Speaking of Fallen Empires... (Chingisids)

Last week's focus on empires that fell in the early 20th century reminded me that I have yet to focus on my favorite dynasty of all: the Chingisid Dynasty. "The who?" you're probably asking yourself. Why, the dynasty of Genghis Khan. Indeed, the dynasty still survives today through hundreds of male lines, although no one can quite figure out how those lines connect... Well, genetic research may help fix that problem some day.

Anywho, onto the topic of the week. The Mongols have always been an unruly lot. They've survived in the rugged Gobi Desert north of China, fighting their way into China multiple times only to be pushed back by the militarily superior and better organized Chinese Empire. The Mongols and the Turks of the west (in modern-day Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, pretty much all the northern -stans) share much of the same heritage, language, and organization. This proved very fortunate for the family of Genghis Khan, a thirteenth-century Mongol warlord who began the largest conquest until the British conquered India. While Genghis is the most famous of the lot, his children truly made the empire. Genghis reunited Mongolia and began the outward expansion of the Khaganate, but it was his grandson, Kublai, that brought it to its height.

Before I go on, let me explain some titles here. The title "khan" relates most closely to the English "king". A khan rules a khanate, which is the equivalent of a kingdom. But Genghis Khan created a higher position which relates closely to the title emperor. Technically, it was called khagan and the domain a khaganate, but English sources usually rename the title "Great Khan" and call the domain an empire, specifically the Mongolian Empire, although it was rarely unified. The dynastic name Chingisid is based on a variant spelling of Genghis and the -id ending simply implies "family of". Thus Chingisid means "family of Ghengis". Right, back to the story...

The first eight Khagans of the Mongol Empire

When Ghengis died, his successors, all direct descendants, continued expanding the newly-founded empire. Ögedei, Güyük, and Möngke khans, ruling in succession from 1229 until 1259, are little known and Möngke's reign ended in a four-year civil war that set Kublai Khan on the Khagan throne. A decade after his accession, he also conquered the entirety of the Chinese Empire and ruled it for another two decades. Kublai's descendants continued in the formal role of rulers of China and Mongolia as the Yuan Dynasty of China (using the formal titles Emperor of China and Khagan of Mongolia) while the various other branches of the family, both senior and junior (since Kublai's line was not eldest) declared their de facto independence and conquered much of the rest of the region. The Yuan Dynasty survived in China until 1370, when the Ming Dynasty restored a native family to the Chinese throne. The Yuan retreated to Mongolia, however, and continued to rule the region until 1635 when all the males of the dynasty were killed and all the females sold into slavery.

The Mongol Empire at its height, with divisions

Already by the time of Kublai's reign, other branches of the family were going out on their own. The largest and historically most important of the branches were the Blue and White Hordes which eventually merged into the Golden Horde in 1376. This branch expanded its power all the way to the Kievan Rus (Western Russia), threatened Poland-Lithuania, conquered the whole of the Crimea (which a branch held until the 1700s), and just generally made the rest of Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, the Byzantines, and other regional powers nervous. They tried a few times to push into heartland Europe but were unsuccessful and over the subsequent decades and centuries, the Russians pushed them back toward Mongolia. The Golden Horde was finally dissolved in 1499.

Another important branch of the Chingisid Dynasty managed to uproot the ancient Persian Empire and replace it with an entirely new empire. Luckily for the Muslims, most of the western Chingisids adopted Islam after they left their homeland. In fact, one of the reasons Indonesia is currently Islamic is because the Mongols sent trade fleets through the region, converting the local populations as they went. When Hülëgü Khan invaded Persia, he declared the Il Khanate which pushed the Abbasid Caliphs, descendants of Muhammed's uncle and rulers of Sunni Islam, into Fatimid Egypt, ruled by radical Sh'ia Anti-Caliphs. Within one hundred years, the Il Khanate was suffering dynastic upheaval, rivalries, and civil war. The khanate was completely dissolved in 1388. The power vacuum left helped establish Turkey as a legitimate power base for the whole Middle East and set in motion the Ottoman Conquest of the next century.

One last branch, that of the eldest Chingisid line, ruled a strange and relatively undefined region called the Chagatai Khanate. This family ruled the heart of the Mongol Empire but was often at the center of rivalries with its neighbors. In 1348 it split into two rival branches that never unified and in 1370, the western khans became puppet leaders under the upstart khan, Timur e-Lang. The eastern portion, called the Khanate of Mughalistan, survived until around 1690 when it fell to rival factions.

