Secundogeniture
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A secundogeniture (from
In the rare cases in which the beneficiary was the third son in the order of succession, the second being already the holder of a secundogeniture, the domain given as a benefit was called a tertiogeniture.
Creation
The creation of a secundogeniture was often regulated by a house law. The younger sons would receive some territory, but much less than the older brother, and they would not be sovereign. Examples of such house laws would be
- the House Treaty of Gera in Brandenburg
- the testament of John George I of Saxony and the Freundbrüderliche Hauptvergleich of 1657, in which John George I's sons regulated the details.
A secundogeniture is different from a partition. A partition creates two (or more) separate, largely independent states. An example of a partition would be the division of Hesse after the death of Philip I of Hesse. Nevertheless, there have been intermediate cases between a secundogeniture and a proper partition.
Examples
- Armeniain 63 AD
- Brandenburg-Küstrin
- Brandenburg-Schwedt
- Duchy of Modena and Reggio under the House of Austria-Este (a tertiogeniture)
- Grand Duchy of Tuscany under the House of Habsburg-Lorraine
- Hesse-Homburg
- Hesse-Rotenburg
- Palatinate-Birkenfeld
- Palatinate-Sulzbach
- Saxe-Merseburg
- Saxe-Weissenfels
- Saxe-Zeitz
- Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg
- Württemberg-Mömpelgard
See also
References
- ^ Luard, Evan. The Balance of Power: The System of International Relations, 1648–1815. Springer, 2016. 159.