The Difference Between “Kings” and “Emperors” | Etymosemanticology
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- Опубліковано 5 лип 2024
- "Because the Romans were weird" is the answer to a lot of questions about why our culture does this or that.
SOME SMALL CORRECTIONS:
1. Calling "Caesar" a "last name" is more questionable than I thought. It was a name that people inherited from their parents, but Roman naming was weird and not exactly analogous to the modern system.
2. I implied that modern Russia was significantly more ethnically diverse than the HRE. I'm not so sure about that anymore. Measuring diversity is hard though, especially for thousand-year-old countries.
I missed a couple of Patrons in the credits:
PokemonTom09/Ruminations (pretend this one's bold)
E3qualsz None (pretend this one's bold)
RTT12
To become a Patron:
/ xidnaf
Intro-song:
"Flight of the Breezies" by Kadenza
• Kadenza - Flight of th...
SOME SMALL CORRECTIONS:
1. Calling "Caesar" a "last name" is more questionable than I thought. It was a name that people inherited from their parents, but Roman naming was weird and not exactly analogous to the modern system.
2. I implied that modern Russia was significantly more ethnically diverse than the HRE. I'm not so sure about that anymore. Measuring diversity is hard though, especially for thousand-year-old countries.
Xidnaf
concerning the holy roman empire: It is probably the most complicated "state" ever. It was neither holy nor roman, and probably no empire either. It wasnt even a kingdom, the kaiser was elected (kinda :D).
Xidnaf well the Holy Roman empire was made up of many nations of which some were kingdoms, principalities and counties. thus making the emperor the Lord of some kings and to signify this calling him kaiser. after his death the largest Lords formed a coucil to elect the next emperor in the German empire before napoleon. later with the clear supremacy of prussia, the prussian king was also German emperor without election.
Nils Wolny at the beginning you wanted to say holy roman right?
yes
Minor note again: the Caesars, at least in the period of Gaius Julius, all used a single hereditary cognomem past from father to son. This was kinda unusual, so far as I understand it. Most old families of distinction with in the major gens would used a hereditary cognomen to make their line of the gens more distinctive and then add a second cognomen unique to each individual still. Technically I believe, from some quick further reading, that these secondary cognomina became known as agnomina which were never hereditary. Though equally agnomen was the term used to describe honourary names bestowed on generals and such (eg. Africanus is described by comtemporary sources as the agnomen of Publicus Cornelius Scipio Africanus). I suppose in this way agnomen were in the late Republic the equivalent of cognomen in the early Republic (and before) bestowed names to distinguish individuals from one another based on deeds done or distinctive characteristics.
You are correct that Roman names are very weird as lineage was of vital importance to Roman men. Their naming conventions evolved to make it easier to track lineages rapidly and thus gain, at a glance, an understanding of another man's position in the social and political hierarchy of Rome.
EDIT: a rough analogy can be drawn to the use of middle names in Europe. I believe in the US middle names are less likely to have significant familial importance and that is becoming the case in Europe too but, for a long time, it would be traditional for the middle name of a child (or their first middle name if they have more than one as I do) to honour a past relative and thus help denote exact direct family lineage within a broader family. It was never as codified and rigid as the Roman system but it is a rough point of comparison.
"Rome lost control of the part of Rome that had Rome in it" Best explanation ever
They wound up getting it back for a little while.
**whispers** they never got Ethiopia...
Joseph Moore Justianian (sp?) is usually ignored in history for some reason. I blame Germans.
They had lost (and "briefly" reclaimed) one of the two cities named Rome. They had retained New Rome.
Something I noticed is that some countries are just the name of their capital. I'm guessing that's why we call eastern Rome the Byzantines. Since before constantine the city was called byzantium. The country is the same its just smaller.
Funnily enough, the word "tsar" became closer to the king in Russian, so when Peter I the Great proclaimed Russia an empire, he changed his title from emperor (tsar) to emperor (imperàtor) and made a big deal out of it.
Даниил Павлов
That's really interesting, because we, here in Germany, kept calling the Russian "kings" Tsars until the monarchy ended
@@pseudoproak everyone did
In Bulgaria we used tsar as equal to empeeor. Our first tsar Simeon the Great 894-927 was regognised for emperor by the eastern Roman empire
Actually Imperator is a bigger title than Emperor and was sometimes describe as such even in Rome. In Rome there also were two titles for the emperors-Avgustus and Caesar. Avgustus was primarily title, while Caesar was used as lower title emperors, often co-emperors.