One last important thing to add to this discussion is the character of Timur. Timur was a Turkish upstart with a highly likely descent from Genghis Khan in his maternal line. His power base was the region of modern-day Afghanistan with his capital at Samarkand (in modern-day Uzbekistan). After he had conquered the Afghan and Uzbek Turks, he spread out and generally ravaged his Mongol neighbors who were already experiencing problems. He conquered Persia and fairly well destroyed the Il Khanate. He pushed heavily into the Chagatai Khanate and Golden Hordes. In reality, the Yuan Dynasty holdings were really the only things that avoided Timur's wrath. Timur's dynasty did not last long but many branches survived throughout the region to rule separate clans and minor states. One branch even came to conquer and rule India-Pakistan as the Mughal Dynasty (note the reference to the Mongols in that title?). Timur saw himself as both a successor and rival to the Chingisid khans, but he was not a member of the family nor did he strongly claim a Mongol heritage despite genealogical links to them. His legacy is his own but is constantly lumped with that of the Mongol khans.

The khagans lost much of their power over this period because the branches of the family ceased to respect the implied unified and centralized authority of the Great Khans. Almost as soon as the Chingisids took China, the other branches went their own ways. Some members of the family returned year after year to elect the next khagan, but it eventually became an act just like the electors of the Holy Roman Empire electing a Habsburg to the throne. Still, the power of the Chingisids remained strongest in Mongolia throughout this entire period, and when everything fell apart, it fell apart there last. Fragments survived but Mongolia remained the capital and home of the Chingisids.

Their importance in history is underrated because their empire lasted for so short a time, but the Chingisid khans of Mongolia, China, Persia and Russia all were considered a serious threat to Europe and an inspiration for travelers such as Marco Polo. Their Pax Mongolia (Mongolian Peace) allowed the Silk Road to flourish during this time, and when that peaceful time ended, people in Europe demanded cheap eastern goods, eventually causing the Age of Exploration. Without the Mongols, it is very possible that the Middle Ages would have continued for many decades or centuries more. Thus, while they are oft forgotten and rarely remembered, the family of Ghengis Khan has certainly left its mark on the world and may have very possibly caused it.

The Great Dynastic Combustion (Dynastology Today)

Greetings again. Weeks of Dynastology blogs have led me to this point. Although I will continue case studies into the foreseeable future, the major discussion topics of dynastology have been addressed except for dynastic politics in the 21st century. In reality, this is my final planned post that relates to the history of dynastology. There is a very good reason for that, though. Prior to 1848, pretty much every monarchy in the world was absolute, or close to it at least. After that date, everything began to change, culminating in the Great War of 1914 known most commonly as World War I.

Heads of 19 important European Dynasties in 1908.

Why is World War I so important to dynastic politics? Because the dynastic framework of much of Europe -developed over more than a millennium through dynastic marriages, inheritances, wars, and more - fell apart at last. Germany suffered this the most, but other important states of Europe also abandoned their monarchical heritage for the better prospects of democratic republicanism. The largest decline in worldwide monarchies was indeed between the years 1900 and 1950. In that time, the majority of the world's monarchies were abolished and replaced with some other form of governance.

The origins of this move are ancient but were made into reality with the Glorious Revolution of 1688-9 in Great Britain. Prior to that time, every monarchy in Europe was absolutist, at least in principal, with the monarch having complete control of all aspects of government except, perhaps, the church. The Glorious Revolution installed the first constitutional monarch on a European throne. Now don't get me wrong, s/he still had a lot of power, but it was far more controlled by the English and Scottish Parliaments. In the subsequent years, British monarchical power declined to such a degree that in 1841, the young Queen Victoria wasn't even allowed to veto the choice of prime minister. In fact, Britain survived the waves of revolutions in the later centuries because the parliament already had control of the monarchy.

The rest of Europe was in a lot worse condition. The French king's heavy-handedness over the years finally resulted in the French Revolution, which saw the king turned into a constitutional monarch only to be deposed and beheaded a few years later. France later became a new monarchy under Napoleon who tried to create a more nationalistic state. He didn't fail in that goal, just in his tactics. When the old French monarchy returned in 1814, the people were not exactly as loyal as before to the king and deposed the monarchy again in the Revolution of 1830, resulting in a second constitutional monarch, Louis-Philippe. Unfortunately, the royal desire toward absolutism caused the new king's downfall and France overthrew yet another king in favor of a republic in 1848. Four years later, Napoleon's nephew, Napoleon III, took the imperial title and attempted to rule France like a proper constitutional monarch should, but he failed too, with Paris declaring The Commune and the Prussians marching in to abolish the last French monarchy. France's monarchical history ends in 1870.

