Ordre de la sincérité

The Ordre de la Sincérité was founded on November 17, 1705, by the Margrave Georg Wilhelm of Brandenburg-Bayreuth as an order with fifty noble knights.The Ordre de la Sincérité was the predecessor to the famous Prussian Order of the Red Eagle

As it was often the case with the orders of the minor German states the order soon fell into disuse but was revived in 1712 in Brandenburg-Bayreuth and again in 1734 in Brandenburg-Ansbach, where it first received the name "Order of the Brandenburg Red Eagle". The statutes were changed in 1777 and the Order named therein as the "Order of the Red Eagle". The Order was conferred in one class, limited to fifty knights.

The Kingdom of Prussia absorbed both Brandenburg-Bayreuth and Brandenburg-Ansbach in January, 1792, and on June 12, 1792, King Frederick William II again revived the order as a Prussian royal order. After the Order of the Black Eagle, the Red Eagle was the second highest order of the kingdom in order of precedence.

Literature

• Maximilian Gritzner, Handbuch der Ritter- und Verdienstorden aller Kulturstaaten der Welt innerhalb des XIX. Jahrhunderts. Auf Grund amtlicher und anderer zuverlässiger Quellen zusammengestellt. Verlag:Leipzig., Verlagsbuchhandlung von J.J.Weber, 1893.