Emperor
An emperor is a monarch, the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife, mother, or a woman who rules in her own right. Emperors are recognized to be of a higher honour and rank than kings. In Europe, the title of Emperor has been used since the Middle Ages, considered in those times equal or equal in dignity to that of Pope due to the latter's position as visible head of the Church and spiritual leader of the Catholic part of Western Europe; the Emperor of Japan is the only reigning monarch whose title is translated into English as Emperor. Both emperors and kings are monarchs, but emperor and empress are considered the higher monarchical titles. Inasmuch as there is a strict definition of emperor, it is that an emperor has no relations implying the superiority of any other ruler and rules over more than one nation, therefore a king might be obliged to pay tribute to another ruler, or be restrained in his actions in some unequal fashion, but an emperor should in theory be free of such restraints.
However, monarchs heading empires have not always used the title in all contexts—the British sovereign did not assume the title Empress of the British Empire during the incorporation of India, though she was declared Empress of India. In Western Europe, the title of Emperor was used by the Holy Roman Emperor, whose imperial authority was derived from the concept of translatio imperii, i.e. they claimed succession to the authority of the Western Roman Emperors, thus linking themselves to Roman institutions and traditions as part of state ideology. Although ruling much of Central Europe and northern Italy, by the 19th century the Emperor exercised little power beyond the German-speaking states. Although technically an elective title, by the late 16th century the imperial title had in practice come to be inherited by the Habsburg Archdukes of Austria and following the Thirty Years' War their control over the states had become nearly non-existent. However, Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned Emperor of the French in 1804 and was shortly followed by Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, who declared himself Emperor of Austria in the same year.
The position of Holy Roman Emperor nonetheless continued until Francis II abdicated that position in 1806. In Eastern Europe, the monarchs of Russia used translatio imperii to wield imperial authority as successors to the Eastern Roman Empire, their status was recognised by the Holy Roman Emperor in 1514, although not used by the Russian monarchs until 1547. However, the Russian emperors are better known by their Russian-language title of Tsar after Peter the Great adopted the title of Emperor of All Russia in 1721. Historians have liberally used emperor and empire anachronistically and out of its Roman and European context to describe any large state from the past or the present; such pre-Roman titles as Great King or King of Kings, used by the Kings of Persia and others, are considered as the equivalent. Sometimes this reference has extended to non-monarchically ruled states and their spheres of influence such as the Athenian Empire of the late 5th century BC, the Angevin Empire of the Plantagenets and the Soviet and American "empires" of the Cold War era.
However, such "empires" did not need to be headed by an "emperor". Empire became identified instead with vast territorial holdings rather than the title of its ruler by the mid-18th century. For purposes of protocol, emperors were once given precedence over kings in international diplomatic relations, but precedence amongst heads of state who are sovereigns—whether they be kings, emperors, princes, princesses and to a lesser degree presidents—is determined by the duration of time that each one has been continuously in office. Outside the European context, emperor was the translation given to holders of titles who were accorded the same precedence as European emperors in diplomatic terms. In reciprocity, these rulers might accredit equal titles in their native languages to their European peers. Through centuries of international convention, this has become the dominant rule to identifying an emperor in the modern era. In the Roman tradition a large variety in the meaning and importance of the imperial form of monarchy developed: in intention it was always the highest office, but it could as well fall down to a redundant title for nobility that had never been near to the "Empire" they were supposed to be reigning.
