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What is a count? or a duke? or a baron?
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I know these are royal terms but how are they royal and how do you become
them?
What is their duty in the court? What's the difference between
them? What are they? What is the hierarchy of noble titles?
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Duke, count, baron, baronet, chevalier, knight...
These are not "royal " titles, there are the titles of "nobility" that arose
in Europe during the transition period between the end of the Western
Roman Empire (476) to the rise of the "new" European monarchies
(c.1000.) Through this period, Europe was flooded again and again with
various migrating or plundering people. The Huns (c. 400,) The German
tribes (450-500,) the Muslim invasion (711 - 732,) The Viking raids and
conquests ( 793 - 1000,) and the Magyar raids (899 - 950.) The attempts
of distant authorities, like the pope in Rome or the emperor in
Constantinople, to "delegate" power, and the attempts of local leaders
to fill a power "gap" led to the assumption and creation of "new"
titles of authority and power.
The title Duke, for instance, comes from the Latin term dux or
leader/commander. The historical figure of King Arthur may been an
early example of the change of the title dux or duke from military
commander to territorial lord. " Indeed, he (Arthur) is called dux
bellorum in the Historia Brittonum, which suggests a memory of late
Roman military titles, and may indicate some sort of unified command
arranged between several petty kingdoms." Sheppard Frere in "Britannia"
The title Count came from an administrative office of the early
Frankish kings (Merovingian and Carolingian rulers of France,) The
title outlasted the Frankish empire (Charlemagne) and the inheritors of
the office became the "counts" of the middle ages. (The title of count
merged with the Anglo-Saxon conception of Earl in England.)
In the "new" Europe of constant warfare, freedom was defined by the
ability to fight, Baron. later the lowest title of nobility, derives
from the old Frankish word "baro" which means freeman or man. Like
these other titles of nobility as Europe settled into monarchies (in
England after1066,) baron changed from a title of a free warrior to a
title of the tenants-in-chief (land owners) who held their lands
directly from the king. Gradually, a distinction between the greater
and lesser nobles emerged, so that a hierarchy of titles arose, first
in France and Germany in the years 900-1000 and later in England. So
that by the Beginning of the "high" middle ages ( c.1000) the ranks of
nobility were established.
The title Chevalier is French lowest title for nobleman. It came from Frankish word "horseman", which basically means a freeman on a horse - a knight.
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