Order of St Patrick The Order of St Patrick, which pertains to Ireland, is the most junior of these three in precedence and age. Its equivalent in England, The Most Noble Order of the Garter, is the oldest order of chivalry in the United Kingdom, dating to the middle fourteenth century. The Scottish equivalent is The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, dating in its modern form to 1687. The order was founded in 1783, a year after the grant of substantial autonomy to Ireland, as a means of rewarding (or obtaining) political support in the Irish Parliament. The Order of
Chivalry 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 popularized in medieval literature, especially the Matter of Britain and Matter of France, the former based on Geoffrey of Monmouth's "Historia Regum Britanniae", written in the 1130s, which introduced the legend of King Arthur. All of these were taken as historically accurate until the beginnings of modern scholarship. The code