Military order (religious society)
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A military order is a Christian religious society of knights. The original military orders were the Knights Templar, the Knights Hospitaller, the Order of Saint James, the Order of Calatrava, and the Teutonic Knights. They arose in the Middle Ages in association with the Crusades, both in the Holy Land, the Baltics, and the Iberian peninsula; their members being dedicated to the protection of pilgrims and Christians, as well as the defence of the Crusader states. They are the predecessors of chivalric orders.
The Hospitallers in the 13th century
Image: Order of the Faith and Peace
Image: Militia of Jesus Christ
Image: Order of Our Lady of Bethlehem
Knight
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A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity.
A 14th-century depiction of the 13th-century German knight Hartmann von Aue, from the Codex Manesse
A Norman knight slaying Harold Godwinson (Bayeux tapestry, c. 1070). The rank of knight developed in the 12th century from the mounted warriors of the 10th and 11th centuries.
Hungarian knights routing Ottoman spahi cavalry during the Battle of Mohács in 1526
David I of Scotland knighting a squire