After the conclusion of the war in 1714, the European powers recognized Philip of Bourbon as King of Spain, and the old Burgundian Habsburg territories became part of the Austrian Netherlands (1714–1797), together with the Treasure of the Order and its archive.

[3][4][5] De Bourgoing wrote in 1789 that "the number of knights of the Golden Fleece is very limited in Spain, and this is the order, which of all those in Europe, has best preserved its ancient splendour".

[7] Current knights of the Spanish order include Emperor Akihito of Japan, former Tsar Simeon of Bulgaria, and Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, amongst 13 others.

The Order of the Golden Fleece was established on 10 January 1430, by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy (on the occasion of his wedding to Isabella of Portugal), in celebration of the prosperous and wealthy domains united in his person that ran from Flanders to Switzerland.

[2] The order, conceived in an ecclesiastical spirit in which mass and obsequies were prominent and the knights were seated in choirstalls like canons,[12] was explicitly denied to heretics, and so became an exclusively Catholic honour during the Reformation.

[13] The Order of the Golden Fleece was defended from possible accusations of prideful pomp by the Burgundian court poet Michault Taillevent, who asserted that it was instituted: Non point pour jeu ne pour esbatement, Mais à la fin que soit attribuée Loenge à Dieu trestout premièrement Et aux bons gloire et haulte renommée.

The choice of the Golden Fleece of Colchis as the symbol of a Christian order caused some controversy, not so much because of its pagan context, which could be incorporated in chivalric ideals, as in the Nine Worthies, but because the feats of Jason, familiar to all, were not without causes of reproach, expressed in anti-Burgundian terms by Alain Chartier in his Ballade de Fougères referring to Jason as "Who, to carry off the fleece of Colchis, was willing to commit perjury.

[16] The badge of the order, in the form of a sheepskin, was suspended from a jewelled collar of firesteels in the shape of the letter B, for Burgundy, linked by flints; with the motto Pretium Laborum Non Vile ('No Mean Reward for Labours')[17] engraved on the front of the central link, and Philip's motto Non Aliud ('I will have no other') on the back (non-royal knights of the Golden Fleece were forbidden to belong to any other order of knighthood).

[21] A few months after his marriage to the heiress Mary of Burgundy, Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg was knighted in Bruges on April 30, 1478, and then appointed sovereign (grand master) of the order.

[25] Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI was able to claim sovereignty of the Netherlands, the Burgundian heartland, during the War of the Spanish Succession and thus he could celebrate the order's festival in Vienna in 1713.

The controversial conferral of the Fleece on Napoleon and his brother Joseph, while Spain was occupied by French troops, angered the exiled king of France, Louis XVIII, and caused him to return his collar in protest.

[citation needed] Sovereignty remained with the head of the Spanish House of Bourbon during the republican (1931–1939) and Francoist (1939–1975) periods, and is held today by the present king of Spain, Felipe VI.

Franco kindly refused the order on the basis of legitimacy and primogeniture, stating that the Golden Fleece could only be granted by the reigning king of Spain.

Moreover, the right of conferral was in any case a prerogative of Jaime's younger brother, Infante Juan, as designated heir to the throne of Spain by his father Alfonso XIII.

The Austrian order did not suffer from the political difficulties of the Spanish, remaining (with the exception of the British prince regent, later George IV) an honour solely for Catholic royalty and nobility.

[48] Upon the collapse of the Austrian monarchy after the First World War, King Albert I of Belgium requested that the sovereignty and treasure of the order be transferred to him as the ruler of the former Habsburg lands of Burgundy.

This claim was seriously considered by the victorious Allies at Versailles but was eventually rejected due to the intervention of King Alfonso XIII of Spain, who took possession of the property of the order on behalf of the dethroned emperor, Charles I of Austria.

[56] Below a list of the names of the known living knights, followed in parentheses by the date, when known, of their induction into the order: Source: Livre du toison d'or, online, fols.

In his work Jurisprudentia heroica (part 2, page 19) he remarks: The privilege of the golden helmets was based on the practices observed at the chapters of the order.

Pope Pius X reestablished in 1913 the privilege that Knights of the Austrian Order of the Golden Fleece have the right to deem a location as worthy for holding a Holy Mass.