At 07:14 AM 12/13/2011, Rey wrote:

>And a question. Is it a fact that house Diem ruled Diemed
>continuously from its founding? If not, could there be a point in
>history when the breaking of `Greater` Diemed might have been caused
>by a weak ruler who was overthrown because of his poorly lead
>politics? And so the new ruler picked up the pieces but the strength
>and number of provinces of this deflated realm were not enough to be
>acknowledged as more than a baron? So after a number of years of his
>rule, this usurper (yes, he was dumb enough to forget a bloodtheft
>could be useful at that point) was taken down by a member od Diem
>family but could also inherit no more than a baron title.

It doesn`t really say one way or another in any of the canon that I
know of. It`s possible that the Diem`s lost their throne for a time,
causing the "deflation" of their title. The timeline since the split
of Diemed might make it a little tight, though. Medoere`s
independance is under a century old. That`s several generations, of
course, so someone could easily have lost the throne for a period of
time and died "out of office" as it were, and a later generation got
that throne back. However, it seems like that would have been recent
enough for it to be mentioned at least in passing in existing
materials. The current baron is, according to RoE, in a "direct
line" from ancient times, but that really means bloodline, not actual
leadership and control. So the idea that his father, grandfather or
one of the greats lost the duchy itself along with the provinces that
make up modern Medoere does make a certain sense.

I don`t know if it`s really necessary, though. Having lost those
provinces alone could be used as a rationale to reduce the
title. Even were the land were usurped for a generation (or two)
then part of reclaiming it would be reclaiming the title. A usurper
would probably call himself a duke in order to claim legitimacy,
unless the assessment of the land he ruled was itself somehow
assessed to be a barony rather than a duchy. One way or another, it
seems like it has to be the family itself the bears the brunt of the loss.

Gary