Other states of Europe were also affected by these waves of revolutions and invasions. The Kingdom of the Netherlands was created after the Napoleonic Wars only to be divided in 1830 creating Belgium. Italy abolished all its hereditary monarchies save Savoy's to create the Kingdom of Italy. Soon after, Spain dissolved its own monarchy for a year to test republicanism. Portugal, after tough years and the secession of Brasil, finally overthrew its monarch in a republican-led coup in 1910. Meanwhile, Japan, marching across Korea, abolished the Korean Empire in 1910, while China overthrew its own 2000-year-old monarchy two years later. The world was in flux and the trend was toward communism, republicanism, or constitutional monarchy. Only the last choice allowed a monarch to stay on the throne, and most countries chose the other options.

Europe in 1914

The proverbial crap really hit the fan once World War I started, though. Queen Victoria had been busy in the previous century and was grandmother or in-law to the majority of important monarchs who participated in World War I. Somewhat oddly, Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, was not one of her kin but his death caused country after country to join in the war pitting Germany, Austria, the Ottoman Empire, and at times Italy against the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and at times Italy. Nicholas II of Russia, grandson-in-law to Victoria, was the first to go. His country, tired of centuries of oppression by the upper class, finally rose up and overthrew the dictatorial Romanovs to begin the decade-long process of creating the Soviet Union. With no reason to keep them, the Soviets murdered Nicholas, his wife, and his five children.

Germany soon suffered a similar, albeit less violent, fate. Germany was losing the war and the people were already getting angry. While the country had been united in 1871, the kaisers had allowed the rulers of the once-independent monarchies to retain their titles and status, delegating military and foreign affairs to the imperial government. This proved to be disasterous. Already a few monarchs had been deposed and the states had abandoned the German Empire. In November 1918, facing increased threats to his life and position, the German kaiser abdicated the German throne. Within two months, all other monarchs in Germany, about nineteen in total, abdicated their thrones or were forced off them. Kaiser Wilhelm II, grandson of Victoria, had to flee to the Netherlands where he lived until the middle years of World War II. Some of the other monarchs were allowed to stay but they were barred from participation in government or use of their hereditary titles or names.

Austria, Hungary, and Serbia all suffered the same fates. Austria & Hungary were united under the Habsburg-Lorraine family. Austria deposed their monarch and Hungary declared the throne vacant until the 1940s. Serbia became a much larger state but abandoned its former monarch.

Europe in 1922

The final casualty of the war was the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. In 1923, the Allied Powers basically allowed the Empire to self-destruct. The Turkish War of Independence ended the position of Sultan and replaced it with simply Caliph (a religious title) in 1923. But within a year, even that was too much and the empire was dissolved completely, Mustafa Kamal "Ataturk" became the first president and the House of Osman fled the country. Turkey's fall ended the results of World War I but not the downfall of European monarchies. In the subsequent three decades, the remainder of the world suffered more dynastic losses:

* Mongolia - 1924: Fell to communist forces
* Spain - 1931: Fell to fascist and nationalistic forces (re-established in 1975)
* Albania - 1939: Italians dissolve monarchy
* Croatia - 1943: Italians abandon country
* Iceland - 1944: Seceded from Denmark and declared a republic
* Yugoslavia - 1945: Became communist republic
* Manchuria - 1945: Japanese puppet state, merged into China
* Italy - 1946: Monarchy dissolved after referendum
* Bulgaria - 1946: Soviets dissolve monarchy
* Romania - 1947: Fell to communist forces
* Ireland - 1949: Seceded from union with Britain
* Egypt - 1953: Revolution ended monarchy
* Vietnam - 1955: State partitioned and republic declared (following secession from France)
* Iraq - 1959: Monarchy overthrown in a coup

As you can see, the first half of the twentieth century saw the decline of much of the world's monarchies. In the subsequent half century, most monarchies in Africa too were dissolved. Now only a few remain and virtually all of them are constitutional, meaning the monarch is mostly a figurehead. Indeed, monarchs are not even allowed much power in order for their country to be a member of the European Union.

Dynasties will continue in perpetuity but their dynastic lands and titles change and end with time. The trend has been away from monarchism but it could someday return. France, Italy, Portugal and Germany all have monarchist movements to restore some form of monarchy and it has happened in some countries such as Spain. Perhaps the trend will change but for now, we must all see that the twentieth century witnessed the demise of the absolute monarchy.

The Terrible Tyrants of Tuscany (The Medicis)

It is a constant oddity that the Medicis are so well-known. They were not a very large family and they were fairly short-lived. The region that they controlled was barely larger than Rhode Island and they never expanded outward from their hereditary origin. In all reasonableness, they were a terrible dynasty that never should have achieved all that it did. Regardless, they are probably in the Top 5 of famous European dynasties...somewhere after Habsburgs and Tudors but before Stuarts, I'd bet. And this is the story why...

The Medicis began their rise to power in the remote hills north of Florence, Italy. The region at this time – the 1200s – was known as the Republic of Florence, and was one of a few Italian republics that survived the destructive rise of the Holy Roman Empire. Over the early generations of the family, they had managed to marry into or enter into contracts with many other prominent Florentine families. Their major product that they brought to the Florentine markets was wool. After a short conflict with other businesses in the region, the family was actually banned from government politics except for two figures who avoided the turmoil. It is from one of these, Averardo, that the royal line sprang forth.

Averardo's son, Giovani, founded the Medici Bank, and quickly became the wealthiest man in all Florence. His son, Cosimo, took things a step further and became the first of a long line of Florentine patriarchs. "Patriarchs?" you ask. "Why patriarchs?" Quite simply because Florence was a republic, not a kingdom or duchy. A republic couldn't have a monarch, so the Medicis grabbed the local title of "signore", which pretty much meant patriarch. To make things more clear, the Medicis assumed the power of a monarch without actually abolishing the republican state...rather like the Caesars during the first two centuries of the Roman Empire.

For three generations – from Cosimo to Piero to Lorenzo – the Florentine Republic remained a republic with a strong central government. But everything fell apart when another Piero decided he wanted to take control. The Republic banished him and his family for eighteen long years from 1494 until 1512. When they returned, they also decided it was better to appease Florence than usurp it. Five more Medicis ruled Florence before another revolt overthrew the dynasty in 1527. Yet this time, the Medicis were ready for it. In 1513, one Medici patriarch, Cardinal Giovanni, was elected Pope Leo X of the Catholic Church. Two years after his death, in 1523, another Medici was elected Pope Clement VII and remained so throughout this second Medici exile. Clement used his power to help restore the Medicis to Florence and get Alessandro to become the first Duke of Florence in 1531. His assassination six years later opened a new chapter in the great Medici epic.

In 1537 Cosimo the Great succeeded his distant cousin as Duke of Florence. In 1569 he dissolved the Republic of Florence and declared the Grand Duchy of Tuscany...that's right, it's an official monarchy now. Cosimo's sons began the first major push toward marrying into the higher echelon of society. Francesco de Medici married Johanna of Austria and produced Eleanora, who would marry into the wealthy Dukes of Mantua & Montferrat, and Marie, who would marry Henry IV of France. The next grand duke, Ferdinand, decided that the family needed to balance itself between France and Austria so married Christina of Lorraine, a family that would one day inherit the grand duchy. Yet despite this, Ferdinand was later forced to wed his son, Cosimo, to a Habsburg princess to appease the angered Emperor. The Medicis were in their political prime during this age. The people of Florence were extremely wealthy and the region remained only sparsely inhabited compared to the other regions of Italy. It was only inevitable that the family would decline from this high pedestal.

Since Tuscany provided so many Papal candidates during the 1500s and 1600s (four in total), religious orders, seeking Catholic solitude from the craziness of Protestant Germany, went to Tuscany, buying up land en masse while not having to pay taxes as per Italian law. Then one of the worst tragedies struck the Medici dynasty: the grand duke died leaving a minor as his heir. Christina of Lorraine and her daughter-in-law, Maria Magddalena, took control as regents. During their term, they allowed the duchy of Urbino, a Medici vassal state, to return to Papal control, they banned outside education of Tuscan citizens, and they led the prosecution against Galileo Galilei. When the young grand duke grew up, he was obsessed with technology at the expense of his duchy. He then became involved in the Wars of Castro which literally returned Tuscany to a barter state due to run-away inflation and non-existent interest rates. Tuscany was bankrupt. The cities were covered in grass and the buildings were ready to collapse.

The last vestige of the dynasty grasped desperately for purpose and relief. Cosimo III married the duchess of Orleans, a granddaughter of Henry IV of France. She managed to produce one daughter, who would become the Electress Palatine, and a son, the last grand duke of Tuscany in the Medici line. Cosimo feared a succession war upon his or his heirs' death. The English and Dutch were willing to work with him but Spain wanted the Republic of Siena, once a Spanish fief, back and Austria (well, the Holy Roman Empire) wanted Florence back since it was an Imperial fief. As soon as Cosimo III died in 1723, a war broke out despite the fact that Cosimo's son, Gian Gastone, still was Grand Duke. Spain was originally in line to become the next dukes until the War of the Polish Succession transferred that right to Francis III of Lorraine. When Gian Gastone died in 1737, the state fell to Francis while the Medici family property fell to the last Medici daughter, Anna Maria Louisa. Anna declined the inheritance and returned her family heirlooms to the state in perpetuity, so long as the items remained in Florence forever. Anna died 19 February 1743 and with her ended the House of Medici.

