Princes of Anuire

[Crossfell]

On page 7 of "Ruins of Empire" the subject of Anuirean titles are discussed. The rest of the book, and BR novels, ignore the sentence which states "Princes owed fealty to the Emperor, (arch)Dukes to a prince..."

Has anyone attempted to incorporate the 'Princes of Anuire' into their game? Or is this sentence so out of sync with all other published material that it's better off being ignored?

Also curious, in BR barons are of higher rank than counts. Any historical precedence for this? I thought it was the other way around.

[Birthright-L]

On Thu, 28 Nov 2002, Crossfell wrote:
> On page 7 of "Ruins of Empire" the subject of Anuirean titles are
> discussed. The rest of the book, and BR novels, ignore the sentence
> which states "Princes owed fealty to the Emperor, (arch)Dukes to a
> prince..."
>
> Has anyone attempted to incorporate the `Princes of Anuire` into
> their game? Or is this sentence so out of sync with all other
> published material that it`s better off being ignored?

Heh.

> Also curious, in BR barons are of higher rank than counts. Any
> historical precedence for this? I thought it was the other way
> around.

A quick look found ranks in late medieval/ early renaissance England in
the order of: Duke, Marquess, Earl, Viscount, Baron. These were the
hereditary ranks I think, there were lower nonhereditary ones.

Continental ranks used Count instead of Earl, but were otherwise similar.
Baron is much lower than Count. I guess the equivalent to BR `Baron`
would be Marquess.

The only historical Archduke seems to have been in Austria after the
dissolving of the Holy Roman Empire- the last Habsburg Emperor elevated
his lands to this title as he abdicated. Nobody else used it that I know
of.
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

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[Birthright-L]

On Thu, 28 Nov 2002, daniel mcsorley wrote:

> The only historical Archduke seems to have been in Austria after the
> dissolving of the Holy Roman Empire- the last Habsburg Emperor
> elevated his lands to this title as he abdicated. Nobody else used it
> that I know of.

After the medieval period, Grand Duke is the standard English translation
of the title given to younger children of the Russian imperial family; it
also appears in the title of several Victorian-era operettas set in
tiny fictitous states in Germany. The title may be much older, but I
don`t know offhand.


Ryan Caveney

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[Crossfell]

'Heh' indeed Dan. C'mon, you can do better than that! :P

While I was primarily interested in the 'Princes of Cerilia' I'm now digging into an outdated Britannica for the other titles. Apparently the first 'Grand Duchy' of western Europe was that of Tuscany, accorded by Pope Pius V in 1569. In latter years Hesse-Darmstadt and Baden, Saxe-Weimar, Mecklenburg, Luxembourg and Oldenburg were also created. Most are German (save Luxembourg), not sure about Odenburg.

Apparently Grand Duke translates into 'Grand Prince' in Russian. Eventually this term became reserved for the Tsar's descendents.

Britannica lists 'Herzog' as a German equivilant of 'Duke'. I had thought that herzog was equivilant to 'baron' as ritter was to 'knight'. Appreciate any corrections on this.

While I'm failing miserably to document it I had thought that Arch/Grand Duke in English terms designated a Duke either superior to other dukes or who had a very close tie to the royal bloodline.

But to return to the original article what do you think of the 'Princes of Anuire'? Waste of time or interesting objective in pursuit of the Iron Throne?

Cheers,

Steve

[kgauck]

The more common über-duke was a grand duke. There are at least three of
those.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

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[Birthright-L]

From: "Crossfell" <brnetboard@TUARHIEVEL.ORG>

> Also curious, in BR barons are of higher rank than counts. Any historical
precedence
> for this? I thought it was the other way around.
>

Baron is a much older title than Count. And ancient titles have always had a
high prestige. When refeering to the peerage of france, the term "the
barons", "royal barons" and so on was often uses, so baron is a general term
that can apply to any blooded noble. In this way, "baron" is a grand title.

But over time, many new barons were created, while older barons were
elevated to new, somewhat inflated, titles. Thus the many counts, marquises,
graf, arc-somethings and so on.

But a family (like the Crècys of France) who had kept their ancient baronial
title could indeed be considered among the most illustrous families of the
realm.


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[Birthright-L]

On Thu, 28 Nov 2002, Crossfell wrote:
> `Heh` indeed Dan. C`mon, you can do better than that! :P
>
> But to return to the original article what do you think of the
> `Princes of Anuire`? Waste of time or interesting objective in
> pursuit of the Iron Throne?

We covered this quite a bit on the other list, so I wasn`t going to add
anything else. But yes, I think `prince` is a dead-end clue in the world
of screwed-up BR titles. Pretty much every other source, including the
Atlas, refers to 12 duchies in Anuire that owed loyalty straight to the
Emperor. It`s easier to assume that Boeruine and Avanil have
self-inflated their titles in their pursuit of the throne.
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

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[Gauthier]

In the royal families of Europe, Prince is a title giving to the children of the King or Queen and sometimes to those who are in positions of inheritance of the title of King or queen. Some specific title are given to the direct heir such as "Prince of Brabant" in Belgium or "Prince of Wales" in Great-Britain or the members of the royal families.
All other titles are for nobles who are not members of the royal family except for the Archduke or Grand Duke title. If I'm not wrong, in russia, this title were given to the brother of the Emperor russia.

[Birthright-L]

Ah - but there are principalities (ruled by princes), and dukes are
generally closely related to the crown in modern times - though they dod not
need to be in early medieval times.

