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Dynasty

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For other uses, see Dynasty (disambiguation)}}}.
A dynasty is a succession of rulers who belong to the same family for generations. A dynasty is also often called a "house", e.g. the House of Saud or House of Habsburg. The term is also used to describe the era during which that family reigned, as well as events, trends and artifacts of the period, e.g. "Ming dynasty vase". In such cases, often the "dynasty" is dropped but the name may be used adjectively, e.g. "Tudor style", "Ottoman expansion", "Romanoff decadence", etc.

Historians traditionally recount China's story within a framework of successive dynasties (See Dynasties in Chinese history). A series of dynasties possibly dating back to the Xia (2033 BC) ruled China until the end of the Xinhai Revolution in 1912. A similar pattern happened in Ancient Egypt and the Persian Empire, and dynasties such as the Carolingians, the Capetians, the Bourbons, the Habsburgs, the Stuarts, the Hohenzollerns and the Romanovs successively and together dominated much of European political history. Until the nineteenth century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty, that is, to increase the territory, wealth and power of family members.

Who is a dynast

A ruler in a dynasty is sometimes referred to as a dynast, but this term is also used to describe any member of a reigning family who retains succession rights to a throne. For example, following his abdication, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom ceased to be a dynastic member of the House of Windsor. A "dynastic marriage" is one that complies with monarchical house law restrictions, so that the descendants are eligible to inherit the throne and/or other royal privileges. In historical and monarchist references to formerly reigning families, dynastic describes a family member who would have succession rights if the monarchy's rules were still in force.

Confusingly, "dynast" is sometimes used to refer to agnatic descendants of a realm's monarchs, and sometimes to those who hold succession rights through cognatic royal descent. The term can therefore describe overlapping but distinct sets of people. For example, David Armstrong-Jones, Viscount Linley, a nephew of Queen Elizabeth II through her late sister, Princess Margaret, is in the line of succession to the British crown, and in that sense is a British dynast. Yet he is not a male-line member of the royal family, and is therefore not a dynast of the House of Windsor.

On the other hand, the German aristocrat Ernst August, Prince of Hanover (born 1954), although a male-line descendant of George III of the United Kingdom, is too distantly related to the present sovereign to be entitled to one of the styles reserved for Britain's royal family (although he is entitled to re-claim the once-royal dukedom of Cumberland). Yet he was born in the line of succession to the British crown and is bound by the Royal Marriages Act 1772. Thus, in 1999 he requested and obtained formal permission from Elizabeth II to marry Princess Caroline of Monaco. But immediately upon marriage he forfeited his (remote) claim to the British throne because she is a Roman Catholic and Ernst August is also bound by the English Act of Settlement 1701 which permanently deprives dynasts of succession rights upon marriage to a Roman Catholic. However, the couple's daughter, Princess Alexandra of Hanover (born 1999), remains a legal dynast of both the United Kingdom and Monaco, not to mention her father's claim to dynasticity as pretender to the former royal crown of Hanover.

Dynastic names may not be the same as individual surnames, in that titles are customarily used instead. Or the name of the dynasty may follow the throne by descending through females, e.g. the current heads of the dynasties of Grimaldi, Habsburg, Orange and Romanov actually descend paternally from, respectively, the houses of Polignac (Chalençon), Lorraine, Lippe and Oldenburg. Also, often a new dynastic name does not signal an altogether different family, so much as a new branch of the dynasty that has obtained the throne: kings of the House of Anjou, Bourbon, Orléans and Braganza dynasties were all male-line descendants of Hugh Capet of France and are collectively called Capetians. Thus, by a royal decree of 1960 the British ruling dynasty remains the House of Windsor, despite the present Queen having married Philip Mountbatten, who is by birth a prince of the reigning Danish dynasty of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, itself a branch of the House of Oldenburg, of which the Romanovs descended from Catherine the Great were also agnatic descendants.

Dynasties by region

See Early kings of the Lombards.

Florence

House of Medici

Political families in democracies

Though in democratic governments rule does not pass automatically by inheritance, political power often accrues to generations of related individuals. Eminence, Influence, familiarity, tradition and even nepotism may contribute to this phenomenon. See, for example, the list of U.S. political families, which includes the Roosevelts, Kennedys, Adamses, and most recently, the Bushes.

Apart from the United States case, political dynasties also occur commonly in other parts of the world. Note especially:

In many parts of Europe, the persistence of aristocratic families and their varying titles may serve to disguise some of the on-going influence of several political dynasties (as opposed to the royal dynasties which have provided monarchs). In the United Kingdom these include:

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
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