The creation of the most famous and to this day most noble knightly order in the world owes its existence to a shameful mishap on the dance floor. When King Edward III of England danced with Joan of Kent, the Duchess of Countess of Salisbury, at a raucous court ball in 1348, the lady’s silk stocking suddenly came loose and fell to the floor before the eyes of the entire elite. While the surrounding courtiers and knights began to grin maliciously and mutter under their breath, the monarch displayed masterful composure: he bowed elegantly, lifted the blue band, demonstratively tied it around his own knee, and hurled it at the slanders in Old French: „Honi soit qui mal y pense“ – a scoundrel who thinks evil thoughts. From this spontaneous gesture, the King created the Hosenbandorden, the ribbon order. Order of the Garter, And they made the once-ubiquitous underwear accessory into the most coveted status symbol of the European feudal world. To this day, knights of the order wear a dark blue velvet ribbon with golden letters just below the left knee during solemn processions to demonstrate that true chivalry can even transform a faux pas into the highest rank of sovereign.

When Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy founded the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1430 on the occasion of his marriage to Isabella of Portugal, he created the most exclusive brotherhood of the Late Middle Ages – with a badge that was hardly to be rivaled for its oddities. The insignia consisted of a massive chain of fire-hardened steel and stones, on which a complete, lifeless sheepskin made of massive gold floated, suspended in the middle around the belly. The motif was based on the ancient Argonautic tale of Jason, but the clergy promptly opposed the pagan superstition, whereupon the Burgundian court poets promptly transformed the sheep into a biblical scene of Gideon’s battle with the Midianites. The order was so powerful and independent that the assembled knights had the right to publicly denounce their own Grand Master—the reigning duke or later Habsburg Emperor—for wrongdoing, insubordination, or military failure before the order’s chapter and impose punishment. Anyone wearing this sagging gold yoke on their chest practically stood above the laws of ordinary secular courts and could only be judged by their fellow knights.

Secular noble orders were by no means always dedicated to bloody military service or high-ranking diplomatic activity; sometimes they simply served the purpose of maintaining a respectable level of madness. In the year 1381, Count Adolf I of Kleve founded together with thirty-five other counts and knights the so-called Klevian Madmen Order, which Societas Stultorum, The order was considered the oldest secular prank society in the world. Its members solemnly pledged to wear a metal buckle with a laughing clown figure with donkey horns and bells on their left chest all year round. Those who failed to appear at the regular assemblies without their order badge had to pay enormous sums of silver to the order coffers, with which arms were supplied and extravagant parties were financed. Then, in the court, the powerful lords of the Rhineland would engage in clown antics and hold grotesque mock trials in which no social distinction applied and everyone was free to insult the other without penalty – a bizarre mixture of aristocratic elite thinking and carnival-style clown freedom that was maintained over generations.

In the 15th century, Elector Frederick II of Brandenburg founded a secular order that pursued a tangible educational purpose: to finally civilize the rapacious Marchesian nobility. The Schwanenorden, founded in 1440, featured an ornate chain on which a medal with the Virgin Mary hung, with a graceful white swan floating in a cloth. The special feature of this order was the participation of both sexes: both princes and noblewomen were allowed to join and wore the Schwanenabzeichen with proud elegance. However, the statutes of the order were a veritable code of conduct against the notorious Marchesian drinking habits. Those who wore the swan on their chest were required to sign a written commitment not to drink excessively at feasts, not to swear blasphemously, to protect widows and orphans, and not to behave like a robber at the table. If a knight violated the good customs, he was immediately expelled from the noble guild of swans – a revolutionary method for those times; it was a way to tame wild feudal lords through the pressure of noble ladies.

The fact that secular orders were also presented as a tangible declaration of war and an open threat to rivals was demonstrated by Duke Louis de Duke of Valois, who founded the Order of the Fox in 1394 (Order of Porc-Épic). The ambitious duke chose a sturdy boar as a symbol, associated with the unambiguous Latin motto „Cominus et eminus“ – which means a lot like „It hits you from close and from afar“. He was alluding to the medieval folk belief that irritated wild boars could fire their stings like poisonous arrows over many meters at their enemies. The order insignia consisted of a golden boar on a chain of oak leaves and was a clear warning to his archrival Johann Ohnefurcht, Duke of Burgundy, who promptly countered with his own order, whose emblem was a saw machine to demonstratively flatten the stings of the Orléans boar. The mutual religious orders fueled the bloody feud between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians until the founder of the order, Louis, was finally murdered in the streets of Paris – but the stag remained etched on armor and castles for generations as a proud emblem of the French kings.