The power and glory of the Medicis were really relatively short-lived. Their influence in European politics was temporary, albeit great, and the height of the dynasty can be ascribed to no more than 100 years. But what the Medicis lacked in dynastology they made up for in culture. No family in Europe can claim such a wonderful Renaissance legacy as the Medicis. Their patronage in both Tuscany and Rome allowed some of the most magnificent artists to reach their greatness. Michaelangelo, Donatello, Masaccio, Raphael, Brunelleschi, and Leonardo da Vinci all were commissioned to create great works in Florence. The Uffizi Gallery in Florence remains one of the foremost art galleries in the world.

Thus, without the Medicis, Italy would have been a bleaker place. But their dynasty was a short and troubled one, with few dynastic breaks and one large dead-end in 1743. Their blood flows through most European monarchs today, but no known male line, legitimate or otherwise, survived the eighteenth century. The Medicis' story tells of success during times of triumph, but also an unwillingness to change with the times. Indeed, they even seemed to regress when things turned tough. Yet they will remain popular due to their culture and craft, and the fame they established throughout Early Modern Europe.

Come Together, Right Now, Dynasties (Succession Wars)

So I asked a few days ago what people wanted to read about and the only response that wasn't something I've already addressed was royal bastards. And while bastards are all well and good, they really mostly become important only in much larger issues, such as wars of succession.

If you've read more than three of my Dynastology blogs, I'm certain you've noticed that a lot of dynasties fall into the "War of the [enter country here] Succession" trap. It's inevitable, really, because no dynasty is completely flawless. Even if the succession law is perfectly sound, it doesn't take into account invasions (by potential claimants), religious issues (such as if the heir is the wrong religion), or dead-ended lines (like with the Habsburgs in 1740). Indeed, succession wars are likely to pop up in any hereditary monarchy where someone not in power has something to gain if they were in power. This is where bastard children can really become important because if a country has rather wishy-washy laws on the status of bastards, then they may claim the throne when the former monarch dies. But other legitimate relatives may not agree with that. Thus, BOOM: succession war.

"What really is a succession war, anyway?" you may ask yourself. Unfortunately, there is no clean-cut answer. In layperson's terms, it is a war to determine who should be the rightful successor to a throne after a monarch died. The problem is, the rightful monarch is often known and even accepted by the majority of the countries yet still becomes attacked just because. Pretty much any succession can prompt a war if there is even the slightest reason (the new monarch is a woman, child, minor, wrong religion, has land the neighbor wants, was too pushy as an heir, &c.). Thus succession wars are rather bothersome for aspiring new monarchs and they can often change the shape of regional borders by the time the war is over.

To illustrate these points, I've chosen some especially important succession wars that helped shape the political structure and shape of Europe today. Some are well known, while others are not:

The Anarchy (1135 –1154): When Henry I of England died, he left only one heir: his daughter Matilda. He had a few heirs, actually, but they all died in a tragic accident known as the White Ship incident in 1120. The only problem with Matilda was she was a woman, and England had never had a sole queen regnant prior to this point (it was a rather new concept in Europe at this time). Henry did have a sister, Adela, whose second son Stephen was conveniently poised to take control in England. And so he did, albeit rather poorly. Yet Stephen was borne to a sister of the previous king and, yes, he had an elder brother named Theobald who was currently Count of Blois in France. But who cares!? He got there first and was a man, right? Unfortunately, yes. Matilda ran to Scotland to enlist the help of her uncle, David I, but nothing much came of this brash alliance. Stephen actually managed to injure himself more than Matilda ever could when he alienated his barons. Matilda marched a small army into London, captured and imprisoned Stephen, and declared herself Lady of the English in 1141. Stephen's few supporters managed to rout the Lady and Stephen reclaimed the throne, but mostly just romped around for the next decade getting revenge and generally ravaging the countryside (hence, "anarchy"). When Stephen's son, Eustace, died in 1153, he knew the jig was up. Henry, son of Matilda, marched into England and Stephen agreed that Henry should be his heir. Stephen died the next year and Matilda's son became Henry II. This proved two things: English monarchs could succeed through female lines, and females were not yet able to rule in England. It would take another 400 years until Jane or Mary I (up for debate) became the first Queen Regnant of England in 1553.