Heraldry is simply not a very exact and unified science - each country has
it`s own rules and breaks those rules regularily. The BR system is odd, but
not wrongs, since it is based on the particular pecularities of Anuire.

/Carl


----- Original Message -----
From: "Gauthier" <brnetboard@TUARHIEVEL.ORG>
To: <BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM>
Sent: Friday, November 29, 2002 1:07 PM
Subject: Re: Princes of Anuire [2#1111]


> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
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>
> Gauthier wrote:
> In the royal families of Europe, Prince is a title giving to the children
of the King or Queen and sometimes to those who are in positions of
inheritance of the title of King or queen. Some specific title are given to
the direct heir such as "Prince of Brabant" in Belgium or "Prince of
Wales" in Great-Britain or the members of the royal families.
> All other titles are for nobles who are not members of the royal family
except for the Archduke or Grand Duke title. If I`m not wrong, in russia,
this title were given to the brother of the Emperor russia.
>
>
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[Gauthier]

You are right. And it must be done like this. Each MD have his personnal vision of one thing or another, but sometimes it's good to know how it was to have some ideas to know how you want it will be for you in your particular campaign or world.

[A_dark]

I don't like this many princes idea. I think it was a bad idea to introduce this into SD. HOWEVER, I am glad, cos it causes a nice little mayhem, and as we all know, chaos is good :) Also, I am not involved in this dispute over titles, so it can only get more amusing for me to watch :)

[Magian]

>From: Crossfell <brnetboard@TUARHIEVEL.ORG>
>Apparently Grand Duke translates into `Grand Prince` in Russian.
>Eventually this term became reserved for the Tsar`s descendents.
>

Tsar is the equivalent of Emperor later in the translation of the title
decreed by the Tsar (of course).

>Britannica lists `Herzog` as a German equivilant of `Duke`. I had
>thought that herzog was equivilant to `baron` as ritter was to
>`knight`. Appreciate any corrections on this.
>

Grossherzog is Archduke. The double (ss) in German is a funny symbol so you
may see it published with it instead of the two (ss).


>While I`m failing miserably to document it I had thought that Arch/Grand
>Duke in English terms designated a Duke either superior to other dukes or
>who had a very close tie to the royal bloodline.
>

I think the Grand Duke is tied both to a royal tie and an ruling autonomous
Duke and the Archduke is specifically the title of Prince in the Hapsburg
Austria.

>But to return to the original article what do you think of the `Princes of
>Anuire`? Waste of time or interesting objective in pursuit of the Iron
>Throne?
>
>Cheers,
>
>Steve


I think the whole structure of Anuirean title hierarchy is doomed to become
moot. Title inflation will be used most likely in order to satisfy those
regents who see to be emperor but cannot. So the title structure is not so
very important in a post empire world except as they affect the direct
government they are in. Princes I see more as the German princes either
Royal rulers of principalities, royal tied nobles of principalities or royal
dukes/grand dukes that have been granted regency of a principality. I am
sure Richard Baker meant this to be more structure controlled though.

ciao,


Paul

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[Magian]

>From: Crossfell <brnetboard@TUARHIEVEL.ORG>
> Crossfell wrote:
> Has anyone attempted to incorporate the `Princes of Anuire` into their
>game? Or is this sentence so out of sync with all other published material
>that it`s better off being ignored?
>

I think the vision Richard Baker may have had in mind was the original
Empire included the 12 duchies and this has stood since they were
incorporated into the empire. As a royal family is bound to have children
and if the emperor is an expansionist it is probably useful to have these
idle princes be regents over newly conquered lands. This is how I think the
printed materials intened for the Princes to be. Thus a Prince may have
ruled over provinces in Khinasi, perhaps a few princes to balance their
bloodlines with the size of the principality and the same thing in Brechtur.
When these regions gain independance they only affected the regent and
royal family as the core 12 duchy empire was mostly unaffected and no trace
of anuirean bloodlines remain except where they were absorbed into the
current ruling class.

ciao,

Paul

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[Arch-Sorcerer Gargamel]

According to my classes on medieval (and pre-medieval) history, a count was a title normally used to refer to a vassal ruler of a city, and was thus most common in Italy. Barons, and their equivalents, were more usually more common and would generally have more land; this wouldn't always equate to more power.

Power, title, and fealty were very convoluted and difficult to discern. The Duke of Aquitaine was more powerful and had direct control over more land than the "King" of France for many generations, however, he was considered a vassal of the Capetian King. The Duke of Normandy became the King of France and theoretically had the vassalage of all of England, but was also theoretically subordinate to France.

I don't like to second guess Richard Baker, but I believe that he may have intended the Anuirean Empire to be nearly as confusing as the real-life inspiration. Remember, almost all of Europe considered itself to be the rightful successor to (thus, synonymous with) the Roman Empire into the middle ages.

I hope I've been informative.

[kgauck]

The thing that makes medieval European titles tricky is that the same basic
set of titles means different things in different places. The meanings of
the names also change over time. The title of count comes from the Roman
titles "comes" which is an administrative office. In the context of urban
Italy, that refers to seigniorial towns. In less urban places, like
northern France, counts could be large landholders. The counts of
Champagne, Poiters, Flanders, and Anjou had between the four of them about
half of northern France.

If you examine one area in the span of only a couple hundred years, the
system actually seems pretty easy to understand and it begins to make a lot
of sense.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

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