order. He then took part for the first time in the procession of the Order down the hill to St. His supporters in the ceremony of induction, which took place in the Garter Throne Room in Windsor Castle, were his grandfather and father, HRH the Duke of Edinburgh and HRH the Prince of Wales.
On Monday, April 16, 2008, Prince William of Wales was inducted by his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, as the 1,000th enrolled Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter.