“Veritas Regnat • Caritas Ducit” – Truth Reigns • Charity Leads
📜 A Brief History of the Noble Orders
The tradition of conferring noble honors at St. Leo the Great University dates back to the Coronation of King Theosephus I in the year MCMXLV, who declared that “Wisdom without honor is but a whisper in a storm.”
From that day, those who rendered exceptional service to the Truth, distinguished themselves in the pursuit of Wisdom, or brought Light into the shadows of Ignorance could be named to one of the Noble Orders of Eyehasseen.
The Orders are granted at academic convocation, royal liturgies, or by secret scroll—sometimes appearing mysteriously on the recipient’s desk.
🏅 The Five Noble Orders
🛡️ 1. The Order of the Golden Quill
For exceptional excellence in writing, scholarship, and the transmission of truth.
- Motto: Scriptum est in aeternum (It is written forever)
- Badge: A gold quill crossed with a scroll, bound in crimson ribbon
⚔️ 2. The Order of the Burning Lamp
For courage in intellectual combat, particularly in the defense of truth against modern errors.
- Motto: Lux in tenebris disputandi (A light in the debating darkness)
- Badge: A brass oil lamp alight with flame, suspended from a chain of logic links
📚 3. The Order of the Stacked Tome
For enduring scholarship over decades, and for possessing “more footnotes than fear.”
- Motto: Scientia cumulata vincit (Accrued knowledge conquers)
- Badge: A pile of three miniature leather-bound books, engraved with mysterious symbols
🕊️ 4. The Order of the Radiant Silence
For contemplatives, mystics, and students who embody charity, prayer, and holy wisdom.
- Motto: Tacitus coronatur (The silent one is crowned)
- Badge: A silver medallion etched with an open eye over a still pool
🎭 5. The Order of the Laughing Philosopher
For wit in the service of wisdom, and for lifting souls through levity and paradox.
- Motto: Per risus ad veritatem (Through laughter to truth)
- Badge: A bronze mask of Socrates smiling gently, suspended on a green ribbon
🧑🎓 Notable Recipients (Past and Imaginary)
- Lady Aurelia of the Infinite Staircase
Order of the Burning Lamp
Known for defeating a panel of visiting Cartesian skeptics using only a chalkboard and a metaphor about soup. - Brother Thomas Silentium, O.C.O.
Order of the Radiant Silence
Famous for not speaking a word for seven years while composing a 2,000-page commentary on the Book of Job. The commentary is entirely handwritten. In candlelight. With goose feather ink. - Dr. Basil Gregory Castalian
Triple recipient—Golden Quill, Stacked Tome, Laughing Philosopher
Once delivered a 3-hour lecture on Being while juggling apples and quoting Plotinus. Apples remained unbruised. Minds were blown.
📖 Three Stories of Distinguished Honors
🏛️ The Tale of Dame Octavia Veritara – Golden Quill
Dame Octavia, a former student of the Athenaeum, submitted her senior thesis on “The Ontological Implications of Footnotes in Patristic Texts.” It was 742 pages long and cross-referenced 119 marginalia from an unindexed pre-Scholastic manuscript. Her work is now required reading for all faculty. Her quill never broke. Her tea was always hot. She received her Order while asleep—pinned to her robe by the ghost of an impressed librarian.
🔥 The Trial of Sir Alaric the Reluctant – Burning Lamp
During the Great Relativist Uprising of ’98, Sir Alaric was dragged into an impromptu forum and challenged to defend objective truth while blindfolded. He accepted. With only his voice and the Summa Theologiae in memory, he defeated three post-structuralists and a philosopher who only spoke in hashtags. The torch in his lamp has never gone out.
😄 The Joy of Madame Euphemia Lightwort – Laughing Philosopher
Madame Euphemia won the hearts of the student body by offering midnight walking tutorials on paradox, humor, and metaphysical irony. She once resolved a multi-campus feud between the Neo-Platonists and the Nominalists by offering them both fig cake and asking, “What name do you give the taste?” She is the only recipient of the Order to accept the medal while giggling.