The name of the position split in several branches of Western tradition, see below. The importance and meaning of coronation ceremonies and regalia varied within the tradition: for instance Holy Roman Emperors could only be crowned emperor by the Pope, which meant the coronation ceremony took place in Rome several years after these emperors had ascended to the throne in their home country; the first Latin Emperors of Constantinople on the other hand had to be present in the newly conquered capital of their empire, because, the only place where they could be granted to become emperor. Early Roman Emperors avoided any type of ceremony or regalia different from what was usual for republican offices in the Roman Republic: the most intrusive change had been changing the color of their robe to purple. New symbols of worldly and/or spiritual power, like the orb, became an essential part of the imperial accessories. Rules for indicating successors varied: there was a tendency towards male inheritance of the supreme o
Barons in Scotland
In Scotland, a Baron is the head of a "feudal" barony. This used to be attached to a particular piece of land on, the "caput", or the essence of the barony a building, such as a castle or manor house. Accordingly, the owner of the piece of land containing the "caput" was baroness; the Court of the Lord Lyon issued a new ruling April 2015 that recognises a person possessing the dignity of baron and other feudal titles. Lord Lyon now prefers the approach of recognizing the particular feudal noble dignity as expressed in the Crown Charter that the petitioner presents; these titles are recognised as the status of a minor baron but not a peer. Scottish feudal baronies may be passed to any person, of either sex, by conveyance. Scotland has a distinct legal system within the United Kingdom. In the Kingdom of Scotland, the Lord Lyon King of Arms, as the Sovereign’s Minister in matters armorial, is at once Herald and Judge; the Scottish equivalent of an English baron is a lord of Parliament. Scottish Prescriptive Barony by Tenure was, from 1660 until 2004, the feudal description of the only genuine degree of title of UK nobility capable of being bought and sold, rather than passing by blood inheritance.
Statutes of 1592 and the Baronetcy Warrants of King Charles I show the non-peerage Table of Precedence as: Baronets, Knights and Lairds, Esquire and Gentlemen. A General Register of Sasines was set up by Statute in 1617, with entry in the Register giving the prescriptive right, after so many years, to the "caput" or essence of the Barony; the individual who owned the said piece of land containing the caput was hence the Baron or Baroness. Uncertainty over armorial right was removed by the Lyon Register being set up by Statute in 1672, such that no arms were to be borne in Scotland unless validly entered in Lyon Register. Up until 1874 each new Baron was confirmed in his Barony by the Crown by Charter of Confirmation. Up until 28 November 2004 a Barony was an estate of land held directly of the Crown, or the Prince and Great Steward of Scotland, it was an essential element of a barony title that there existed a Crown Charter erecting the land into a Barony, recorded in the Register of the Great Seal of Scotland.
The original Charter was lost, however an Official Extract has the same legal status as the original Charter. From the Treaty of Union of 1707 - until 1999 - a unified Parliament of Great Britain, at Westminster, was responsible for passing legislation affecting private law both north and south of the Scottish border. In 1999 the devolved Scottish Parliament was established, Private law measures can now be passed at Holyrood, the seat of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. Using a prescriptive feudal grant allowed developers to impose perpetual conditions affecting the land; the courts became willing to accept the validity of such obligations, which became known as real burdens. In practical and commercial terms, these real burdens were like English leasehold tenure; the first Scottish Executive was committed to abolishing the anachronism of the feudal system. On 28 November 2004 the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. Act 2000 came into full effect, putting an end to Scotland's feudal system. Under Scots law, a Scottish Prescriptive Barony by Tenure is now "incorporeal feudal heritage", not attached to the land and remains the only genuine, degree of title of UK nobility capable of being bought and sold – since under Section 63 of the Act, the dignity of Baron is preserved after the abolition of the feudal system.
However, the Abolition Act did end the ability to get feudal land privileges by inheriting or acquiring the caput in Scotland. In common law jurisdictions, land may still be owned and inherited through a barony if the land is titled in "the Baron of X" as baron rather than in the individual's name. In America it passes with the barony as a fee simple appurtenance to an otherwise incorporeal hereditament, the barony being treated like a landowning corporation. In Scotland, the practice has not been tested in a Court of Session case since the Act. What is the oldest barony in Scotland, the Barony of the Bachuil, has not depended on land ownership for centuries. Unlike all other barons in Scotland, the lawful possessor of the stick is the Baron of the Bachuil, regardless of landholdings. After 28 November 2004 under Scots law, a Scottish Barony, Scottish heritable property, became incorporeal heritable property. Prior to the Act coming into effect, Scottish Feudal Baronies were the only genuine title of UK nobility capable of being transferred following the sale of land containing a "caput".
