An order is a visible honour awarded by a sovereign state, monarch, dynastic house or organisation to a person, typically in recognition of individual merit, that often comes with distinctive insignia such as collars, medals, badges, and sashes worn by recipients.
Modern honour systems of state orders and dynastic orders emerged from the culture of orders of chivalry of the Middle Ages, which in turn emerged from the Catholic religious orders.
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The Japanese honours system is a system implemented for rewarding awards to Japanese and non-Japanese persons for their achievements and service to Japan. The Emperor is the head of the honors system in Japan.
Established during the 1870s shortly after the Meiji Restoration, it was modelled on European systems of orders and decorations. The first order, the Imperial Order of Meiji, was established in 1875, and was later renamed as the Order of the Rising Sun.
The Order of the Companions of Honour is an order of the Commonwealth realms. It was founded on 4 June 1917 by King George V as a reward for outstanding achievements. It was founded on the same date as the Order of the British Empire.
The order was originally intended to be conferred upon a limited number of persons for whom this special distinction seemed to be the most appropriate form of recognition, constituting an honour dissociated from either the acceptance of title or the classification of merit. It is now described as being "awarded for having a major contribution to the arts, science, medicine, or government lasting over a long period of time". The first recipients of the order were all decorated for "services in connection with the war" and were listed in The London Gazette.
An order of merit is an honorific order that is conferred by a state, government, royal family, or other sovereign entity to an individual in recognition of military or civil merit. The historical background of the modern honours system of orders of merit may be traced to the emergence of chivalric orders during the Middle Ages.
Orders of merit may be bestowed as official awards by states, or as dynastic orders by royal families. In the case of modern republics, an order of merit may constitute the highest award conferred by the state authority.
In the United Kingdom and the British Overseas Territories, personal bravery, achievement, or service are rewarded with honours. The honours system consists of three types of award:
Appointments to the various orders and awards of other honours are usually published in The London Gazette.
An order of chivalry, order of knighthood, chivalric order, or equestrian order is a society, fellowship and college of knights, typically founded during or inspired by the original Catholic military orders of the Crusades (c. 1099–1291) and paired with medieval concepts of ideals of chivalry.
Since the 15th century, orders of chivalry, often as dynastic orders, began to be established in a more courtly fashion than could be created ad hoc. These orders would often retain the notion of being a confraternity, society or other association of members, but some of them were ultimately purely honorific and consisted of a medal decoration. In fact, these decorations themselves often came to be known informally as orders. These institutions in turn gave rise to the modern-day orders of merit of sovereign states.