GOLDEN FLEECE was fought on Jan. 31, in which the Ashantees were defeated with heavy loss, including their commander Amanquatia. A second battle took place at Ordahsu, 15 m. beyond, on Feb. 4, the king commanding in person. After six hours the Ashantees fled, and the British en- tered Koomassie. On the morning of Feb. 6 the town was fired and the troops began their homeward march. A peace was subsequently concluded, the king agreeing to pay an indem- nity of 50,000 ounces of gold, to renounce the protectorate, to keep open a road to the coast, and to prohibit human sacrifices. GOLDEN FLEECE. See ARGONAUTS. GOLDEN FLEECE, Order of the (Span, el toi- son de oro ; Fr. ordre de la toison d'or), one of the oldest and most important of the orders of chivalry, founded at Bruges by Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, on occasion of his marriage with the princess Isabella of Portu- gal, Jan. 10, 1430, and consecrated to the Vir- gin Mary and the apostle Andrew. The stat- utes of the order declare that it takes its name from the golden fleece which the Argonauts went in search of. It is possible that it was founded in memory of Philip's father, John the Fearless, who was held a prisoner in Colchis, and that it was consecrated to St. Andrew be- cause that apostle carried the gospel to the land of the golden fleece. Some suppose that it re- ceived the badge in consequence of the im- portant woollen manufactures of the country. The decoration of the grand master is a chain composed of alternate flints and rays of steel, with the golden fleece fastened in the middle. The knights wear a golden fleece on a red rib- 'bon. ^Its design was to maintain the honor of knighthood and protect the church, and it was sanctioned by Pope Eugenius IV. in 1433 and by Leo X. in 1516. An article of the stat- utes (published at Lille, Nov. 30, 1431, in the French language) ordained that if the house of Burgundy should become extinct in the male line, the husband of the daughter and heiress of the last sovereign should be grand master of the order. After the death of Charles the Bold (1477) the husband of his daughter and heiress Mary, Maximilian I. of Austria, there- fore inherited the grand mastership. During the war of the Spanish succession Charles III. (afterward the emperor Charles VI.) and Philip V., the contestants for the throne of Spain, both claimed this dignity. When the former left Spain he carried the archives of the order with him, and in 1713 celebrated its revival in Vienna. Spain protested against this at the congress of Cambrai in 1724, and it was de- cided by the treaty of Vienna in 1725 that the regents of both states should be permitted to confer the order with similar insignia, but that the members should be distinguished as knights of the Spanish or Austrian golden fleece. After the death of Charles VI., Maria Theresa in 1741 bestowed the office of grand master upon her husband Francis I., against which Philip V. of Spain protested in the electoral assembly GOLDEN NUMBER 89 at Vienna and at Frankfort. At the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, France, England, and Holland demanded that the schism should be composed ; but as Ferdinand VI. of Spain declared that the order was inseparable from the Spanish crown, the dispute has remained unreconciled, and the order continues in two branches, neither of which recognizes the other. The original device of the order was Autre nauray ("I shall have no other"); but Charles the Bold changed it into Je Vay empri ("I have accepted it"). The statutes ordain that the knights shall recognize no other jurisdiction but an assembly of their order under the presidency of the grand master or of a knight authorized by him, and that they shall have precedency of all persons ex- cept those of royal blood. The number of knights, originally 24, was soon increased to 31, and in 1516 to 52. In 1851 the order con- sisted in Austria of 6 grand crosses, 20 com- manders, and 161 knights. GOLDEN NUMBER, the place of a given year in the lunar cycle. It is used to determine on what day the paschal moon falls, and thus to find Easter day. The mean length of the lunar cycle agrees exactly with 19 Julian years. (See CALENDAR, LUNAR CYCLE, and YEAR.) The new moons were indicated before the reforma- tion of the calendar by means of the lunar cycle, which restores them to the same days of the civil month, and places them on the same days in any two years that occupy the same rank in the cycle. Consequently a table of the full moon's phases for 19 years will serve for any year whatever, when we know its number in the cycle. The year preceding the commence- ment of our era, when the new moon fell on the 1st of January, is supposed to be the beginning of the cycle, which gives this rule for finding the golden number : Add 1 to the date and divide the sum by 19 ; the quotient is the number of cycles elapsed, and the remainder is the golden number. When the remainder is 0, the pro- posed year is the last or 19th of the cycle. The new moons determined in this manner may, however, differ from the astronomical new moons as much as two days, because the sum of the solar and lunar inequalities, com- pensated in the whole period, may in certain cases amount to 10, and thereby cause the new moon to arrive on the second day before or after the mean time. The Gregorian calen- dar rejects the golden numbers, as they are only adapted to the Julian calendar ; the sup- pression of the ten days rendered it necessary to place them ten lines lower, and the cente- nary intercalation required them to be changed every century. Their place is supplied by another set of numbers called epacts. (See EPACT.) The golden numbers were intro- duced into the calendar about the year 530, but were disposed as they would have been if they had been inserted at the time of the council of Nice. It was usual to mark them in the calendar with red or gold.
