The Order of the Passion of Christ was a French knighthood order which was founded in 1380 by King

Richard II of England Richard II (6 January 1367 – ), also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. He was the son of Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales, and Joan, Countess of Kent. Richard's father die ...

and in 1400 by his father-in-law king

Charles VI of France Charles VI (3 December 136821 October 1422), nicknamed the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé) and later the Mad (french: le Fol or ''le Fou''), was King of France from 1380 until his death in 1422. He is known for his mental illness and psychotic ...

. It was a crusader knighthood. The two kings prepared a

Crusade The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were i ...

to the Holy Land and for this knighthood there would be not less than one hundred thousand knights to be counted and in the literature the biggest order of all time. Only at this time, would orders come with a similar number of knights. It seems that the intention of the founders to have been to take all European knights on crusade . But nothing came from the plans. Richard was killed in 1400, and Charles, who was insane since 1392, had less often a period of recovery as that one in which he was able to set this order. Ackermann mentions this knighthood order as an historical order of France.

Sources

Gustav Adolph Ackermann Gustav Adolph Ackermann (16 January 1791 – 19 February 1872) was a German lawyer and author of a notable book on European knightly orders. Ackermann was born in Auerbach in Vogtland, Saxony. He was ''Königlich Sachsischer Appelationsrat'' oyal ...

, " ''Ordensbuch, Sämtlicher in Europa blühender und erloschener Orden und Ehrenzeichen'' ". Annaberg, 1855, p 208 ; 80. "Orden der Leiden Christi"
Google Books
(Former orders of France : p. 205-214)

Passion of Christ In Christianity, the Passion (from the Latin verb ''patior, passus sum''; "to suffer, bear, endure", from which also "patience, patient", etc.) is the short final period in the life of Jesus Christ. Depending on one's views, the "Passion" m ...

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