How Did Royalty Start?

[Jack]

I often wondered how the European kingdoms began. Did tribal chiefs or warriors become national rulers? That would be my first guess. It's surprisingly difficult to find answers to this question.

[praetorian]

It depends from what timeframe you are talking. You mean the first Kings? I only know how the medieval ones came up, and it was mostly the way you described. Certainly the same thing happened with the first ones.

[whateva]

Notions of luck are important in relation to the move from small chieftans to larger kingdoms.

Back in the days there was a strong belief that luck was a character trait that could be inherited. it's a bit hard to explain the notion of luck at that time but you should imagine it as something like an inheritable trait like eye or hair colour but at the same time something that would sort of radiate from a lucky person to people aroudn him or even people a far who were on good terms with him.

So typically you would have a small chief running basically an extended family on the merits of him being wise or strong or most likely both. Then if such a chieftan were able to appear lucky repeadetly like through unlikely victory in battles or making it through a harsh storm that chief got a reputation for being lucky.

Thus people from around would flock to that chief in order to cash in on his luck. This way the chief would get bigger armies, more land and more treasure. With the reinforcements he could then go on to win more battles, avoid more natural disasters etc.

For as long as he kept being "lucky" people would join ranks with him in order to bath in the radiance of his luck and so if he was over all lucky over a long enough term he would eventually have become a major king.

Of course while there was no such thing as heriditary thrones his sons would have been favored as kings under the assumption that they might have inherited their fathers luck.

[Jack]

praetorian said:

It depends from what timeframe you are talking. You mean the first Kings? I only know how the medieval ones came up, and it was mostly the way you described. Certainly the same thing happened with the first ones.

I referred to the time after the height of the Roman Empire, which might not have been clear from what I wrote. It fascinates me because some members of the same royal lines have titles in 2007, although they're figureheads now.

[kadu]

If going after the first rulers, they first appeared when Hunters turned into agriculturalists, some didn't settled, this ones, started to attack sedentary communities that didn't know how to defends themeselves, in order to stop this attacks, those warriors made demands to the sedentary agriculturalists peasants ordering them to provide whatever they needed.

[praetorian]

The Barbarian Tribes simply imposed themselves on the populace, and whoever was the king of the tribe became their king as well.

The question would be, how did those guys became kings of their tribes in the first place? What puzzles me most is that concept of hereditary sucession. I can understand a fierce warrior and leader becomming King, but why would such function be immediatly passed unto their children? Whateva's post is interesting. Most likely they thought the son would have the same characteristics, but we know that wasn't necessarely so...wouldn't they realise how falible the system? Why not let the best warriors/leaders duke it out?
Perhaps that did happened (it certainly happened sometimes in more modern times), but it was realized that very little stabily was brought through it?
The alternative were elective monarchies which also existed, and seem to have been more common that what people may think.

[Jack]

whateva said:

Notions of luck are important in relation to the move from small chieftans to larger kingdoms.

Back in the days there was a strong belief that luck was a character trait that could be inherited. it's a bit hard to explain the notion of luck at that time but you should imagine it as something like an inheritable trait like eye or hair colour but at the same time something that would sort of radiate from a lucky person to people aroudn him or even people a far who were on good terms with him.

So typically you would have a small chief running basically an extended family on the merits of him being wise or strong or most likely both. Then if such a chieftan were able to appear lucky repeadetly like through unlikely victory in battles or making it through a harsh storm that chief got a reputation for being lucky.

Thus people from around would flock to that chief in order to cash in on his luck. This way the chief would get bigger armies, more land and more treasure. With the reinforcements he could then go on to win more battles, avoid more natural disasters etc.

For as long as he kept being "lucky" people would join ranks with him in order to bath in the radiance of his luck and so if he was over all lucky over a long enough term he would eventually have become a major king.

Of course while there was no such thing as heriditary thrones his sons would have been favored as kings under the assumption that they might have inherited their fathers luck.