Most baronies were created prior to 1745 but one was erected as late as 1824. Since the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. Act 2000 came into effect, the Lord Lyon, the Chief Herald of Scotland, has restored a more traditional form to the coat of arms of a Baron. Barons are now identified by the helm befitting their degree. A new policy statement has been made by the Lord Lyon to this effect. Independent Scots legal advice should always be taken before entering into any contract that claims to offer a Baronial title for sale; the holder of the dignity of a Barony may petition the Lord Lyon
King
King, or king regnant is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen regnant, while the title of queen on its own refers to the consort of a king. In the context of prehistory and contemporary indigenous peoples, the title may refer to tribal kingship. Germanic kingship is cognate with Indo-European traditions of tribal rulership. In the context of classical antiquity, king may translate in Latin as rex and in Greek as archon or basileus. In classical European feudalism, the title of king as the ruler of a kingdom is understood to be the highest rank in the feudal order subject, at least nominally, only to an emperor. In a modern context, the title may refer to the ruler of one of a number of modern monarchies; the title of king is used alongside other titles for monarchs: in the West, emperor, duke or grand duke, in the Middle East, sultan or emir, etc. The term king may refer to a king consort, a title, sometimes given to the husband of a ruling queen, but the title of prince consort is sometimes granted instead.
A king dowager is the male equivalent of the queen dowager. A king father is a king dowager, the father of the reigning sovereign; the English term king is derived from the Anglo-Saxon cyning, which in turn is derived from the Common Germanic *kuningaz. The Common Germanic term was borrowed into Estonian and Finnish at an early time, surviving in these languages as kuningas; the English term "King" translates, is considered equivalent to, Latin rēx and its equivalents in the various European languages. The Germanic term is notably different from the word for "King" in other Indo-European languages, it is a derivation from the term *kunjom "kin" by the -inga- suffix. The literal meaning is that of a "scion of the kin", or "son or descendant of one of noble birth"; the English word is of Germanic origin, refers to Germanic kingship, in the pre-Christian period a type of tribal kingship. The monarchies of Europe in the Christian Middle Ages derived their claim from Christianisation and the divine right of kings influenced by the notion of sacral kingship inherited from Germanic antiquity.
The Early Middle Ages begin with a fragmentation of the former Western Roman Empire into barbarian kingdoms. In Western Europe, the kingdom of the Franks developed into the Carolingian Empire by the 8th century, the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England were unified into the kingdom of England by the 10th century. With the breakup of the Carolingian Empire in the 9th century, the system of feudalism places kings at the head of a pyramid of relationships between liege lords and vassals, dependent on the regional rule of barons, the intermediate positions of counts and dukes; the core of European feudal manorialism in the High Middle Ages were the territories of the former Carolingian Empire, i.e. the kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire. In the course of the European Middle Ages, the European kingdoms underwent a general trend of centralisation of power, so that by the Late Middle Ages there were a number of large and powerful kingdoms in Europe, which would develop into the great powers of Europe in the Early Modern period.
In the Iberian Peninsula, the remnants of the Visigothic Kingdom, the petty kingdoms of Asturias and Pamplona, expanded into the kingdom of Portugal, the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon with the ongoing Reconquista. In southern Europe, the kingdom of Sicily was established following the Norman conquest of southern Italy; the Kingdom of Sardinia was claimed as a separate title held by the Crown of Aragon in 1324. In the Balkans, the Kingdom of Serbia was established in 1217. In eastern-central Europe, the Kingdom of Hungary was established in AD 1000 following the Christianisation of the Magyars; the kingdoms of Poland and Bohemia were established within the Holy Roman Empire in 1025 and 1198, respectively. In Eastern Europe, the Kievan Rus' consolidated into the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which did not technically claim the status of kingdom until the early modern Tsardom of Russia. In northern Europe, the tribal kingdoms of the Viking Age by the 11th century expanded into the North Sea Empire under Cnut the Great, king of Denmark and Norway.
