Serendipity: Most Noble Order of Crusaders

​I am embarrassed to say the provenance of this church bulletin is uncertain. I can't remember if I purchased it at a used book store, or found it in a box of family mementos. Nevertheless, I share it here as a fascinating artifact of a by-gone imperial age.

I have spent the last twenty years doing research into late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century visions of empire among the Canadian Protestant churches. I had not heard of the Most Noble Order of Crusaders until I found this bulletin a few years ago. Since that discovery I started looking for information on the organization, but with no luck. Recently, however, if found an article by Mike Horswell entitled "Crusader Medievalism and Modernity in Britain: The Most Nobel Order of Crusaders and the Rupture of the First World War, 1921-49," Studies in Medievalism 25 (2016): 19-27. It is a helpful description of the Order's aims and organization. However, there is still no research on the Order in Canada...