The Hundred Years War (1337 –1453): Probably the most famous war of the Middle Ages, the Hundred Years War (which, in fact, lasted for 116 years off and on) was at its core a succession war. In 1316 the French king and his son died. For various reasons, the French barons decided to give the crown to the king's brother, Philip V, as opposed to his daughter, Joan (Joan became Queen of Navarre, which followed other laws). When Philip V died, the crown passed to his youngest brother, Charles IV, skipping Philip's daughters. Finally, when Charles IV died, there were no more brothers. What to do now? Well, the brothers had a sister, Isabella, whose son was Edward III of England. Following English custom, Edward should become the next king of France being the eldest living male descendant of a French king. The French didn't like this idea very much so handed the crown to the next male-only line (Salic Law, remember?) guy, Philip of Valois. Joan went on to have a son, pushing Edward III's claim aside, but who really cared at this point. Edward wanted France! The war lasted a very long time and had some major moments. Henry VI of England was crowned king of France at Notre Dame in 1422 but couldn't hold out against his French rival, Charles VII. Henry VI's long minority and multiple power plays between English princes strained England's ability to continue the war. Joan of Arc came in and helped get Charles VII crowned and pretty much everything fell apart for England after that. England lost all but Calais in France as well as any real chance at gaining the French crown. Meanwhile, France concluded six hundred years of consolidation resulting in a somewhat coherent state closely resembling the modern state of France.

The War of the English Succession (1688 –1697): More commonly known as the War of the Grand Alliance or League of Augsburg and dating from the Glorious Revolution (1688), this war helped establish a permanent Protestant line in Great Britain. Prior to 1688, Britain was prone to lapses of Catholic monarchs. Mary I Tudor was the first such monarch, reigning directly after the fervently Anglican Edward VI (well, his regents, at least). Charles II became a closet-Catholic after years of exile in France. When he died, his openly Catholic brother, James II, took over and even produced a child with his Catholic wife, strongly considered by the Protestant majority as a radical turn back toward a Catholic state. William of Orange, the James' nephew and son-in-law, decided it was time to take charge, depose his uncle, and guarantee that England would remain Protestant so that it could help in the war against France. Thus the Glorious Revolution deposes James II, places William III (of Orange) and his wife, Mary II, on the throne, and guarantees another decade of warfare to insure his Protestant ideals win the day in Great Britain. The war really didn't end until 1714 when the Protestant George I ascended the throne in opposition to more than 50 better, albeit Catholic, claimants. Great Britain dates the decline of monarchical power from this war.

War of the Portuguese Succession (1580 –1583): Portugal had a lot of things going for it in the 1570s. A new dynasty had taken the throne and they were represented by some of the finest royals in European history such as Henry the Navigator and João II. Then the inevitable problem occurred. Henry, the elderly Cardinal-King, died with no appointed heir. There wasn't even an obvious heir due to the various succession laws established in Portugal by that time. Since illegitimate lines had ascended before (their House of Aviz was an illegitimate branch of the House of Burgundy), a bastard named Anthony, the prior of Crato, assumed the throne was his since he was the last male of that branch. The only problem was, poor Anthony had some nasty cousins who wanted nothing more than to ring his illegitimate little neck. The oldest of the bunch was Philip II of Spain, legitimate son of the legitimate daughter of Manuel I. He had a huge army and navy and was in close proximity to Portugal from neighboring Spain. Another potential claimant, Catherine, and her potential claimant husband, João I of Bragança, decided to sit out the inevitable war and see who wins. Catherine was the daughter of the youngest son of the family, which stuck her quite forward in the line of succession. João was the representative of an older illegitimate male line that was the senior after Anthony of Crato. The war was short and decisive with Anthony's army crumbling and him running off to the Azores for a few years until Philip finally caught up. With Philip's victory, the Spanish and Portuguese Empires, the largest in the entire world still, became one for a period of sixty years (1580 – 1640). Portugal's decline in world status begins with this period.

War of the Spanish Succession (1701 –1714): No succession war is better known in world history than the War of the Spanish Succession. Its results may not be well known, nor its causes, but it was important nonetheless. In 1701, Charles II of Spain, the sickly and mentally ill child of too many inbred parents, died leaving all his titles and lands to Philip, grandson of Louis XIV of France. William of Orange and Louis had spent nearly four years trying to work out some compromise that would not leave France in possession of its neighbor, Spain. But with Charles' will, the stage was set for a horrendous war that would see the Early Modern Age begin its transformation into the Modern Age. France and Austria were the main combatants, with the majority of Europe siding with Austria to maintain the Balance of Power in Europe. France, though, had the support of much of Spain. The war was the first major conflict, though, that spread to America as well (under the name Queen Anne's War). The fighting was especially fierce and it ended as a marginal loss for France. France lost the Low Countries (Belgium), all of Italy, and Gibralter and Minorca. Philip, now Philip V of Spain, also had to renounce his rights to the French throne (which would later be an issue in the 1830 Revolution in France). Finally, Spain was officially unified, removing all dynastic unions such as King of Castile & León and becoming simply the Kingdom of Spain (with a few exceptions). Spain also began its slow decline because of this war.