The Christianization of Scandinavia resulted in "consolidated" kingdoms of Sweden and Norway, by the end of the medieval period the pan-Scandinavian Kalmar Union. Fifteen kings are recognized as the heads of state of sovereign states. Most of these are heads of state of constitutional monarchies. Thomas J. Craughwell, 5,000 Years of Royalty: Kings, Princes, Emperors & Tsars. David Cannadine, Simon Price, Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies. Jean Hani, Sacred Royalty: From the Pharaoh to the Most Christian King. Media related to Kings at Walter Alison. "King". Encyclopædia Britannica. 15. Pp. 805–806
Knyaz
Knyaz or knez is a historical Slavic title, used both as a royal and noble title in different times of history and different ancient Slavic lands. It is translated into English as prince, duke or count, depending on specific historical context and the known Latin equivalents of the title for each bearer of the name. In Latin sources the title is translated as comes or princeps, but the word was derived from the Proto-Germanic *kuningaz; the female form transliterated from Bulgarian and Russian is knyaginya, kneginja in Slovene and Serbo-Croatian. In Russian, the daughter of a knyaz is knyazhna. In Russian, the son of a knyaz is knyazhich; the title is pronounced and written in different European languages. In Serbo-Croatian and West Slavic languages, such as Polish, the word has come to denote "lord", in Czech and Slovak came to mean "priest" as well as "duke". In Sorbian it means "Mister". Today the term knez is still used as the most common translation of "prince" in Bosnian and Serbian literature.
Knez is found as a surname in former Yugoslavia. The etymology is a cognate of the English king, the German König, the Swedish konung; the proto-Slavic form was кънѧѕь, kŭnędzĭ. The meaning of the term changed over the course of history; the term was used to denote the chieftain of a Slavic tribe. With the development of feudal statehood, it became the title of a ruler of a state, among East Slavs, for example, of Kievan Rus'. In medieval Latin sources the title was rendered as either dux. In Bulgaria, Boris I of Bulgaria changed his title to knyaz after his conversion to Christianity, but his son Simeon took the higher title of tsar son in 913. In Kievan Rus', as the degree of centralization grew, the ruler acquired the title Velikii Knyaz, he ruled a Velyke Knyazivstvo, while a ruler of its vassal constituent was called udelny knyaz or knyaz. When Kievan Rus' became fragmented in the 13th century, the title Kniaz continued to be used in East Slavic states, including Kiev, Novgorod, Vladimir-Suzdal', Tver, Halych-Volynia, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
As noted above, the title knyaz or kniaz became a hereditary noble title in the Grand Duchy of Moscow and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Following the union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, kniaź became a recognised title in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. By the 1630s - apart from the title pan, which indicated membership of the large szlachta noble class - kniaź was the only hereditary title, recognised and used in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Notable holders of the title kniaź include Jeremi Wiśniowiecki; as the Tsardom of Russia gained dominion over much of former Kievan Rus', Velikii Kniaz Ivan IV of Russia in 1547 was crowned as Tsar. From the mid-18th century onwards, the title Velikii Kniaz was revived to refer to sons and grandsons of Russian Emperors. See titles for Tsar's family for details. Kniaz continued as a hereditary title of Russian nobility patrilineally descended from Rurik or Gediminas. Members of Rurikid or Gedyminid families were called princes when they ruled tiny quasi-sovereign medieval principalities.
After their demesnes were absorbed by Muscovy, they settled at the Moscow court and were authorised to continue with their princely titles. From the 18th century onwards, the title was granted by the Tsar, for the first time by Peter the Great to his associate Alexander Menshikov, by Catherine the Great to her lover Grigory Potemkin. After 1801, with the incorporation of Georgia into the Russian Empire, various titles of numerous local nobles were controversially rendered in Russian as "kniazes". Many petty Tatar nobles asserted their right to style themselves "kniazes" because they descended from Genghis Khan. See "Velikiy Knyaz" article for more details. Within the Russian Empire of 1809-1917, Finland was called Grand Principality of Finland. In the 19th century, the Serbian term knez and the Bulgarian term knyaz were revived to denote semi-independent rulers of those countries, such as Alexander Karađorđević and Alexander of Battenberg. In parts of Serbia and western Bulgaria, knez was the informal title of the elder or mayor of a village or zadruga until around the 19th century.
