Geloven verplicht: Een elite-onderzoek naar ridderlijke orden in het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden (1965-2015)

Orders of chivalry have appealed to the imagination for centuries, and have often been the target of historical research. These once powerful organizations, which fought against the conquest of the Holy Land by the Muslims during the Crusades, still exist today. Nowadays, however, the knights and ladies no longer literally fight the non-believers; they put their efforts instead into preserving the Christian belief and into charitable works. They prefer to stay in the background and do their work in silence. This evokes a sense of mystery.

Geloven verplicht [Faith is compulsory / Christian commitments] is about these ancient noble orders, but also about the new orders that started to emerge from the mid-twentieth century. Their members no longer have to belong to the nobility. This study investigates chivalric orders and their members, their networks, their positions in society, their positions in relation to each other, their good deeds and their strategies to continue to exist in the service of the order. In this study the orders are approached mainly from sociological and anthropological perspectives.