The Order of Prince Danilo I (; Cyrillic: ), founded as the Order of Merit for the Independence of Montenegro () and also known as the Order of Danilo I or the Order of Independence, is a Montenegrin order instituted at Cetinje on St George's Day, 23 April 1853 (O.S.; 5 May N.S.), by Prince Danilo I, the first secular ruler of Montenegro, following the successful defence of the country against the Ottoman Empire in the war of 1852–1853. It was the first order instituted by the Montenegrin state and remained its senior award for merit throughout the Principality (1852–1910) and the Kingdom of Montenegro (1910–1918). Its motto, За независимост Црне Горе ("For the Independence of Montenegro"), unites the founder's name with what its historian has called the basic credo of the Montenegrin national programme.
Following the fall of the monarchy in 1918, the Order has been maintained as a dynastic order of the Royal House of Montenegro. It is conferred by the head of the house, who is its Sovereign, or in his name by the Grand Master, and is governed by a Statute published in the Government gazette of Montenegro under the Law on the Status of the Descendants of the Petrović Njegoš Dynasty. It comprises a Collar and five classes and is conferred on persons of merit, Montenegrin or foreign, women being admitted on the same footing as men. Its founding day is kept on 5 May.
History
Background Montenegro's first decorations were the two medals instituted by the prince-bishop Petar II Petrović-Njegoš: the Medal for Bravery, first struck in 1841 from old church silver after a Turkish attack on the Bjelopavlići, and the gold Obilić Medal, designed by Anastas Jovanović at the turn of 1846 and 1847 and named for the Kosovo hero Miloš Obilić. Both were awarded for the highest bravery in the field, and between the first medal of 1841 and 1895 Montenegro possessed five official decorations in all.
Njegoš died in 1851. His successor Danilo declined episcopal consecration and in 1852 assumed the secular title of Prince (knjaz), separating the temporal and spiritual authority that the prince-bishops had combined since 1697. The Ottoman Empire refused to recognise the change, and the war of the winter of 1852–1853, in which an Ottoman army under Omer Pasha advanced into Montenegro before being halted by Austrian and Russian diplomatic intervention, was, in the words of the order's modern historian, the decisive impulse for the foundation of an order. The foundation of an order was, for a newly independent Balkan state, an assertion of sovereignty in itself: it signalled to the European courts that Montenegro possessed its own laws, its own history and the right to reward service to the state.
Foundation (1853) The founding statutes, headed Štatuti reda zasluga za nezavisimost Crne Gore (Statutes of the Order of Merit for the Independence of Montenegro), were issued at Cetinje on St George's Day, 23 April 1853 (O.S.), over the signature of "Danilo I, Prince of Montenegro and the Brda". In the preamble the Prince declares that the order is founded "to reward the bravery and merits of our subjects and of all those who have devoted themselves to the defence of the holy cause, the independence of the fatherland". The four articles provided that every member should receive a decoration consisting of a single silver cross, "recalling by its form the cross upon which the human race was redeemed at Calvary", inscribed at the crossing on one side Danil I Knjaz Crne Gore and on the other Za nezavisimost Crne Gore; that it should be worn on the gunj or any other dress from a white ribbon with a red stripe at each edge; that a model should be deposited in the archive of the Senate; and that the names of all members should be inscribed in a great book bound in gold, "so that the memory of their good deeds and their merits may be perpetuated".
The order had a single class at its foundation. The names of the first engravers and makers are not recorded, and the tradition that Anastas Jovanović had a hand in its design is regarded as unproven, though Jovanović was among its first recipients: Danilo sent him the cross with a letter describing it as "one newly designed cross in memory of the independence of Montenegro". The crude execution of the first crosses led the Prince to commission a more refined design, which is the one seen on contemporary portraits of Danilo himself, of the President of the Senate Pero Tomov Petrović, of the Vice-President Đorđije Petrović-Njegoš and of the Russian consul at Dubrovnik, Jeremija Gagić.
The order takes its name from its founder, who is reckoned Danilo I as the first ruling Prince of Montenegro, though he is sometimes numbered Danilo II within the House of Petrović-Njegoš after Metropolitan Danilo (r. 1697–1735), the dynasty's founder.
Reorganisation under Nikola I Danilo I was assassinated at Kotor in August 1860 and was succeeded by his nephew Nikola I. Under him the order underwent three reorganisations, in 1861, 1873 and 1893. A year after his accession Nikola added a first and a third class to the original knight's cross, and in 1873 a second class was introduced. By statute the number of knights was unlimited; the order was conferred "for services rendered to the State, to its Ruler, and to all mankind", and the insignia became the property of the recipient and were not returned to the Chancery on the knight's death.
The final change was made by a decree of 22 April 1893, published in Glas Crnogorca two days later. Reciting the statutes of 1853, the Prince declared it "good and expedient" to augment the order by one further class: the knight's class, hitherto the fourth, became the fifth, its existing holders remaining knights without change, and a new fourth class was established with a smaller cross of the same form, devices and colours as the third, to be worn on the left breast. A knight promoted to the new fourth class was not to wear the knight's cross at the same time. This produced the structure of five classes that the order retained to the end of the Kingdom and that it holds today.
