Of those orders, which are either dormant or extinct, the account needs only be brief; for their history contains little matter that is either fanciful or instructive. An enlightened curiosity could find no satisfaction in investigating the annals of the extinct order of Saint Anthony of Hainault, or of the order of the Sword of Cyprus, and a thousand others, whose history, presenting only a list of grand masters, and the ceremonies of knightly inauguration, adds nothing to our pleasure or our knowledge. [Sidenote: Order of the Band.] [Sidenote: Its singular rules.] A few exceptions may be made to this opinion. In the year 1330 Alphonso XI., King of Spain, attached many of the nobility to his interests by founding an order of merit, which from the circumstance of every knight wearing a red ribbon three inches broad across the breast and shoulder was called the order of the Band or Scarf. Some of the rules of the institution are exceedingly interesting, as reflecting the state of manners and opinions in Spain during the fourteenth century. Not only were the duties of patriotism and loyalty inculcated by the statutes of the order, but, singular as it may seem in the history of Spain, virtue was to be cultivated at court, for every knight was charged to speak nothing but truth to his sovereign, and to abhor dissimulation and flattery. He was not to be silent whenever any person spoke against the king's honour, upon pain of being banished from the court, and deprived of his band: but he was to be always ready to address the king for the general good of the country, or on the particular affairs of any individual; and supposing that his patriotic virtue might be checked by his attachment to his sovereign, the punishment for neglecting this duty was a forfeiture of all his patrimony, and perpetual banishment. Of the two extremes, taciturnity was to be preferred to loquaciousness: he was to be rather "checked for silence" than "taxed for speech;" and if in his conversation he uttered an untruth, he was to walk in the streets without a sword for a month. He was bound to keep his faith to whomever he had pledged it; but he was to associate only with men of martial rank, despising the conversation of mechanics and artisans.