The Military Order of the Collar of Saint Agatha of Paternò (M.O.C.) is the Family Order of the Royal House of Aragon, Majorca and Sicily, the branch of the House of Paternò founded by King James I of Aragon.

Documented origins

The documented history of the Order can be traced to the 1850s. On May 18, 1851, the Order was recognized by the King Ferdinand II, the Bourbon ruler of the Two Sicilies between 1830 and 1859. The royal officials were required to record its conferrals in the Registry Office of the Kingdom. Two years later, on March 30, 1853, the Governor of the Province of Catania, acting on royal authority, allowed only three exceptions to the royal prohibition on the wearing of orders other than royal Sicilian orders, these being the papal Orders, the Order of Malta and the Military Order of the Collar. Furthermore, in 1859, the Royal Commission on Titles of Nobility examined the claims of the House of Paternó to confer titles and bestow orders. The Commission advised the King that such acts, titles and orders were to be considered legitimate. Finally, on September 16, 1860, King Francis II (1859-1861) approved this decision by royal decree, thereby recognizing Don Mario (see below) as hereditary Grand Master of the Order, and made various provisions to ensure the succession to the Grand Magistracy. This was done in a time of great peril to the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, when the forces of Giuseppe Garibaldi were rapidly advancing through the realm. King Francis had been forced to flee from Naples to Gaeta on September 6, but he was still officially recognized as king. Thus, his decree must be regarded as judicially valid. The fortress of Gaeta did not surrender until February 12, 1861.

The circumstances surrounding the founding, or re-founding, of the Military Order of the Collar are not entirely known. However, one thing that should be taken into account is the family conclave held on June 14, 1853. After the death of the last Prince of Cassano in the 1830s, it was not clear who held the dynastic rights descending from King James I of Aragon. There were several potential claimants. Thus, a conclave convened in Palermo, in the palace of the Marchese di Spedalotto, Head of one of the senior branches of the House. After a review of the various pieces of evidence and after a long and wide-ranging discussion, the conclave decided that the royal rights, including the Grand Mastership of the dynastic Order of the Collar, should be confirmed as belonging to Don Mario, son of the Duke of Carcaci’s younger brother Don Giovanni and his wife Donna Eleonora Guttadauro of Emmanuel Riburdone, the heiress of the House of Guttadauro. A family pact was signed by representatives of all branches of the House.

Taken all together, the various documents concerning the Military Order of the Collar and the conclave in Palermo testify to a great interest in history and orders. One, or more than one, of the surviving branches of the Aragonese royal dynasty that had dominated a significant part of the Mediterranean in the high Middle Ages obviously made a great effort to have their family Order declared officially legitimate. As the documents demonstrate, the efforts were successful. When the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies ceased to exist in 1861, the Military Order of the Collar was already firmly established as a legitimate order.

A century later, in 1961, the Order was re-organised. Since then, new statutes have been issued and revised on several occasions. Today, the Order is represented in several European countries, as well as in North America and Australia. The current Grand Master has laid great stress on works of charity, which he regards as the principal activity of the Order. The development of the Hospitaller Service has been the main agency for the achievement of these aims. Over the years, the members of the Order have raised considerable sums for charity and have performed numerous charitable acts for the relief of suffering. The Hospitaller Service is, from an institutional point of view, separate from the Order but closely associated with it.

The Protectress and Patron of the Order is Saint Agatha, Virgin and Martyr, whose feast is celebrated as that of the Order on February 5.

Legendary origins

Although the Order can only be safely verified as having existed in the middle of the Nineteenth Century, there have been attempts to trace its history further back in time. It should be noted that these attempts should by no means be interpreted as firm claims to a medieval origin – nor is this necessary, from the point of view of legitimacy. However, it cannot be ruled out that there actually is a core of truth in some of the legends and hypotheses.

Most speculations about the legendary medieval origins of the Order stem from the book L’Ordine del Collare, by the 7^th Duke of Carcaci, published in 1851. According to this book, an order was founded in the thirteenth century in the form of a military confraternity, the knights of Saint Agatha. It would appear that the book, as well as the legends therein, played an important part in the early documented history of the Order, that is, in the 1850s. Unfortunately, the indications of a medieval chivalric origin, as presented by the author, are far too vague to be of much use to an historian. When subjected to source criticism, the book must be viewed as a weak source. Nevertheless, the family traditions revealed in the work should under no circumstances be a priori judged unimportant. We have every reason to suspect some kind of family story, or legend, going back to at least the eighteenth century. Far too little research has been carried out with the purpose of investigating traces of these traditions for us to be able to rule them out as untrustworthy.

As an example, it should be noted that there actually did exist a group of knights in Thirteenth Century Minorca, whose organization was dedicated to Saint Agatha. In 1288, after the Aragonese conquest of the island in the previous year, King Alfonso III awarded to a small number of prominent men the rank and dignity of knight, provided that they settled in the fortress of Saint Agatha, keeping horse and armour and, when needed, defending the island militarily (Elena Lourie, ”La colonización cristiana de Menorca durante el reinado de Alfonso III ’El Liberal’, rey de Aragon”, Analecta Sacra Tarraconensia 53-54, Barcelona 1983 (reprinted in Elena Lourie, Crusade and Colonisation. Muslims, Christians and Jews in Medieval Aragon, Variorum, Aldershot and Brookfield 1990). This group of knights did not constitute a chivalric order as such. Rather, it functioned as a military confraternity during the first decades after the conquest. Its subsequent history is, as yet, unknown. It remains to be investigated whether there is a connection between the thirteenth-century knights of Saint Agatha and the “cavallerías” known to have existed in Minorca at a later date (for more information on the situation in Menorca around 1600, se T. Vidal Bendido, “Evolución de la agricultura y de la propiedad rural en la isla de Menorca”, Revista de Menorca, 7.a época, Lx (1969).

The status of the Order

The status of the Military Order of the Collar of Saint Agatha of Paternò has been under careful discussion and investigation, which has resulted in official verdicts from Italian courts of law.

The United Court of Bari found, on March 13, 1952, that the family associated with the Order, descending from King James I of Aragon, is indeed to be recognized as the last remaining branch of the Royal House of Aragon. The Court also ruled that the Head of the family has “the right to found, re-establish, reform and exercise the Grand Magistracy of the Orders of chivalry conferred by their family”.

On June 5, 1964, the Court of Appeal in Pistoia found that the conferment of the dynastic orders of this Royal House does “not constitute a violation of Article 7 of the Law no. 178 of March 3, 1951”.

On January 8, 2003, the Court in Ragusa found, again, that the Head of this Royal House has “the quality of a subject of international law and of Grand Master of non-national Orders within the terms of the Law of March 3, 1971, no. 178”.

Professor Jacob W.F. Sundberg Jacob W.F. Sundberg ranks the Head of the Royal House and Grand Master of the Military Order of the Collar of Saint Agatha of Paternò as having rank equivalent to a Head of State Head of State (Opinion of September 15, 2006).

Judging from documentary evidence from the nineteenth century, I have declared my own opinion to be that the Military Order of the Collar of Saint Agatha of Paternò should be designated a legitimate dynastic order (family order) equivalent to other legitimate dynastic orders, e.g. those belonging to the Royal House of Bourbon of the Two Sicilies and other formerly reigning royal or princely dynasties.

Dick Harrison

Professor in History, Lund University