Order of the Garter the Prime Minister Clement Attlee and the Leader of the Opposition Winston Churchill, membership of the United Kingdom's highest ranking orders of chivalry (the Order of the Garter, the Order of the Thistle and the dormant Order of St. Patrick) became a personal gift of the Sovereign once again. Thus, the Sovereign personally selects Knights and Ladies Companion of the Garter, and need not act on or solicit the advice of His or Her Government. In addition, the Order includes supernumerary members, who do not count towards the limit of 24 companions. Several supernumerary members, known as "Royal Knights and
Chivalry of the novel), though he was quite in agreement with many so-called chivalric principles and guides to behavior. He toyed with but was never able to write a chivalric romance that was historically truthful. The Italian humanist Petrarch is reported to have had no use for chivalry. Cross-cultural comparison Sociology Chivalry Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is an informal, varying code of conduct developed between 1170 and 1220, never decided on or summarized in a single document, associated with the medieval Christian institution of knighthood; knights' and gentlewomen's behaviours were governed by chivalrous social codes. The ideals of chivalry were