I think Ivan the Terrible was the first Tsar, while Peter the Great was the first Imperator (part of his westernization program).
I would like to point out that the Byzantine Empire was, for the first half of its existence, a much larger and multinational entity. They just never stopped calling it an Empire.
That changed fairly early after the Arabian Muslim conquests of Egypt, Judea and Syria.
@@Proud2bGreek1 but there were still Greeks, Armenians, Albanians, a few Jews and Copts, and a few Arabs and Persians.
Legally they are still roman
Literally! They couldn't stop calling themselves an Empire, even when all they had was Constantinople
@@Proud2bGreek1 That truly changed after the battle of Manzikert and sack of Constantinople.
BS, you become emperor when you contron at least 52 per cent of a de jure empire and have enough prestige and gold to select "Found an empire" in the "intrigue" screen.
wasn't 80%?
You're right. Seems like I thought of kingdoms for a minute.
no you need 1000 development
More than 80% of an dejure empire or 3 kingdom titles and 8000 prestige
And 75 prestige.
I suppose it is worth noting why Victoria took the title Empress. The German Kaiser was expected to die soon. His son and heir was married to Victoria's daughter who was also named Victoria. That meant that Victoria the Younger would soon become an empress and out rank her mother. That would be something that Victoria the Senior could not tolerate. To prevent it from happening, in 1877 Victoria the Senior was given her own imperial title, Empress of India, and Senior would always be senior at least in time of service as empress. As it was, Victoria the Younger was not empress for long. Her husband outlived his father by only 99 days. In 1888, she became Empress Dowager as her son became Kaiser Wilhelm the First. Both Victorias lived until 1901.
While Victoria was Empress of India, she was never (as Xidnaf called her) Queen of England. She was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
At the time that she took Empress of India as a title, the British Raj was massive: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma were all part of it and it was an integral part of the British Empire. She had originally planned to style herself as the Empress of Great Britain, Ireland and India but parliament feared people would think that she's becoming a dictator so she only took Empress of India as it's important yet removed from the rest of the Empire.
JulesGoldstein It should be noted that Victoria did not call herself Empress on a whim! in fact it was a title bestowed on her, against her wishes I believe, & was essentially to raise her profile in India which had started out as a collection of disparate "kingdoms" (don't know if there's a word for areas ruled by maharajas). I have no idea how the Indians feel about this and would not presume to guess. She didn't need that profile in Europe as she married off most of her kids to European royalty!
The comment by someone about England is correct. The United Kingdom (the hint is the name) is the big island, Ireland is the name of the next one split into the Republic (independent and the the bigger bit) and N Ireland. Then there are about 6000 others, mostly uninhabited but there's plenty of groups of islands such as the Channel Islands, the Orkneys & the solo Isle of Man. This doesn't include the various other countries, dominions, territories and so on. Btw, I'm almost sure that Victoria was Empress of India and Queen of everywhere else. HTH, or at least gets someone interested enough to fact check me and laugh at the bits I got wrong :-)
Maharajah. Now that expands the the vocabulary. It is from Sanskrit and ultimately from Proto Indo European. It has two parts. Rajah has the same root as the Latin rex and the English royal. It means king and by itself is a distinct rank. Maha has the same root as the Latin mega and the English much. So Maharajah literally means great king, or, in other words, emperor. So what do you properly call someone who rules over maharajahs? Perhaps King of Kings of Kings.
Emperor of Emperors?
Quick note from an amateur Classics nerd: Caesar was not a surname as we think of surnames, that is names to denote clan or family heritage and to identify persons of the same family (though that no longer really works given the ways surnames die out over generations and given the sheer level of connectivity in our modern world). Gaius Julius Caesar surname was Julius as his family was part of the gens (roughly clan) Julia.
The problem for the Romans, especially the elite classes, is that individuals were often given the same first names as their ancestors of the same sex including sons and daughters being named after their immediate parents. The Julia gens Caesar belonged to took this to the next level with multiple generations of firstborn sons all being called Gaius Julius. To get round this, Romans used adopted personal names alongside the given personal name. As far as I understand it, the developement and acquistion of a defined cognomen or 'nickname' occured as part of growing up and was an informal sign of maturity. That said, youths with particularly distinctive characteristics might recieve a cognomen quite early.