War of the Austrian Succession (1740 –1748): I've mentioned this war in detail on the Habsburg case study, so I will just quickly summarize. Emperor Charles VI realized that the Habsburgs were dying so got everyone in Europe to agree to support his daughter and her husband as his heir. As soon as he died, though, Prussia reneged on the deal and Bavaria went crazy because the duke was married to the daughter of an elder branch of the Habsburgs. He won over the Imperial Electors and was elected Emperor as Charles VII but was killed in the war a few years later. That left the stage open for Austria to reclaim its heritage. Maria Theresa, the daughter of Charles VI, launched a campaign that ended with her husband being crowned Emperor as Francis I and her retaining most of her hereditary lands. Prussia ran away with Silesia (north of Bohemia) and a few neighbors took some pickings but most of Austria remained intact. Fighting occurred in North America under the guise of King George's War, so this too was an early world war. The important turn of events for this war, though, was that the German people, divided among more than a hundred provinces, began to see Prussia and Austria as the leaders of a future unified German state (which one was to lead had not yet been determined).

After the 1700s are over, succession wars mostly go to the wayside. Revolutionary wars then take the stage, where monarchies can be overthrown by discontented people rather than fought over after the monarchs die. The French Revolution, Revolutions of 1830, and Revolutions of 1848 all saw the deposition and ascension of monarchs regardless of the mortality status of said monarchs. After the revolutionary period of the 1800s, the 1900s saw the near-complete destruction of European monarchies through revolts during World War I and later popular uprisings.

In the end, succession wars provided a nice excuse to change the status quo in Europe (and sometimes the world). It allowed rival countries with rival claims to make grabs at their neighbors somewhat legitimately. Much of the current make-up of Europe can attribute itself to the results of some of these wars. Thus wars of succession, however poorly based, were a means of redrawing the boundaries and political balance of Europe in a way that is still felt even today.

The Wittelsbach & the War for Southern Germany (The Wittelsbachs)

Greetings everyone and welcome back to another episode of Dynastology. After a rather poor turnout on my last Monarchy Poll, it came out as a tie between the Wittelsbach and Capetians. However, my girlfriend's sister had a standing vote for Wittelsbach so they win the day. Sorry Capetians, your massively extended and inbred family will have to wait for another poll. Now, onto one of the most important understated dynasties in European history:

As it has become rather clear from these case studies, there are many dynasties in European history and the majority of them are not well known by your average non-historian. The Wittelsbach are no exception. If you have heard of them, however, it was probably in their capacity as Kings of Bavaria during the 1800s and 1900s. That title, however, only appeared in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. Indeed, today there are only two branches of this once-sprawling family remaining. The senior branch is known as the Zweibrücken branch while the younger branch is the Birkenfeld branch. They split way back in 1506.

Unlike many European dynasties, the Wittelsbach are important for many reasons. The foremost is that they provided monarchs to around a dozen different regions in Europe throughout their existence. Between 1180, when one became the Duke of Bavaria, and 1918, when the last king was forced to abdicate his titles, the Wittelsbach possessed at some point the titles of Holy Roman Emperor, King of the Romans, King of Hungary, Anti-King of Bohemia, King of Denmark & Norway, King of Sweden, King of Greece, King of Bavaria, Elector of Bavaria, Elector Palatine, Elector of Brandenburg, Elector of Cologne, Duke of Bavaria, Duke of Jülich & Berg, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Margrave of Brandenburg, Count of Holland, Count of Hainaut, and Count of Zeeland. Mind you, many of these titles were rather short-lived but those of Duke of Bavaria and Elector Palatine were their most important and provided the most definitive separation of the family.

For the most part, only Bavaria and the Palatinate matter in regard to the Wittelsbach. The other titles drifted in and out of the family at the Holy Roman Emperor's will or through marriage and different succession laws. For those of you who don't know where these two places are, allow me to assist. The County Palatine of the Rhine refers to an Imperial county (directly accountable only to the emperor, making it higher than all other counties) found north of Württemberg (in Germany), east of Luxembourg and south of Hesse (in Germany). Bavaria is the region east of the Palatinate with its capital at Munich. To make it really easy, look at a map of Germany: pretty much the entire eastern part of the region that kind of hangs low on the southwest side of Germany comprises the Palatinate and Bavaria.

