Patterns of Nobility

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Leo van de Pas

Patterns of Nobility

Legg inn av Leo van de Pas » 16 aug 2006 02:26:02

Like many people, I have been taken for granted certain aspects of genealogy and history. But I would like to ask if there is a good explanation as to how (and why) certain titles were created and how these found equivalents in other countries and languages.

I understand, originally Dukes and Counts were simply (not inheritable) official functions in the Holy Roman Empire. However, these officiers made these functions heritable within their own family, and so aristocracy came into being (is this correct?).

What I find interesting is that similar titles also emerged in countries not part of the Holy Roman Empire.

In Scotland, I understand, Dukes came into being rather late. I believe that an English Duke went on an official visit to Scotland, and the Scots did not have a Duke to receive him. They simply made the son and heir of Robert III, David, Duke of Rothesay on 28 April 1398 and for good measurement, the same day, a brother of the king became Duke of Albany.

With best wishes,
Leo van de Pas
Canberra, Australia

Nathaniel Taylor

Re: Patterns of Nobility

Legg inn av Nathaniel Taylor » 16 aug 2006 02:42:10

In article <029101c6c0c7$a88214c0$0300a8c0@Toshiba>,
leovdpas@netspeed.com.au ("Leo van de Pas") wrote:

Like many people, I have been taken for granted certain aspects of genealogy
and history. But I would like to ask if there is a good explanation as to how
(and why) certain titles were created and how these found equivalents in
other countries and languages.

I understand, originally Dukes and Counts were simply (not inheritable)
official functions in the Holy Roman Empire. However, these officiers made
these functions heritable within their own family, and so aristocracy came
into being (is this correct?).

What I find interesting is that similar titles also emerged in countries not
part of the Holy Roman Empire.

Dear Leo,

There is a rich historiography associated with the origins of the
'noble' titles comes and dux, etc. Both words were in use in the late
Roman Empire, with different meanings, but came to bear regular,
recognizable meanings under the carolingians--well before the 'Holy
Roman Empire' of the Ottonian revival.

Dux (from duco, to lead) was a war-leader, generically (doesn't Tacitus
use the vague equation 'rex vel dux' in some context?). 'Comes',
originally 'companion', came to be used as a term of functional office
within the late Empire and was adopted by some of the successor kingdoms
including the Merovingians.

The office of 'count' as we know it really comes from the Carolingians,
with Charlemagne's empire being divided into over three hundred
counties, some of whose counts had the additional military title of
'dux' if in charge of a field force or the defense of a march composed
of several counties. Charlemagne's counts were not hereditary
offices--they were royal appointments, overseen by the king and
regulated by his itinerant missi. Counts could be and were shuffled
from region to region to forestall the competition of regional perks and
royal patronage.

The emergence of hereditary office of 'count' (and duke) is usually
identified with the era of the decline of royal power in the wake of the
civil wars among Charlemagne's grandsons and their successors. Former
appointees began to build and rely upon local power bases instead of
royal patronage. The foundations of so many hereditary comital lineages
at the turn of the tenth century appear to correlate with the loss of
the ability of the kings to replace or control counts at the time of the
collapse of Carolingian hegemony.

I wrote a study of the early phases of hereditary transmission of the
office of 'count' in Catalonia, the one part of the former Carolingian
empire where enough wills of counts survive from the tenth century
onward to show how this appears to have happened. See (large pdf file,
illustrated):

http://www.nltaylor.net/pdfs/a_House_of_Guifred.pdf

Nat Taylor
http://www.nltaylor.net

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