Grand duke
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Grand duke (feminine: grand duchess) is a European hereditary title, used either by certain monarchs or by members of certain monarchs' families. In status, a grand duke traditionally ranks in order of precedence below an emperor, King, grand prince, archduke, or prince-archbishop, and above a sovereign prince or sovereign duke. The title is used in some current and former independent monarchies in Europe, particularly:
- in the present-day Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
- historically by the sovereigns of former independent countries, such as Tuscany (from 1569 to 1860, now part of Italy)
- in Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Saxe-Weimar– grand duchies from 1815 to 1918, and all now part of present-day Germany
- formerly also in some countries in Northern Europe, such as the Grand Duchy of Finland or the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Western and Central European
The term grand duke as a monarch reigning over an independent state was a later invention (in Western Europe at first in 1569 for the ruler of Tuscany) to denote either a particularly mighty duke or a monarchy playing an important political, military and/or economic role, but not large enough to be a kingdom. It arose because the title of duke had gradually lost status and precedence during the Middle Ages by having been granted to rulers of relatively small fiefs (feudal territories), instead of the large tribal regions or even national territories to which the title was once attached.
One of the first examples occurred when Count
Another example was the line of self-proclaimed grand dukes (legally dukes)[
The title magnus dux or grand duke (Kunigų kunigas, Didysis kunigaikštis in Lithuanian) has been used by the rulers of
The first monarchs ever officially titled grand duke were the
In the same century, the purely ceremonial version of the title grand duke in Russia (in fact the western translation of the Russian title "grand prince" granted to the siblings of the tsar) expanded massively because of the large number of progeny of the ruling House of Romanov during those decades.
In the German and Dutch languages, which have separate words for a prince as the issue (child) of a monarch (respectively Prinz, Prins) and for a sovereign prince (Fürst, Vorst), there is also a clear linguistic difference between a sovereign grand duke reigning over a state of central and western Europe (Großherzog, Groothertog) and a non-sovereign, purely ceremonial grand duke of either the Russian imperial family or other non-sovereign territories that are de facto dependencies of a major power (Großfürst, Grootvorst).
In 1582, King John III of Sweden added "Grand Duke of Finland" to the subsidiary titles of the Swedish kings, but without any political consequences, as Finland was already a part of the Swedish realm.
After the Russian conquests, the title continued to be used by the Russian emperors in their role as rulers of both (de facto non-sovereign) Lithuania (1793–1917) and the (equally non-sovereign) autonomous Finland (1809–1917). The Holy Roman Empire under the House of Habsburg instituted a similar non-sovereign Großfürstentum Siebenbürgen (Grand Principality of Transylvania) in 1765.
Balkans
Byzantine grand dukes
The Latin title dux (the etymological root of duke), which was phonetically rendered doux (δούξ) in Greek, was a common title for imperial generals in the Late Roman Empires (west and east), but note it was lower in rank than comes (the etymological root of count).
Under the latter, exclusively Byzantine
Bosnian grand dukes
Grand Duke of Bosnia (
Eastern European
Lithuanian grand dukes
Throughout the
Russian grand dukes
"Grand duke" is the traditional translation of the title . Thereafter the title was given to sons and grandsons (through male lines) of the Tsars and Emperors of Russia. The daughters and paternal granddaughters of Russian emperors, as well as the consorts of Russian grand dukes, were generally called "grand duchesses" in English.
Another translation of the Russian title would be grand prince. While this term is a more precise translation, it is neither standard nor widely used in English. In German, however, a Russian Grand Duke was known as a Großfürst, and in Latin as magnus princeps.
From 1809 to 1917 the Emperor of
Grand prince
Grand princes (or sometimes great princes) were medieval monarchs who usually ruled over several tribes and/or were feudal overlords of other princes. At the time, the title was usually translated as "king", sometimes also as "minor king" or "little king" (German: Kleinkönig). However, grand princes did not have the same monarchic precedence as later Western European kings, and thus they were considered lower in rank, particularly in later literature.
Grand princes reigned in Central and Eastern Europe, notably among Slavs and Lithuanians.
The title "grand prince" translates to velikiy knjaz (Великий князь) in Russian. The Slavic word knjaz and the Lithuanian kunigas (today translated as "priest") are cognates of the word king in its original meaning of "ruler". Thus, the literal meaning of Veliki Knjaz and Didysis kunigaikštis was more like "great ruler" than "grand duke".
With the growing importance and size of their countries, those monarchs claimed a higher title, such as king or
The rulers of the Turkish vassal state of Transylvania (German: Siebenbürgen) used the title of grand prince; this title was later assumed by the Habsburgs after their conquest of Hungary. The Polish kings of the Swedish House of Vasa also used the grand-princely title for their non-Polish territories.
In the late Middle Ages, the title "grand prince/grand duke" became increasingly a purely ceremonial courtesy title for close relatives of ruling monarchs, such as the Tsar of Russia, who granted his brothers the title
Styles and forms of address
Most often, a sovereign grand duke was
The
The Habsburg grand dukes of Tuscany, being members of the imperial family of Austria, were styled as "Imperial and Royal Highness" (HI&RH).
Grand dukes and grand duchesses from Russia were styled as "
See also
- Veliki vojvoda
- Archduke
- Fürst
- List of grand duchesses of Russia
- List of grand dukes of Russia
- Nobility
- Royal and noble ranks
References
- ^ "Cosimo I | Duke of Florence & Tuscany, Grand Duke of Tuscany | Britannica". www.britannica.com. 2023-06-08. Retrieved 2023-07-04.
- ISSN 0546-9422. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
- Lajos Thalloczy; Franz Wickhoff (1899). "Missale Glagoliticum Hervoiae ducis Spalatensis". archive.org (in Latin). Retrieved 10 May 2020.
- ISBN 9781107455535. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
- ^ Preveden, Francis Ralph (1962). A history of the Croatian people from their arrival on the shores of the Adriatic to the present day: with some account of the Gothic, Roman, Greek, Illyrian, and prehistoric periods of the ancient Illyricum and Pannonia. Philosophical Library. pp. 98, 99, 100. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
- ISBN 9780820481357. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
- Hrčak.
- ^ ISBN 978-9958-649-01-1. Archived from the original(.pdf) on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 10 January 2016.
- ^ a b Fine, John Van Antwerp (1994). The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest. University of Michigan Press.
- ^ Filipović, Emir O. (2010). "Viteske svecanosti u Budimu 1412. godine i ucesce bosanskih predstavnika (Festivities held in Buda in 1412 and the participation of Bosnian magnates)" (.pdf/.html). Spomenica Akademika Marka Šunjića (1927-1998), Filozofski Fakultet U Sarajevu (in Bosnian and English). Filozofski fakultet u Sarajevu. Retrieved 10 January 2016.
- ^ Gudavičius, Edvardas. "Didysis kunigaikštis". vle.lt. Retrieved 15 January 2020.