During the reign of Nikola I the order became the principal instrument of the Montenegrin court's foreign relations, exchanged with the sovereigns and dignitaries of the European powers and widely sought abroad, and it was distributed in large numbers, with the Medal for Zeal, to Montenegrin and foreign guests at the golden jubilee of the Prince's reign and marriage in 1910. Recipients included the Emperors Alexander III of Russia and Nicholas II of Russia, Franz Joseph I of Austria, Queen Victoria, and Christian X of Denmark, together with Serbian statesmen and soldiers, and the inventor Nikola Tesla. It was also conferred on Allied officers during the First World War, and in 1922 the United States Department of War listed it among the foreign decorations accepted by American servicemen.
Montenegro was elevated to a kingdom in 1910, and the order accordingly became a royal order, though it retained its name and motto.
Manufacture The insignia were commissioned from a succession of foreign makers. Under Nikola I the Cetinje archives record orders placed with the Viennese jewellers Gebrüder Resch, Vincent Mayer's Söhne and Christian Friedrich Rothe, with Chobillon of Paris and with Hermann Silberberg of Hamburg; the Roman jeweller Domenico Cravanzola is named as a maker in 1901, and in 1910 the Paris house of Fayolle Pouteau supplied "from 150 to 200 officers' and knights' crosses". The scale of the trade is illustrated by an order of April 1910 to Silberberg for 18 crosses of the first class, 25 of the second, 80 of the third, 100 of the fourth and 150 of the fifth, together with 300 Medals for Zeal, at a cost of 20,020 crowns, and by a delivery from Mayer's Söhne in October 1912 of 20 first-class, 30 second-class, 10 third-class, 38 fourth-class and 60 fifth-class insignia. Examples bearing the marks of Mayer's Söhne and Rothe are preserved in the Odlikovanja collection of the Museum of King Nikola at Cetinje. Since 2005 insignia have been made by Thomas Fattorini Ltd of Birmingham.
Exile and continuation as a dynastic order Following the Austro-Hungarian occupation of 1916 and the Podgorica Assembly of 1918, which declared Montenegro's union with Serbia, King Nikola I continued to confer the order and the other Montenegrin decorations from exile in France, as the archival record amply shows; after his death in 1921 the practice was continued by Queen Milena and by his grandson Michael, the last Montenegrin king. In September 1920 the government in exile confirmed to the command of the Montenegrin troops at Gaeta the ribbons to be worn with each decoration, including that of the Order of Danilo. The order has since been maintained by the successive heads of the Royal House of Petrović-Njegoš as a dynastic order, that is, one conferred in the personal gift of the head of a royal house rather than by a state.
The dynasty's position in Montenegro was addressed by the Law on the Status of the Descendants of the Petrović Njegoš Dynasty, adopted by the Parliament of Montenegro in 2011, which recognised the historical role of the dynasty and established a foundation to support it. The order's Statute is published in the Official Gazette of Montenegro on the authority of Article 3 of that law. A Statute of the "Danilo Order" was published in 2015, and the present Statute was published on 7 August 2026 repealing the 2015 text. Its preamble recites the foundation of the order on 23 April (5 May) 1853, its confirmation and amendment by the decrees of 1861 and 1873 and by statutes of 1913, 2004 and 2015, and the aim of preserving the values on which the founder based it, dedicating it to the independence of Montenegro. Persons decorated under the 2015 Statute retain their dignities and are entered in the Register according to a correspondence of classes fixed by the Grand Master.
Sovereign, Grand Master and officers The fons honorum of the order resides in the head of the Royal House of Petrović-Njegoš, its Sovereign, from whom all its honours derive. The present Sovereign is Nikola II, head of the Royal House since 1986.
Beneath the Sovereign stands the Grand Master, who exercises the fons honorum by delegation as fons honorum in actu exercens and by whose decree all dignities, classes, honours, styles, privileges and insignia of the order are conferred, regulated, suspended or withdrawn. The Grand Mastership is inseparable from the dynastic authority of the house: on the death, abdication, resignation or permanent incapacity of the Grand Master it passes by operation of law to the lawful dynastic heir, no person outside the dynasty may hold it, and where the heir is a minor or otherwise prevented the head of the dynasty may by decree provide for its interim exercise. Since 5 May 2026 the office has been held by the Sovereign's son and heir, Boris, Hereditary Prince of Montenegro.
The Grand Master appoints the officers of the order, who serve at his pleasure. The principal officers are the Deputy Grand Master, the Grand Chancellor, the Deputy Grand Chancellor, the Registrar, the Treasurer and the Herald. The Deputy Grand Master exercises the Grand Master's powers pro tempore in his absence or incapacity, in a fiduciary capacity and subject to the authority of the head of the dynasty, but may not while so acting amend the Statute, create classes or offices, admit or promote members, or alienate the property of the order. The Grand Chancellor has custody of the statutes, registers, seals and archives, and the Grand Chancellery keeps the Register of members, recording each member's name, class, date of decree and date of investiture. Letters Patent for the first and second classes are issued under the hand of the Grand Master, and for the remaining classes under the hand of the Grand Chancellor.
Classes