That's as good as any other theory, and it makes sense. Did you come up with this by yourself, or did you hear or read this from another source? You have a great imagination if you came up with this by yourself. It's a cool theory.

[praetorian]

The Barbarian Tribes simply imposed themselves on the populace, and whoever was the king of the tribe became their king as well.

The question would be, how did those guys became kings of their tribes in the first place? What puzzles me most is that concept of hereditary sucession. I can understanda fierce warrior and leader becomming King, but why would such function be immediatly passed unto their children? Whateva's post is interesting. Most likely they thought the son would have the same characteristics, but we know that wasn't necessarely so...wouldn't they realise how falible the system? Why not let the best warriors/leaders duke it out?
Perhaps that did happened (it certainly happened sometimes in more modern times), but it was realized that very little stabily was brought through it?
The alternative were elective monarchies which also existed, and seem to have been more common that what people may think.

But I'm sorry Jack, I am still not sure if you want to discuss the concept of royalty/monarchy or how the story went..I was mostly answering to the first. For the second Wikipedia would be a good place to learn. It was basically that, Germanics (mostly) invade, sometimes at the request of the Roman Emperor to help them agains other Barbarians, and they eventually take the provinces for themselves. Most of the first Kingdoms didn't last long. I think the French one is the oldest, the English one is quite old too. In Iberia we had two, one conquered the other and the the Moors conquered it too. Except for a smal region in the far north, from which the Reconquista spread out, suposedely iniciated by a descendant of the Visigothic Kings. I don't know if the modern monarchs, even the putative ones descend from those first king. Many changes of dinasty, though they were always suposedely related.

[Jack]

kadu said:

If going after the first rulers, they first appeared when Hunters turned into agriculturalists, some didn't settled, this ones, started to attack sedentary communities that didn't know how to defends themeselves, in order to stop this attacks, those warriors made demands to the sedentary agriculturalists peasants ordering them to provide whatever they needed.

That's probably a good explanation of how royalty started in the world, but I was referring to Europe after the height of the Roman Empire. Your theory has merit, though.

[Jack]

praetorian said:

The Barbarian Tribes simply imposed themselves on the populace, and whoever was the king of the tribe became their king as well.

The question would be, how did those guys became kings of their tribes in the first place? What puzzles me most is that concept of hereditary sucession. I can understand a fierce warrior and leader becomming King, but why would such function be immediatly passed unto their children? Whateva's post is interesting. Most likely they thought the son would have the same characteristics, but we know that wasn't necessarely so...wouldn't they realise how falible the system? Why not let the best warriors/leaders duke it out?
Perhaps that did happened (it certainly happened sometimes in more modern times), but it was realized that very little stabily was brought through it?
The alternative were elective monarchies which also existed, and seem to have been more common that what people may think.

Perhaps religious beliefs played parts in the creation and continuation of the idea of primogeniture. The people often believed that the kings were established by God. To question the king was to question God, in their minds. The heirs to the throne were extensions of the king, who supposedly ruled by divine right.

[Fred]

It's worth noting that the two most prominent royal families of the Middle Ages, the Capetians and the Angevins, both had humble origins. Prior to Fulk the Red, or Fulco Rufus, Count of Anjou, the most prominent Angevin was a forester. But the ancestors of Robert the Strong, progenitor of the Capetians, were so humble that we don't even know their names!

Of course this means that these two great "families" were originally much lesser in status than even small barons or chieftains of minor clans. In fact, it seems that Western European royal families were quite often founded by "soldiers of fortune", as they say, and not the hereditary aristocracies.

Exceptions to this were the Tudors, and indeed all of the Celtic dynasties, who did have noble origins. And the Carolingians were able to trace their ancestry back to the early Frankish kings, the Anglo-Saxon dynasties to the conquest period.