Those are called градоначелник and градоначалник or кмет. Prior to Battenberg, the title knyaz was born by Simeon I during the First Bulgarian Empire. At the height of his power, Simeon adopted the title of tsar, as did the Bulgarian rulers after the country became independent
Equites
The equites constituted the second of the property-based classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the senatorial class. A member of the equestrian order was known as an eques. During the Roman kingdom and the 1st century of the Roman Republic, legionary cavalry was recruited from the ranks of the patricians, who were expected to provide six centuriae of cavalry. Around 400 BC, 12 more centuriae of cavalry were established and these included non-patricians. Around 300 BC the Samnite Wars obliged Rome to double the normal annual military levy from two to four legions, doubling the cavalry levy from 600 to 1,200 horses. Legionary cavalry started to recruit wealthier citizens from outside the 18 centuriae; these new recruits came from the first class of commoners in the centuriate organisation and were not granted the same privileges. By the time of the Second Punic War, all the members of the first class of commoners were required to serve as cavalrymen; the presence of equites in the Roman cavalry diminished in the period 200–88 BC as only equites could serve as the army's senior officers.
After c. 88 BC, equites were no longer drafted into the legionary cavalry, although they remained technically liable to such service throughout the principate era. They continued to supply the senior officers of the army throughout the principate. With the exception of the purely hereditary patricians, the equites were defined by a property threshold; the rank was passed from father to son, although members of the order who at the regular quinquennial census no longer met the property requirement were removed from the order's rolls by the Roman censors. In the late republic, the property threshold stood at 50,000 denarii and was doubled to 100,000 by the emperor Augustus – the equivalent to the annual salaries of 450 contemporary legionaries. In the republican period, Roman senators and their offspring became an unofficial elite within the equestrian order; as senators' abilities to engage in commerce was limited by law, the bulk of non-agricultural activities were in the hands of non-senatorial equites.
As well as holding large landed estates, equites came to dominate mining and manufacturing industry. In particular, tax farming companies were all in the hands of equites. Under Augustus, the senatorial elite was given formal status with a higher wealth threshold and superior rank and privileges to ordinary equites. During the principate, equites filled the senior administrative and military posts of the imperial government. There was a clear division between jobs reserved for senators and those reserved for non-senatorial equites, but the career structure of both groups was broadly similar: a period of junior administrative posts in Rome or Italy, followed by a period of military service as a senior army officer, followed by senior administrative or military posts in the provinces. Senators and equites formed a tiny elite of under 10,000 members who monopolised political and economic power in an empire of about 60 million inhabitants. During the 3rd century AD, power shifted from the Italian aristocracy to a class of equites who had earned their membership by distinguished military service rising from the ranks: career military officers from the provinces who displaced the Italian aristocrats in the top military posts, under Diocletian from the top civilian positions also.
This reduced the Italian aristocracy to an idle, but immensely wealthy, group of landowners. During the 4th century, the status of equites was debased to insignificance by excessive grants of the rank. At the same time the ranks of senators were swollen to over 4,000 by the establishment of a second senate in Constantinople and the tripling of the membership of both senates; the senatorial order of the 4th century was thus the equivalent of the equestrian order of the principate. According to Roman legend, Rome was founded by its first king, Romulus, in 753 BC. However, archaeological evidence suggests that Rome did not acquire the character of a unified city-state until ca. 625 BC. Roman tradition relates that the Order of Knights was founded by Romulus, who established a cavalry regiment of 300 men called the Celeres to act as his personal escort, with each of the three Roman "tribes" supplying 100 horse; this cavalry regiment was doubled in size to 600 men by King Lucius Tarquinius Priscus.
