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A duke is a Nobleman , historically of highest rank below the King or Queen, and usually controlling a Duchy . The title comes from the Latin '' Dux '', which had the sense of "military commander" and was employed both by the Germanic Peoples themselves and by the Roman authors covering them to refer to their war leaders. In the Middle Ages , the title signified first, among the Germanic Monarchies . The dukes were the rulers of the provinces and the superiors of the Count s in the cities, and later, in the Feudal Monarchies , the highest-ranking peers of the king. There were, however, variants of these meanings, and there were even sovereign princes employing ducal titles. In the Modern Age , it has become a nominal rank without an actual principality. It is still the highest titular Peerage in France , Portugal , Spain , the United Kingdom , and Italy . A woman who holds in her own right the title to such duchy or dukedom, or is the wife of a duke, is normally styled duchess. However, Elizabeth II Of The United Kingdom is known as Duke Of Normandy in the Channel Islands . HISTORY Roman Empire See Also: dux Originally, ''dux'' was a title given to a general commanding a single military expedition or army and holding no other power than that which he exercised over his soldiers. The designation, first applied to barbarian tribal leaders, became a formal Roman title in the Roman Empire over time. Upon the separation of the civil and military functions in the fourth century, the ''dux'' became commander of all the troops contained in a military territory, often corresponding to one or more Provinces ; this Roman rank was below the similar '' Comes Rei Militaris ''. To avoid the connotations of the modern "dukes," Roman military leaders are usually called ''duces''. Middle Ages During the Middle Ages following the collapse of Roman power in Western Europe, the title was still employed in the Germanic kingdoms, most often to the rulers of the old Roman provinces. Visigoths The Visigoths retained the Roman divisions of their kingdom in Spain and it seems that dukes ruled over these. They were the highest magnates in the land and, together with the bishops, elected the king, usually from their own file. They were the military commanders and in this capacity often acted independently of the king, especially in the last days of the kingdom. The army was structured decimally with the highest unit, the Thiufa , probably corresponding to about one thousand men from each ''civitas'', city district. The cities were commanded by the counts, who were in turn responsible to the dukes, who called up the ''thiufae'' when need be. Lombards When the Lombards entered Italy, the Latin chroniclers called their war leaders ''duces'' in the old fashion. These leaders eventually became the provincial rulers, each with a recognized seat of government. Though nominally loyal to the king, the concept of kingship was new to the Lombards and the dukes were highly independent, especially in central and southern Italy, where the Duke Of Spoleto and the Duke Of Benevento were ''de facto'' sovereigns. In 575 , when Cleph died, a period known as the Rule Of The Dukes , in which the dukes governed without a king, commenced. It lasted only a decade before the disunited magnates, in order to defend the kingdom from external attacks, elected a new king and even diminished their own duchies to provide him with a handsome royal Demesne . The Lombard kings were usually drawn from the dukes when the title was not hereditary. The dukes tried to make their own offices hereditary. Beneath them in the internal structure were the counts and Gastald s, a uniquely Lombard title initially referring to judicial functions, similar to a count's, in provincial regions. Franks The Franks employed dukes as the governors of Roman provinces, though they also led military expeditions far away from their duchies. The dukes were the highest ranking officials in the realm, were more typically Franks than the counts (who were often Gallo-Romans), and formed the class from which the kings' generals were drawn in times of war. The dukes gathered every May with the king to converse on policy for the upcoming year, the so-called Mayfield . In Burgundy and Provence , the titles of Patrician and Prefect were commonly employed in preference to duke, probably for historical reasons relating to the greater Romanization of those provinces. The titles, however, were basically equivalent. In late dynasty in France in 987 . =Stem duchies See Also: stem duchy In the early tenth century, with Carolingian authority waning in East Francia , the various tribal regions, which had in the past been ruled by ''duces'' under Frankish overlordship, began to fall naturally under the leadership and rule of dukes. These duchies, called Stem Duchies , have been the subject of great historical controversy. Their origins and how they came about have been the source of great dispute, much of it political. The original stem duchies which made up East Francia (Germany) were Saxony , Franconia , Bavaria , Swabia , and Lotharingia . The tenth through twelfth centuries were often filled with conflict between the dukes, who thought of themselves as hereditary princes on whom the king depended