Though knights were often created before battle, for the purpose of stimulating them to achieve high exploits, yet many were invested after they had fought, and proved themselves worthy of their spurs. But knighthood was so much diffused through society, that it almost ceased to be a distinction; and kings and other rulers who wished to shew their power or their gratitude were obliged to give a new form to chivalric dignity. The religious orders of knighthood presented a fair example of the benefits of close fraternity; and as those societies often gave a patriotic direction to chivalric feelings, so kings found the orders of military merit which they established admirable means of uniting in a bond of brotherhood their high-spirited nobles. When Louis, King of Hungary, avenged the murder of his brother Andrew, he endeavoured to unite the Hungarian and Neapolitan nobles by associating them in a fraternity called the Order of the Knot. The order did not live long. There were some singular provisions in this order of the Knot: there was to be an annual meeting of the knights on the day of Pentecost; and each knight was obliged to deliver to the chaplain of the order a written account of his adventures in the preceding year. The chaplain delivered it to the king and council, who ordered such parts as they approved of to be registered in the great book of the order. The order of the Argonautes of Saint Nicholas, at Naples, was instituted by Charles the Third, for the avowed purpose of fraternising his lords; and in the year 1579, when indeed the days of chivalry may be considered as past, the order of the Holy Ghost was established in France: the friendly union of the nobility and prelates of the land was declared to be a great purpose of the order. The throne of France had already been strengthened by the order of Saint Michael, founded about a century before by Louis XI., to draw the affections of the nobility to himself.