That the cavalry was increased to 600 during the regal era is plausible, as in the early republic the cavalry fielded remained 600-strong. However, according to Livy, King Servius Tullius established a further 12 centuriae of equites, a further tripling of the cavalry, but this is anachronistic, as it would have resulted in a contingent of 1,800 horse, incongruously large, compared to the heavy infantry, only 6,000-strong in the late regal period. Instead, the additional 12 centuriae were created at a stage around 400 BC, but these new units were political not military, most designed to admit plebeians to the Order of Knights. Equites were provided with a sum of money by the state to purc
Tsar
Tsar spelled czar, or tzar, is a title used to designate East and South Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers of Eastern Europe Bulgarian monarchs from 10th century onwards. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism; the term is derived from the Latin word Caesar, intended to mean "Emperor" in the European medieval sense of the term—a ruler with the same rank as a Roman emperor, holding it by the approval of another emperor or a supreme ecclesiastical official —but was considered by western Europeans to be equivalent to king, or to be somewhat in between a royal and imperial rank. "Tsar" and its variants were the official titles of the following states: First Bulgarian Empire, in 919–1018 Second Bulgarian Empire, in 1185–1396 Serbian Empire, in 1346–1371 Tsardom of Russia, in 1547–1721 Tsardom of Bulgaria, in 1908–1946The first ruler to adopt the title tsar was Simeon I of Bulgaria. Simeon II, the last Tsar of Bulgaria, is the last person to have borne the title Tsar.
The title Tsar is derived from the Latin title for Caesar. In comparison to the corresponding Latin word "imperator", the Byzantine Greek term basileus was used differently depending on whether it was in a contemporary political context or in a historical or Biblical context. In the history of the Greek language, basileus had meant something like "potentate", it approached the meaning of "king" in the Hellenistic Period, it came to designate "emperor" after the inception in the Roman Empire. As a consequence, Byzantine sources continued to call the Biblical and ancient kings "basileus" when that word had come to mean "emperor" when referring to contemporary monarchs; as the Greek "basileus" was rendered as "tsar" in Slavonic translations of Greek texts, the dual meaning was transferred into Church Slavonic. Thus, "tsar" was not only used as an equivalent of Latin "imperator" but was used to refer to Biblical rulers and ancient kings. From this ambiguity, the development has moved in different directions in the different Slavic languages.
Thus, the Bulgarian language and Russian language no longer use tsar as an equivalent of the term emperor/imperator as it exists in the West European tradition. The term tsar refers to native sovereigns and Biblical rulers, as well as monarchs in fairy tales and the like; the title of king is sometimes perceived as alien and is by some Russian-speakers reserved for European royalty. Foreign monarchs of imperial status, both inside and outside of Europe, ancient as well as modern, are called imperator, rather than tsar. In contrast, the Serbocroatian language translate "emperor" as tsar and not as imperator, whereas the equivalent of king is used to designate monarchs of non-imperial status, Serbian as well as foreign ancient rulers—like Latin "rex". Biblical rulers in Serbian are called цар and in Croatian kralj. In the modern West Slavic languages and Slovene language, the use of the terms is nearly identical to the one in English and German: a king is designated with one term, an emperor is designated with another, derived from Caesar as in German, while the exotic term "tsar" is reserved for the Bulgarian and Serbian rulers.
In the Polish language however tsar is used as an equivalent to imperator, never as king. The term tsar is always used to refer to the Russian rulers before Peter the Great, often to those succeeding. In 705 Emperor Justinian II named Tervel of Bulgaria "Caesar", the first foreigner to receive this title, but his descendants continued to use Bulgar title "Kanasubigi"; the sainted Boris I is sometimes retrospectively referred to as tsar, because at his time Bulgaria was converted to Christianity. However, the title "tsar" was adopted and used for the first time by his son Simeon I, following a makeshift imperial coronation performed by the Patriarch of Constantinople in 913. After an attempt by the Byzantine Empire to revoke this major diplomatic concession and a decade of intensive warfare, the imperial title of the Bulgarian ruler was recognized by the Byzantine government in 924 and again at the formal conclusion of peace in 927. Since in Byzantine political theory there was place for only two emperors and Western, the Bulgarian ruler was crowned basileus as "a spiritual son" of the Byzantine basileus.
Some of the earliest attested occurrences of the titlo-contraction "tsar" from "tsesar" are found in the grave inscription of the chărgubilja Mostich, a contemporary of Simeon I and Peter I, from Presl
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