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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, at least cognatic. A (male-line) dynasty is also often called a "house", e.g. the House of Saud or House of Habsburg (House generally is a Western concept, and usually is limited to agnatic lineage). 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", "Romanov decadence". Historians traditionally consider a state's history within a framework of successive dynasties, particularly with such nations as China, Ancient Egypt and the Persian Empire. Much of European political history was dominated, successively and together, by dynasties such as the Carolingians, the Capetians, the Habsburgs, the Stuarts, the Hohenzollerns and the Romanovs. 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.[1] 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, Valois and Burgundy 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 Peter III were also agnatic descendants.
DynastsA 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. For instance, the 2002 marriage of Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange to Máxima Zorreguieta was dynastic, and their eldest child is expected to eventually inherit the Dutch crown. But the marriage of his younger brother Prince Johan-Friso to Mabel Wisse Smit in 2003 lacked government support and parliamentary approval. Thus Johan-Friso forfeited his place in the order of succession, lost his title as a Prince of the Netherlands, and his children have no dynastic rights. 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. For example, after the 1914 assassinations of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his morganatic wife Sophie von Hohenberg, their son Max was bypassed for the Austrian throne because he was not legally a dynastic Habsburg. Even since abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Max and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position.
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. Dynasties by regionAfricaMorocco
AmericasBrazil
Haiti
Mexico
PacificHawai'i
New Zealand Māori
TahitiTonga
AsiaAfghanistan
IsraelChina
JapanKorea
IndiaMaldives
Malaysia
Thailand
EuropeAlbaniaArmenia
BarbariansBavariiFranks
Lombards
Ostrogoths
VandalsVisigothsByzantine Empire
CroatiaDenmark
England
France
Germany
Bavaria
Saxony
Hungary
Montenegro
IberiaAragónAsturiasCastile | |||||||