[whateva]

jack said:

That's as good as any other theory, and it makes sense. Did you come up with this by yourself, or did you hear or read this from another source? You have a great imagination if you came up with this by yourself. It's a cool theory.

I developed it further but it was kind of indicated in a history book I read the author saying briefly that luck was thought to run in families and that this would affect peoples choice of leader.

I don't have a source for it in English though.. not even for luck being thought to be hereditary. I'm under the impression though that it's pretty common knowledge that such notions of luck were widespread at least in the Germanic world.

Hmm... wonder if Somer is on this board... he might have input to this.

[Jack]

fred said:

It's worth noting that the two most prominent royal families of the Middle Ages, the Capetians and the Angevins, both had humble origins. Prior to Fulk the Red, or Fulco Rufus, Count of Anjou, the most prominent Angevin was a forester. But the ancestors of Robert the Strong, progenitor of the Capetians, were so humble that we don't even know their names!

Of course this means that these two great "families" were originally much lesser in status than even small barons or chieftains of minor clans. In fact, it seems that Western European royal families were quite often founded by "soldiers of fortune", as they say, and not the hereditary aristocracies.

Exceptions to this were the Tudors, and indeed all of the Celtic dynasties, who did have noble origins. And the Carolingians were able to trace their ancestry back to the early Frankish kings, the Anglo-Saxon dynasties to the conquest period.

We can't forget the Merovingians, who preceded those dynasties. They might have been blondes rather than redheads, though. ;-)

[Jack]

whateva said:

jack said:

That's as good as any other theory, and it makes sense. Did you come up with this by yourself, or did you hear or read this from another source? You have a great imagination if you came up with this by yourself. It's a cool theory.

I developed it further but it was kind of indicated in a history book I read the author saying briefly that luck was thought to run in families and that this would affect peoples choice of leader.

I don't have a source for it in English though.. not even for luck being thought to be hereditary. I'm under the impression though that it's pretty common knowledge that such notions of luck were widespread at least in the Germanic world.

Hmm... wonder if Somer is on this board... he might have input to this.

I can see how people would think that. Some families seem to be unlucky. Just look at the so-called Kennedy curse for an example. John and Robert are murdered, and Ted possibly kills a girl during the same decade.

[Fael]

I'm staying mostly within the NW-European sphere concering royalty since I don't have timeline of Mediterranean nobles in my head atm.

However this Germanic example might give some example of the birth of modern royalty.


Dark age royalty in the mainland of Western-Europe was founded in Francia by the Merovingians and later better built out by the Karolingians (an advanced feudal system of different counts etc..), in England it was created by the Anglo-Saxons. The Skandinavian peninsula, Danemark and the Frisian coasts had a more primair system qua nobility in post-roman times although it evenatually got also more feudal in structure.

The old Germanic royalty in a sense of tyrans/leaders was virtual non-existant because like Whateva said it was "luck".
The pre-Roman Germanics had kings but they where mostly vegetation/fertility symbols according to Tacitus, these had however already a royal ancestry in paternal or maternal line.

Concerning wartime also the luck factor was important to some extent the 70's term of "mojo" could be similar, e.g Arminius had mojo.

In late Roman times the germanics have changed, the elite is now mostly warlike. The early warlords of mojo have atracted local freemen who assigned themself to the family of the different warlords. These men are named Huskerls or similar meaning a free man (karl/kerl) asigned to a house (hus).
In exchange fior thewir loyalty these men got a part of the bounty during wartime. In case of expansion or immigration they got a share of land.

When these Huskerls got more powerfull the luckier ones (who had more profit) had more free men joining their ranks on turn, in low/high-German these men are called krijger/krieger (meaning: those who get).

I guess at this speed slowly a levelled system came into existence. Of course if a huskerl at some point got more luck (popular/mojo) as the local Jarl/Earl/Edelman/Nobleman they could overthrow the local elite sometimes especially if the local elite didn't have had much luck/mojo recently (like Hrotghar in Beowulf).