The Order of Saint Catherine was formed by Christian princes to protect pilgrims who visited the relics of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai and to shelter them from profanation from the 11th to the 15th centuries. But according to the Catholic Encyclopedia; 鈥楾he Knights of St. Catherine of Sinai are not an order; either secular or regular.'The Order of the Sword or the Sword-bearers was a military order founded with the object of mounting a crusade (unsuccessful) against the pagans of Prussia in the 13th century.Handcolored copperplate engraving from Robert von Spalart's 鈥楬istorical Picture of the Costumes of the Principal People of Antiquity and of the Middle Ages' (1796).