 A recipient of the Ordre National du Mérite recently requested from the order's Chancery the permission to call herself "chevalière," and the request was granted (AFP dispatch, Jan 28, 2000).As related in "Orders of Knighthood, Awards and the Holy See" by H. E. Cardinale (1983), the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary was founded by two Bolognese nobles Loderingo degli Andalò and Catalano di Guido in 1233, and approved by Pope Alexander IV in 1261.It was the first religious order of knighthood to grant the rank of militissa to women.