Word Finder - knighthood

definition

An honour whereby one is made into a knight, and one can thereafter be called "Sir"

example

He's got an OBE, and MBE and his recent work should entitle him to a knighthood.

definition

The quality of being a knight.

definition

The knights collectively, the body of knights.

Niall Og O'Neill, one of the four kings of Ireland, accepted knighthood from Richard II.

In this year Paxton received the honour of knighthood.

For the modern order of the Golden Fleece, see Knighthood And Chivalry, section Orders of Knighthood.

But in 1840 the Order was resuscitated in Austria, where it now exists as a semi-religious knighthood, closely connected with the Habsburgs.

Two modes of conferring knighthood appear to have prevailed from a very early period in all countries where chivalry was known.

The guns constructed on this principle yielded such excellent results, both in range and accuracy, that they were adopted by the British government in 1859, Armstrong himself being appointed engineer of rifled ordnance and receiving the honour of knighthood.

It is difficult to describe the true spirit and moral influence of knighthood, if only because the ages in which it flourished differed so widely from our own.

His name is not connected with the resistance to the levy of ship-money or to the action of the ecclesiastical courts, but in 1630 he was one of those fined for refusing to take up knighthood.

It is familiar in the titles, showing the colour of their wands of office, of the gentlemen ushers of the three principal British orders of knighthood, the ushers of the Garter and St Patrick being "Ushers of the Black Rod," and of the Thistle "Green Rod."

This prince continued the traditions and work of his father in a manner that won the approbation of the local government, and earned for him the distinction of a knighthood of the Order of the Indian Empire and a seat in the legislative council of Bombay.

To distinguished soldiers of the cross the honours and benefits of knighthood could hardly be refused on the ground that they did not possess a sufficient property qualification - of which perhaps they had denuded themselves in order to their equipment for the Holy War.

While knighthood was avoided by poor nobles, it was coveted by rich citizens.

The knighthood of St Maurice and St Lazarus is now a dignity conferred by the king of Italy (the grand master) on persons distinguished in the public service, science, art and letters, trade, and above all in charitable works, to which its income is devoted.

It is true that as much might be inferred from Persons the testimony of the romance writers; historical empowered evidence, however, tends to limit the proposition, and to confer the sounder conclusion appears to be, as Sir Harris Knighthood.

Moreover, the same business considerations which dictated those early marriages clashed equally with the strict theory of knighthood.

Moreover, after the knight's liability to personal service in war had been modified in the 12th century by the scutage system, it became necessary in the first quarter of the r3th to compel landowners to take up the knighthood which in theory they should have coveted as an honour - a compulsion which was soon systematically enforced (Distraint of Knighthood, 1278), and became a recognized source of royal income.

It is recorded in 1298 as " an immemorial custom " in Provence that rich burghers enjoyed the honour of knighthood; and less than a century later we find Sacchetti complaining that the dignity is open to any rich upstart, however disreputable his antecedents.

But in England knighthood has always been conferred to a great extent independently of these considerations.

Ashmole cites authorities for the contention that knighthood ennobles, insomuch that whosoever is a knight it necessarily follows that he is also a gentleman; " for, when a king gives the dignity to an ignoble person whose merit he would thereby recompense, he is understood to have conferred whatsoever is requisite for the completing of that which he bestows."

All the medieval orders of knighthood, however, insisted in their statutes on the noble birth of the candidate.

The sovereign's permission by royal warrant is necessary before a British subject can receive a foreign order of knighthood.

Protests were made at various times by Philip V., but the question has never been finally decided by treaty; and the Austrian and Spanish branches have continued as independent orders ever since as the principal order of knighthood in the respective states.

Several orders of knighthood have been under his protection; among these may be mentioned the Bavarian, the Bohemian and that of the electorate of Cologne.

His father was a humble farmer, but three of his sons attained the honour of knighthood.

At the recommendation of Queen Elizabeth, who conferred on him the honour of knighthood, he was appointed secretary to Sir Christopher Hatton, and afterwards, having been promoted to a mastership in chancery, was sent as ambassador to the king of Poland.

He procured, through his cousin Cecil, the dignity of knighthood, which, contrary to his inclination, he received along with about 300 others, on the 23rd of July 1603.

Camden, who refused a knighthood, was a man of enormous industry, and possessed a modest and friendly disposition.

On June 29 he was convicted and sentenced to death, and on the following day was degraded from his knighthood.

The three eldest sons of King John and Queen Philippa - Edward, Pedro and Henry, afterwards celebrated as Prince Henry the Navigator - desired to win knighthood by service against the Moors, the historic enemies of their country and creed.

In 1908 he published Memories of My Life, and in 1909 he received a knighthood.

In 1875 Mackenzie paid a visit to Great Britain, and was received at Windsor by Queen Victoria; he was offered a knighthood, but declined it.

They were a knightly family when we first hear of them about 1250, though towards the end of the 14th century they seem to have been but simple men without the honours of knighthood, and not always using their prefix "von."

Afterwards the queen held a court at Trinity Lodge, where (16th of April 1705) she conferred the order of knighthood upon Sir Isaac Newton.

In the Perlesvaus the Grail is the same, but the working out of the scheme is much more complex; a son of Joseph of Arimathea, Josephe, is introduced, and we find a spiritual knighthood similar to that used so effectively in the Parzival.

The honour of knighthood was offered to Adams when Queen Victoria visited Cambridge in 1847; but then, as on a subsequent occasion, his modesty led him to decline it.

He was now an old man of seventy-seven years, honoured with the friendship of princes, recognized as the most distinguished of Italian humanists, courted by pontiffs, and decorated with the laurel wreath and the order of knighthood by kings.

The pecuniary rewards of Bessemer's great invention came to him with comparative quickness; but it was not till 1879 that the Royal Society admitted him as a fellow and the government honoured him with a knighthood.

The sovereign is grand-master of the eight Spanish orders of knighthood, the principal of which is that of the Golden Fleece (Toison de Oro), founded in 1431 by Philip of Burgundy.

In 1866, perhaps chiefly in acknowledgment of his services to transAtlantic telegraphy, Thomson received the honour of knighthood, and in 1892 he was raised to the peerage with the title of Baron Kelvin of Largs.

In other words, knighthood in the Order was always considered hereditary in a sense.

Jimmy Carter welcomed him as a ' freedom fighter ', the Queen conferred an honorary knighthood on him.

Congratulations on a worthy task, you deserve a knighthood for replacing images in our heads.

He received a knighthood in the New Year's Honors List 2002.

In 1998 he was awarded a knighthood in the Queen's birthday honors list.

Despite his love of France, he remained essentially English and accepted an overdue knighthood in the 1990s.

In 1976 we was rewarded by the Queen with an honorary CBE, followed two years later by an honorary knighthood.

At the same time, hereditary knighthood was conferred upon the sons of noblemen.

She became the fourth woman to be given the Order of the Garter, the highest order of British knighthood.

Furthermore, they were both members of a chivalric knighthood called the Order of the Golden Fleece.

Later, he too received a well-deserved knighthood for his work.