HISTORY

The Fraternal Order of the Golden Owl was created and conceived by Clifford Phillip Brunetti I under the laws of the United States of America, officially, on the autumnal equinox of 2020. It is a culmination of years of instructing in the United States military, educating students as a licensed master of a Japanese traditional martial art, and as a teacher and founder of a self-defense club for local military academy cadets.  The goal has always been to instruct in wisdom, knowledge, and personal responsibilities, to challenge members to achieve these high levels of personal standards, and to share these adventures to encourage our members and promote good will throughout the world. It was created as a fraternity of like-minded individuals with the purpose of promoting, by learning and living, an idealized chivalric lifestyle. 

ORDERS

Where does the Fraternal Order of the Golden Owl fit into the scheme of all other Orders of Knighthood?

We are a Fraternal Order of Chivalry.

According to D’Arcy Boulton in his book “The Knights in the Crown: The Monarchical Orders of Knighthood in Late Medieval Europe (1987)”, the Canadian heraldist classifies the Chivalric Orders by purpose:

  • Monarchical chivalric orders: foundation by a monarch who is a fount of honor; either ruling or not
  • Confraternal chivalric orders: foundation by a nobleman, either high nobility or low nobility
  • Fraternal chivalric orders: founded for a specific purpose only
  • Votive chivalric orders: founded for a limited period of time only by members who take a vow
  • Honorific chivalric orders: consist only of honorific insignia bestowed on knights on festive occasions, consisting of nothing but the badge
  • Pseudo or Self-styled Orders: self-proclaimed imitation-orders without statutes or restricted memberships

We are classified as a Fraternal Order of Chivalry since we were created for the specific purpose by statutes of “Learning and living chivalry,” and limited exclusively to persons who had entered and demonstrated competence in our chivalric concepts as taught through the Squire Academy. 

TRADITION

  • We have training in chivalry. Believe it or not, most chivalric orders don’t.
  • We do not ask for exorbitant fees, nor ask for recurring annual fees as most do. Many orders ask into the thousands of dollars to join and many have annual monetary obligations.
  • We provide a ready forum for knights to share chivalric adventures, both in our Facebook Friends group and in our Knight-only group.
  • We have training in a variety of topics centering around the chivalric theme.
  • We help guide non-armigerous members to understand how they might acquire heraldic arms correctly for their circumstances.
  • We have various optional enrichment programs; flying personal banner flags in a medieval castle, formal Gala banquets, private investitures, etc.
  • Our insignia is second to none. Our jeweler makes insignia for many chivalric Orders.
  • We have a budding website www.FratOwl.com as well as an Instagram at #orderofthegoldenowl and of course our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/GoldenOwl
  • For our knights we have a Constitution, an Order Handbook, an up-to-date comprehensive Roll of Knights, and a heraldic register – the Roll of Arms for our knights as well.
  • We also have a budding library of Knightly themed Youtubes at https://www.youtube.com/…/UCmuvhUZK2SQeU3zMLHK…/featured