Order of Fidelity

The Order of Fidelity [Orden der Treue] (French, Ordre de la Fidelité) was the first house order of the House of Saxe-Meiningen. It was founded by Hereditary Prince Ernst Ludwig on 6 January 1703 in Frankfurt am Main, and the first award ceremony took place a week later at Elisabethenburg Palace in Meiningen. The occasion was the capture of the fortress of Landau on 12 September 1702 and his impending marriage to Dorothea Maria of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. Ernst Ludwig appointed his closest companions in arms as the first knights of the order. In 1714, the order was renewed on the occasion of his wedding to Elisabeth Sophie of Brandenburg.

The order was originally limited to 12 knights, but had already grown to 32 by 1715. Candidates for the order had to prove 16 noble ancestors. Newly admitted knights were obliged, after their admission, to give the reigning duke, as Grand Master of the order, a portrait of themselves as well as a round glass pane engraved with the insignia of the order and their own coat of arms, which the knights had incorporated into their windows.