Order of the Holy Spirit

The Order of the Holy Spirit (French: Ordre du Saint-Esprit; sometimes translated into English as the Order of the Holy Ghost) is a French order of chivalry founded by Henry III of France in 1578. Today, it is a dynastic order under the House of France.

It should not be confused with the Congregation of the Holy Ghost or with the religious Order of the Holy Ghost. It was the senior chivalric order of France by precedence, although not by age, since the Order of Saint Michael was established more than a century earlier.

Although officially abolished by the government authorities in 1830 following the July Revolution, its activities carried on. It is still recognised by the International Commission for Orders of Chivalry.

Prior to the creation of the Order of the Holy Spirit in 1578 by King Henry III, the senior order of chivalry in France had been the Order of Saint Michael. The idea flashed to him in Venice, where he had seen the original manuscript of an Order of the Saint Esprit or Droit Desir founded in 1353 by Louis of Anjou, titular king of Jerusalem and Sicily and husband of Joanna, queen of Naples and countess of Provence, and placed under the protection of St. Nicholas of Bari, whose image was reproduced on the pendant of the collar. Henry III realised that the Order of St. Michael had inflated and degraded during the civil wars, and therefore decided to place the new order of the Holy Spirit alongside it and to attribute them together; for this reason who was created knight of the Holy Spirit was called chevalier des ordres du roi. Its membership was initially restricted to a small number of powerful princes and nobles, but this increased dramatically due to the pressures of the Wars of Religion.

At the beginning of the reign of Henry III, the Order of Saint Michael had several hundred living members, ranging from kings to bourgeois. Recognising that the order had been significantly devalued, Henry III founded the Order of the Holy Spirit on December 31, 1578, thereby creating a two-tier system: the new order would be reserved for princes and powerful nobles, whilst the Order of Saint Michael would be for less eminent servants of the Crown. The new order was dedicated to the Holy Spirit to commemorate the fact that Henry III was elected as King of Poland (1573) and inherited the throne of France (1574) on two Pentecosts.

The new order was also identified with the "Order of the Knot" (Ordre du Nœud, also known as Ordre du Saint-Esprit au Droit Désir "Order of the Holy Spirit of the Right Will") which had been founded in 1352/3 by Louis I of Naples. This had been one of the short-lived chivalric orders popular among the high nobility at the time. The statutes of the 14th-century order are preserved as BNF Fr 4274. An elaborate facsimile of this manuscript was produced under Louis XIV.

During the French Revolution, the Order of the Holy Spirit was officially abolished by the French government, along with all other chivalric orders of the Ancien Régime, although the exiled Louis XVIII continued to acknowledge it. Following the Bourbon Restoration, the order was officially revived and a number were awarded for the 1825 Coronation of Charles X, only to be abandonned by the Orleanist Louis-Philippe I following the July Revolution in 1830. Since 1883, both the Orléanist and Legitimist pretenders to the French throne have continued to nominate members of the order, long after the abolition of the French monarchy itself.

The King of France was the Sovereign and Grand Master (Souverain Grand Maître), and he made all appointments to the order. Members of the order can be split into three categories: