Collar (order)

In the late Middle Ages the knights wore their insignia ever more prominently and medaillons, crosses and jewels in the shape of animals began to be worn on chains around the neck, known as livery collars.

In the fourteenth century, Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy (1343–1383) instituted the Order of the Collar.

It consists of a solid gold medallion of the collar, which portrays the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary by the Archangel Gabriel.

The medallion is surrounded by three intertwined Savoyan knots, decorated with small crosses fleury, and in the upper center, between two of the Savoyan knots, a cluster of rays with a dove, representing the Holy Spirit, is depicted also in gold.

[3] Following this new fashion, Louis XI of France, when instituting his Order of St. Michael in 1469, gave the knights collars composed of scallop shells linked on a chain, most famously honouring Raoul de Lannoy after the siege of Quesnoy.

The first official portrait of a King of France wearing the collar of the order was that of King Louis XII in 1514 and since then, all other Kings have followed that tradition until the order lapsed in 1830;[5] the Order of Liberation claimed to be its continuation in 1945 and it had its own grand collar made by master goldsmith Gilbert Poillerat,[6] which President Charles de Gaulle wore on his official portrait, preferring its Cross of Lorraine to the symbols attached to the Grand Collier of the Legion of Honour.

[7] While the order of Saint Michael was exclusively male, Queen Anne of Austria with the help of her chaplain French Dominican friar François Arnoul established the Order of the Celestial Collar of the Sacred Rosary in 1647, proving once again the connection between the collar and the rosary as an instrument of devotion.

But the Tudor king wished to match the continental sovereigns in all things as described in the statues signed on January 5, 1508, by the Register of the Order, and sent to the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian.

They were worn only on ceremonial occasions and replaced in daily life by stars pinned to the breast, and badges suspended from ribbons.

At the end of the 18th century, most of the European orders had only one rank, that of knight, and although they usually had collars, the cross or badge was now worn on a ribbon around the neck or over the right shoulder.

Nowadays, the collar is often a rank above that of a Grand Cross and it is reserved for the president and foreign heads of state as it is in Brazil.