Knight Bachelor

The appointment of Knight Bachelor (Kt) is a part of the British honours system.

It is the most basic and lowest rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry. Knights Bachelor are the most ancient sort of British knight (the rank existed during the 13th century reign of King Henry III), but Knights Bachelor rank below knights of the various orders.

There is no female counterpart to Knight Bachelor. The lowest knightly honour that can be conferred upon a woman is Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (DBE) – which, technically, is one rank higher than Knight Bachelor (being the female equivalent of 'KBE' or Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, which is the next male knightly rank above Knight Bachelor). Also, foreigners cannot be created Knights Bachelor; instead they are generally made honorary KBEs.

Criteria

It is generally awarded for public service; amongst its recipients are all male judges of Her Majesty's High Court of Justice in England. It is possible to be a Knight Bachelor and a junior member of an order of chivalry without being a knight of that order; this situation has become rather common, especially among those recognised for achievements in entertainment. For instance, Sir Elton John, Sir Bruce Forsyth, and Sir Ian McKellen are Commanders of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBEs), as was Sir Christopher Lee. Sir Patrick Stewart is an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE), and Sir Paul McCartney is a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE). None of them would be entitled to use the honorific "Sir" by virtue of their membership of the order alone, but as they are all also Knights Bachelor, they are entitled to preface their names with that title.

Bachelor

A bachelor is a man of legal age who's never married.

Etymology

The word is first attested as the 12th-century bacheler, a knight bachelor, a knight too young or poor to gather vassals under his own banner. The Old French bacheler presumably derives from Provençal bacalar and Italian baccalare, but the ultimate source of the word is uncertain. The proposed Medieval Latin *baccalaris ("vassal", "field hand") is only attested late enough that it may have derived from the vernacular languages, rather than from the southern French and northern Spanish Latinbaccalaria ("cattle ranch", from bacca, "cow"). Alternatively, it has been derived from Latin baculum ("a stick"), in reference to the wooden sticks used by knights in training.

From the 14th century, the term was also used for a junior member of a guild (otherwise known as "yeomen") or university and then for low-level ecclesiastics, as young monks and recently appointed canons. As an inferior grade of scholarship, it came to refer to one holding a "bachelor's degree". This sense of baccalarius or baccalaureus is first attested at the University of Paris in the 13th century in the system of degrees established under the auspices of Pope Gregory IX as applied to scholars still in statu pupillari. There were two classes of baccalarii: the baccalarii cursores, theological candidates passed for admission to the divinity course, and the baccalarii dispositi, who had completed the course and were entitled to proceed to the higher degrees.

Queen Elizabeth

Queen Elizabeth, Queen Elisabeth, or Elizabeth the Queen may refer to:

Queens regnant

Queens consort

Belgium

Bohemia, Hungary and Poland

The Insider

An insider is a member of a group of people of limited number and with restricted access.

The Insider may also refer to:

Film media

Television media

Print media