I've called cognomina 'adopted' names but they were more bestowed names as they were given by the gens as well as the wider community and they were very difficult to shift except through actual physical change or deeds done. If you were called the Latin equivalent of 'Bug-eyed', you could not simply ask people to stop and expect anything to happen unless you had earned the respect of the community and even then it would never disappear entirely. These names grew more complex as the Republic aged with certain cognomina also becoming hereditary in the same manner as both praenomina (parentally given names) and nomina (names denoting clan or 'gens' in Latin) so individuals from particularly old families would end up accruing mutiple cognomina to actually distinguish them as an individual.
Gauis Julius Caesar himself was descended from a father and a grandfather of the same exact three names and so far as I know none of them used additional cognomia to distinguish themselves. Well I suppose his father became known as Gauis Julius Caesar the Elder. This was less of a problem for the men of his immediate family as they all died young and unexpectedly (though not from assassination!) leading to speculations regarding what kind of hereditary illness killed them off and plagued Caesar during his life.
George Laidlaw This was really interesting :D, but what I'm confused about is his reasoning for the title "caesar" of later rulers. Octavian (Augustus) wasn't related to Caesar. As far as I know, he adopted the name as a title to honour his predecessor (they did found the triumvirat to avenge caesar's murder) and then it got passed on to his successors as a title and not a name. Correct me if I'm wrong :)
TheWarriorpony Indeed, you are wrong: "He was born Gaius Octavius into an old and wealthy equestrian branch of the plebeian gens Octavia. His maternal great-uncle Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, and Octavius was named in Caesar's will as his adopted son and heir, then known as Octavianus"
As petra notes, Octavius was distantly related to Gaius Julius Caesar and Octavius was his adopted son and heir. Octavius himself adopted the names Julius Caesar to denote that he was an adopted member of the Julia gens and the Caesar family within that gens. This was standard practise for adopted children in Ancient Rome. The next few emperors until Claudius were all also adopted by the previous emperor and then designated heir to the empire thus they all became part of the Julia gens and Caesar family in the same manner. Claudius himself could trace his lineage back to the Julia through his mother and to the Claudia through his father so he still had some claim to being a Julius. He then adopted his heir and thus his heir gained the title through adoption as well.
It was only in the Year of the Four Emperors that emperors with no legitimate claim at all to the title of Caesar came to the throne. By this point, Caesar was seen as one of the necessary titles for the emperor so Galba (the first usurper) and Otho (the usurper of Galba) both adopted it, though Otho only reluctantly after first experimenting with using Nero as a title. Vitellius, the usurper of Otho, used Germanicus instead of Caesar but he was soon replaced by Vespasian who immediately repudiated Germanicus in favour of Caesar once again. Vespasian then reigned for ten years as a Caesar, despite no ties of blood, and thus the cognomen became a honourary one reserved for the emperor and, so far as I know, every subsequent Roman emperor or claimant used the title.
I would say that The Julius Caesar we know can be called as the consul one
@@nicmagtaan1132 No there were other Julius Caesar (Julii Caesares in the latin plural) who were consul before the one everybody knows. There was a Sextus Julius Caesar, consul in 157 BC and a Lucius Julius Caesar consul in 64 BC.
Just stick to Julius Caesar : everybody would know which one you are speaking of. And if it's not clear, add "The" before.
Except if you are a scholar specializing in the Gens Julia family tree.
The Holy Roman Empire was actually quite diverse. It covered not just German, but also some Western Slavic lands like Bohemia (Modern Czech Republic), Northern Italian, some French and all of the Dutch states. And that is ignoring the fact there was a far larger difference in culture back then within the German regions.
True, but it looked very different if you compare the high middle ages to the 18th century. In the latter most of non German speaking areas had been lost already and the majority Czech speaking kingdom of Bohemia had been Germanized to some extent as well (in the cities and in burocracy)
Not only north of Italy, for some time the whole south of Italy too.
This and nation-states became a thing only in XIX century so calling a feudal collection of lands a nation-state is an arbitrary mistake by Xidnaf, applying modern concepts to medival times
Christian Cristof, compared to control of northern Italy it was quite short and always contested.
Christian Cristof, what do you mean by that?
Do you wanna get more confused? the byzamtine emperors were also called baseileos, which means king in greek, and the realm was refered to as "baseilia ton romaion" meaning kingdom of the romans.
Sorry but in the byzantine context basileus definitely meant "emperor", when the "Byzantines" wanted to call someone "king" they typically used other terms such as ῥηξ (rex) or κραλης (kral , mostly a slavic term ultimately deriving from Karolus i.e Charlemagne) etc
WHAT CRAZED ALTERNATE REALITY IS THIS WHERE XIDNAF UPLOADS???????
he only posts into our universe, now. B)
It's C-137 Morty. The best one Morty *burps*
Almost miss it because the thumbnail doesn't have the stick figures
Yay MOARH VIDS!!!!!!!