Those two major branches of the family split in the Treaty of Pavia of 1329. Thus the family became divided and remained so until 1777. There were, however, some titles that were indivisible and those went to the senior line. While Count Palatine of the Rhine, the title inherited by the elder line, appears to be a lesser title than Duke of Bavaria, the first counts actually held the additional title of Dukes of Upper Bavaria (which was, of course, lower than Lower Bavaria, geographically speaking). In 1356 the Palatinate became an Imperial Electorate, meaning that they got a vote in all Imperial politics including the election of new Holy Roman Emperors. This solidly put this family in a leading position over their Bavarian cousins who didn't receive their electoral titles for two nearly hundred more years.

The problem with the Palatine Wittelsbach was that they just kept producing too many kids. In 1410 the family broke into six branches and never fully reunited again. Each son took with him a fragment of the Palatinate and the Count Palatine of the x title. Thus if you ever see a title somewhere that is Count Palatine of the x, it is one of these Wittelsbach lines. All except the Birkenfeld line have since expired but they all served to distract and divide the senior branch of the Wittelsbach. When the family went Protestant before the Thirty Years War and the Elector Palatine tried to get elected King of Bohemia, they earned an expulsion from the Empire by the Holy Roman Emperor. The Bavarian branch swept in and grabbed the electoral titles and all the lands of the Palatinate. At the end of the war, the Counts Palatine got their titles and lands back, but the Bavarians kept their electoral titles and the Emperor had to grant them a new issuance...conveniently lower in rank than the Bavarian Wittelsbach.

The Bavarian branch of the family was junior in status but descended from Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV. In addition, for a number of generations the branch possessed the title of Margrave of Brandenburg. In 1356, Brandenburg, alongside the Palatinate, became an Imperial Electorate, placing the still closely-related family in possession of two electoral titles. Unfortunately, within a few generations the Bavarian branch of the family lost Brandenburg and started its slow descent into obscurity. Early on, in 1349, the branch had sub-divided into four branches dispersing the Bavarian power-base. Fortunately for them, they were able to come back together by 1505, many years before the Palatine branch decentralized.

The Bavarian Wittelsbach were very influential in the region and championed themselves as protectors of the Catholic faith once the Reformation began in the 1520s. It was for this reason that they succeeded so well at the expense of their relatives during the Thirty Years War. Once they became an electorate with better status than the Palatine branch, they started to become more powerful in the Empire as a whole. So much so, in fact, that one of them was elected the only non-Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor since the 1400s in 1742. But that was their high point. In 1777, the last male member of the Bavarian Wittelsbach died, leaving the electorate in the hands of the Palatine line.

Following the short War of the Bavarian Succession, it was determined that the Palatine branch would inherit the entirety of the Bavarian estates. In 1799, all but one of the other Palatine sub-branches died off, leaving the entire Wittelsbach estate in the hands of Maximilian, who would be crowned the first king of Bavaria in 1806 with permission from Napoleon. The Palatinate and Bavaria were now one and were independent, the Holy Roman Empire being dissolved that same year. Unfortunately the next seven decades were not kind to them. Ludwig I abdicated during the 1848 revolutions. His son, Maximilian II, sided with the wrong side in the Austria-Prussia conflict that dominated Germany in the mid-1800s. His son, Ludwig II, was considered "Mad" and spent most of his time building fairy-tale castles in the Bavarian Alps, leaving rule to his relatives. From 1871, Bavaria became a client kingdom in the new, Protestant-run German Empire. Having adopted the Catholic faith following the merger of the family back in 1777, the Wittelsbach were looked on with suspicion by the German Emperors. When the Bavarian king attempted to secede from the German Empire during World War I, it only validated those suspicions. The king failed, though, and was forced to abdicate in 1918 at the end of the war. The family which had ruled in Bavaria for 738 years was finally without a throne.

The Wittelsbach family still exists today in many branches but all descended from the royal family save one. The senior line call themselves Dukes of Bavaria while the junior line, the Birkenfeld branch which split off way back in 1506, call themselves Dukes in Bavaria…to not confuse things, ya know? The current titular king is still quite wealthy and still lives in Munich today, his family having returned to Germany a generation ago.

Overall, the dynastological importance of the House of Wittelsbach cannot be overlooked. The size and extent of their family and its holdings throughout the past 850 years is enough alone to merit it some importance in dynastological research. However, the sheer amount of daughters married off to prominent other royal families, as well as the number of wives from those families who married Wittelsbach suggest that this family was, without question, a central part of the European royal marriage scheme in the Early Modern era. The House of Hanover in Great Britain descended through a Wittelsbach princess, Sophia, who was the only Protestant member of all the Stuart distaff (female) lines. While today their territories may have been consumed in the larger German Republic, their legacy remains in the culture and heritage of the Bavarian region of Germany which still considers, both legally and culturally, its capital to be the former royal city of Munich.