for his election, and the kings, who considered themselves the dukes' suzerains and those whom the dukes represented to the tribes. The dukes, on the other hand, often saw themselves as the tribes' representatives to the king. England =Anglo-Saxon times The highest political division beneath that of kingdom among the Anglo-Saxons was the Ealdormanry and, while the title ealdorman was replaced by the Danish ''eorl'' (later Earl ) over time, the first ealdormen were referred to as ''duces'' in the chronicles. Thus, in Anglo-Saxon England, where the Roman political divisions were largely abandoned, the grade of duke was retained as supreme territorial magnate after the king. =Late medieval times The Black Prince was created Duke Of Cornwall in 1337 . He was the first proper Duke to be created by a King of England . To celebrate this event six new Earl s were created. In the Patent creating the new Earl Of Salisbury , on 16 March 1337, the King refers also to this higher Honour as: ''"willing more securely to establish the Royal sceptre as well as by the addition of new honours as by the restoration of old ones, and to augment the number of nobles by whose counsels our realm may be directed in doubtful, and by whose suffrages be supported in adverse circumstances, have advanced our most dear first begotten Edward (whom in the prerogative of honour as is meet, we have caused to have precedence of others) to be Duke of Cornwall, over which awhile ago Dukes for a long time successively presided as chief rulers..."'' The Modern Age In the 19th century, the sovereign dukes of Parma and Modena in Italy , and of Anhalt , Brunswick-Lüneburg , Nassau (state) , Saxe-Coburg-Gotha , Saxe-Meiningen and Saxe-Altenburg in Germany survived Napoleon's reorganization. Since the unification of Italy in 1870 and the end of monarchy in Germany in 1918, there have no longer been any Reign ing dukes in Europe; Luxembourg is ruled by a Grand Duke , a higher title, just below King. In the United Kingdom, the inherited position of a duke along with its dignities, privileges, and rights is a s of England , Scotland , Great Britain, Ireland and the United Kingdom, held by twenty-four different people (see List Of Dukes In Order Of Precedence ). EQUIVALENTS IN OTHER EUROPEAN LANGUAGES ''See Equivalents Of Duke In Other European Languages .'' ROYAL DUKES Various royal houses traditionally awarded (mainly) dukedoms to the sons and in some cases, the daughters, of their respective Sovereigns; others include at least one dukedom in a wider list of similarly granted titles, nominal dukedoms without any actual authority, often even without an estate. Such titles are still conferred on royal princes or princesses in the current European monarchies of Belgium, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Other historical cases occurred for example in Denmark, Finland (as Sweden, in personal union) and France, Portugal and some former colonial possessions such as Brazil and Haiti. United Kingdom ''See Dukes In Britain ''
Belgium In Belgium , the title of Duke Of Brabant (historically the most prestigious in the Low Countries , and containing the federal capital Brussels ), if still vacant, has been awarded preferentially to the eldest son and Heir Presumptive of the King, other male dynasts receiving various lower historical titles (much older than Belgium, and in principle never fallen to the Belgian crown), such as Count of Flanders (king Leopold III's so-titled brother held the title when he became the realm's temporary head of state as Prince-regent ) and Prince of Liège (a secularised version of the historical Prince-bishop ric; e.g. the present king Albert II until he succeeded his older brother Baudouin I ) Denmark Denmark's kings gave appanages in their twin-duchies of Schleswig-Holstein (now three-fourths of them is part of Germany, but then the Holstein half of it was part of HRE in personal union with Denmark proper) to younger sons and/or their male-line descendants, with a specific though not sovereign title of Duke, e.g. Duke Of Gottorp , Duke Of Sonderburg , Duke Of Augustenborg , Duke Of Franzhagen , Duke Of Beck , Duke Of Glucksburg and Duke Of Norburg . Iberian peninsula When the Christian Reconquista , sweeping the Moors from the former Caliphate Of Cordoba and its Taifa-remnants , transformed the territory of former Suevic and Visigothic realms into Catholic Feudal principalities, none of these war lords was exactly styled Duke, a few (as Portugal Itself ) started as Count (even if the title of Dux was sometimes added), but soon all politically relevant princes were to use the royal style of King . Portugal ''See List Of Dukedoms In Portugal .'' Spain Spanish (Infanta Maria del Pilar), HRH The Duchess Of Soria (Infanta Margarita) (although she inherited the title of Duchess of Hernani from her cousin and is second holder of that title), HRH The Duchess Of Lugo (Infanta Elena) and HRH The Duchess Of Palma De Mallorca (Infanta Cristina). In Spain many dukes hold the court rank of ''Grande'', i.e. Grandee of the realm, which had precedence over all other feudatories. ''See List Of Dukedoms In Spain .'' Finland and Sweden See Also: Dukes of Swedish Provinces Sweden had a history of making sons of its Kings real ruling princes of vast Duchies , but this ceased in 1622 . Title-wise, however, all Swedish princes since 1772 , and princesses since 1980 , are given a dukedom for life. Currently, there is one duke and three duchesses. The territorial designations of these dukedoms refer to four of the Provinces Of Sweden . Key parts of Finland were sometimes under a Duke Of Finland during the Swedish reign. France and other former monarchies See Appanage (mainly for the French kingdom) and the list in the geographical section below, which also treats special ducal titles in orders or national significance. ''For France, see below'' FRANCE The highest precedence in the realm, attached to a feudal territory, was given to the twelve original Pairie s, which also had a traditional function in the royal coronation, comparable to the German imperial archoffices. Half of them were ducal: three ecclesiastical (the six prelates all ranked above the six secular peers of the realm) and three temporal, each time above three counts of the same social estate: The '' Prince-Bishop s'' with ducal territories among them were:
Later, the Archbishop Of Paris was given the title of '' Duc De Saint-Cloud '' with the dignity of peerage, but it was debated if he was an ecclesiastical peer or merely a bishop holding a lay peerage. The secular dukes in the peerage of the realm were, again in order of precedence:
It should be noted what the theory of the participation of the peers in the coronation was laid down in the late XIIIth Century , when some of the peerage (the duchy of Normandy and the county of Toulouse) had already been merged in the crown. At the end of this same century, the King erected some counties into duchies, a practice what went increasing till the Revolution. Many of this duchies were also peerages (the so-called 'new peerages'). ''For more information see Dukes In France .'' COLONIAL TITLES In various Spanish-American viceroyalties (one dukedom in present s; in Panama only Duque de Veragua, also Grande de España; in Peru San Carlos and Buono, again Grandees; in several other Spanish American countries only lower titles were created) and on the Canary Islands In other colonial empires, notably as Victory Title s. ITALY, GERMANY AND AUSTRIA See '' Dukes In Italy, Germany And Austria ''. ELSEWHERE IN EUROPE Nordic
Hungary In the Kingdom Of Hungary no ducal principalities existed but duchies were often formed for members of the dynasty as Appanage . During the rule of the Árpád Dinasty dukes held territorial powers, some of them even minted coins, but later this title became more often nominal. These duchies usually were
In the Jagellonian era (1490-1526) only two dukes did not belong to the royal dynasty: John Corvin (the illegitimate son of Matthias Corvinus ) and Lőrinc Újlaki (whose father was the king of Bosnia ), while both bore the title as royal dukes. After the Battle Of Mohács the Habsburg kings rewarded Hungarian aristocrats (like the Esterházy s) with princely titles, but they created these titles as Holy Roman Emperors, not as kings of Hungary. Greece As the Catholic crusaders overran orthodox parts of the Byzantine empire, they installed several Crusader State s, some of which were of ducal rank:
. Byzantines had used the title Dux, still a military office for them, also territory-specifically: Dux of Dyrrhachium , Dux of Thrakesion . , Duke Of Lemnos . Sometimes in Italy and other Western countries, the later Byzantine appanages were translated as duchies: Peloponnese , Mistra , Mesembria , Selymbria and Thessalonike . However, as these had Greek holders, they were titled Archon ('magistrate') or Despotes (rather Prince of the blood). After Greece's post-Ottoman independence as kingdom of the Hellenes, the style of Duke Of Sparta was instituted as primogeniture for the royal heir, Diadochos , the crown prince of Greece. Slavic countries Generally, confusion reigns whether to translate the usual petty ruler titles, ''knyaz/ knez/ ksiaze'' etc. as Prince (analogous to the German Fürst) or as Duke;
Netherlands After Belgium and the Netherlands separated in 1830, the title of duke didn't occur in the Netherlands anymore. There is, however, one exception; the title ''Hertog van Limburg'' (''Duke of Limburg'') still exists. This title, however, is an exclusive title for the head of state (the monarch, i.e. the king or queen of the Netherlands). POST-COLONIAL NON-EUROPEAN STATES Brazilian empire In this former Portuguese Viceroyalty , after separation ruled by a branch of the Portuguese royal dynasty ( House Of Bragança ), three dukedoms were created (being its highest ranks for non-members of the imperial dynasty), two of which were for illegitimate sons of the Emperor. Haiti The royal Christophe dynasty created eight hereditary dukedoms, in rank directly below the nominal princes. EQUIVALENTS Like other major Western noble titles, Duke is sometimes used to render certain titles in non-western languages with their own traditions, even though they are as a rule etymologically and often historically unrelated and thus hard to compare, which are considered roughly equivalent, especially in hierarchic aristocracies such as feudal Japan, useful as an indication of relative rank. ''For details see Equivalents Of Duke Outside Europe .'' FICTIONAL DUKES AND DUCHESSES
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