Order of the Golden Spur Militia Aurata
In the Middle Ages, the spur was the symbol of knighthood, and in that sense all knights could be said to belong to the “Order of the Spur.” When the Order of the Golden Spur was established is unknown. Pope St. Pius X in his Brief Multum ad excitandos maintains that it is among the oldest orders of knighthood and refers to the tradition which would have Pope St. Sylvester (314-35) the founder: “Neminem latet Ordinem Militiae auratae, sive ab aureo calcari, inter vetustissimos jure esse enumerandum: Constantino enim Magno Imperatore, Silvester PP. I sanctae memoriae decessor Noster, auctor illius fuisse dicitur.” Be that as it may, the Pope expresses regret that in the course of time “the order has lost its ancient splendor and dignity because of human weaknesses and the vicissitudes of the times.”
In the 16th century, for one thing, the right to confer this knighthood was no longer reserved to the Holy See. In 1539 Paul III Farnese (1534-49) granted high dignitaries of the papal court and the Roman princely families the privilege of conferring the Golden Spur. From that time on the order was so freely bestowed that it fell into disrepute.
To make matters worse, one of the Medici Popes, Pius IV (1559-65), decreed that membership of the Golden Spur entailed automatically the personal title of Roman Count for the titulary and hereditary nobility for his descendents. All this depreciated not only the distinctiveness of the Order of the Golden Spur but also of the Roman nobility.
Additional confusion was created when the Knights of the Golden Spur began to wear the coveted eight-pointed white cross of the Knights of the Order of Jerusalem. Pope Benedict XIV by a Brief of Sept. 7, 1747, abolished this abuse and ordered that the badge of the Order of the Golden Spur be an octagonal gilded cross with a small spur hanging from it.
At long last Pope Gregory XVI took the reformation of the Golden Spur in hand—a reformation which proved to be quite radical. In a Brief Cum hominum mentes of Oct. 31, 1841,36 the Pope practically suppressed the Order of the Golden Spur and established in its place the Order of St. Sylvester, presumably the founder of the old order. In remembrance of the latter, the Pope decreed that the accompanying title of the new order be Militia Aurata. The Pope reserved the right of conferring this new knighthood to the Holy See exclusively, revoking all delegated rights once given by his predecessors and abolished the privilege of conferring nobility. The membership of the order was reduced to 150 commanders and 300 knights and confined within the Papal States.
In 1905 another radical change occurred in the history of the Golden Spur. Pope St. Pius X by the Brief Multum ad excitandos separated the Order of the Golden Spur from that of St. Sylvester, making them two distinct orders from that time on.
In recognition of the 50th anniversary of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the restored Militia Aurata was put under the protection of the Immaculate Mother of Christ. Moreover, Pius ordered that the gilded cross of the order should in its centre carry a medal with a crowned monogram of Mary. This cross hangs from a trophy which in turn is attached to a red ribbon with white edgings to be worn around the neck. The knights also wear a plaque in the form of a silver star on which the same cross and medal are superimposed; their uniform is a red tunic and black trousers.
Pope Pius emphatically reiterated that membership does not entail personal nobility and still less hereditary nobility. The order comprises only one class, namely that of knights. The number of knights may not exceed 100, “lest the honor be decreased by too large a number,” as the Brief states. Actually, in 1954, there were only ten Knights of the Golden Spur in the entire world. This knighthood is conferred upon men, “qui vel armis, vel scriptis, vel praeclaris operibus rem catholicam auxerint, et Ecclesiam Dei virtute tutarint, aut doctrina illustraverint.” Membership is not limited to Catholics; the sentence just quoted leaves sufficient room for the candidacy of non-Catholics, inasmuch as they, too, may help the cause of Catholicism, as in signing a concordat with the Church or by giving freedom to the Catholic missions. In fact, four out of the ten existing knights are non-Catholics: one Greek Orthodox and three Mohammedans, among them the Shah of Iran.37