A good one.
Xidnaf you can just ask a stupid question at the end of a video just for audience participation in the comments while the patron names play
+
how about: "what is a spoon?" :P
like langfocus?
jk, luv dat guy
Or how about a runcible spoon?
What is the square root of the surface area of a spoon?
Also, in German, the word "Kaiser" or "Kaiserreich" don't refer to the definition of "big diverse country". It basically means "King of Kings" and is thus just a prestigious title. So the words Kaiser and Emperor have different connotations. This might be because the german region was for most of the medieval to pre-industrial times ruled by the Holy Roman Empire, which had a king of kings so a Kaiser. A lot of people say that the HRE was neither holy nor roman nor an empire, which depends on how you look at it. It is called that because it followed the "holy" tradition of the Emperor beeing crowned in Rome. And Emperor as in Kaiser so King of Kings not specifically a ruler of diverse peoples.
When we want to talk about the British empire we would use something like "Weltreich" (World Realm/Empire) or "Imperium" so basically the latin word.But you can also just refer to it as the "British Empire" in German. So that's an interesting difference in linguistics.
The British one is a special case, though - you're right that it's almost never called "Kaiserreich". The actual title, though, i.e. Emperor of India, _is_ translated as "Kaiser von Indien" (or "Kaiserin", for Victoria). The same with the French Napoleons (both of them) - they're _empereur_ in French, yet of course Napoleon is a "Kaiser" in German. There is no distinction between Kaiser and "Emperor" - for historical reasons, a few emperors aren't called Kaiser, but in almost all cases, the English "emperor" corresponds to German "Kaiser".
I wasn't aware that the word Emperor existed in German. I thought the word for "emperor" was always Kaiser.
Imperator exists although it's usually only used in the context of the Roman Empire or the Sith Lord.
I meant that the German "Kaiser" isn't technically the same thing as the English "Emperor" although it's often translated as such.
Kaiserreich, that would literally mean "Caesar of the Kingdom," wouldn't it?
You got it wrong again.
Caesar was't anyone's last name. Julius Caesar was one of the Gens Iulia (that would be his "surname") and was never an imperator. The first imperator was his nephew Octavianus Augustus and all the others who followed took the title of "Caesar Augustus" to honour the two "founders" of that institution. But they weren't technically kings, they were "princeps" or "primus inter pares" (first among the peers, meaning the senators), which actually isn't very different from a king but is "defined differently" (a king usually derives his legitimacy from a divine appointment/designation).
The Roman Empire has more in common with a republican dictatorship than with a kingdom of that time (not constitutional or parliamentary).
*Edit: Also, "Roman Emperor" is the most dangerous job there has ever been with the average lifespan of an emperor being just 4 years and only 8% of them dying of natural causes. ;)
Not to menton plenty of them had gruesome deaths like being lynched alive, torn apart or beheaded. Serously look up the death of Andronikos I Komnenos, that's some horrifying shit right there.
IIRC, Julius adopted August as his son, hence why August took the surname Caesar. After that each reigning emperor would adopt the person who they wanted to be their successor, giving them the name Caesar.
Federico Spadone Actually, though what you say is mainly true, Gaius Julius Caesar was an imperator. During the Republic, the title of Imperator was given to an army commander after he was victorious (before going to war, he was given by the senate the "imperium", ie the absolute power on anything, civil or military, pertaining to the war at hand). After his victory, the commander would be called Imperator until the ceremony of "triumphus " given in his honor. Aftewards, he could not hold this title anymore. As such, many had been called Imperator : Pompey, Cicero, Lucius Julius Caesar (a parent of Caius JC), etc.
Gaius Julius Caesar was first declared Imperator in 51BC (after the Gallic Wars) and again in 44BC, this time for life : that was a big change in the tradition, a turning point.
Afterwards, it was automatically added to the many titles the roman "Emperors" had, and soon became only given to Emperors.
Federico Spadone i might add that Cæsar pronunced “kaiser” is unbearable for us italian...
Mamma mia!
@@CyrilleParis wasnt imperator called anyone who holded imperium thus who was in command of an army? I know upon emerging victorious from battle soldiers would often cheer Imperator to their commander.
This is a bit of a nitpick, but the two reigning ideologies after WW2 were more accurately capitalism and communism (both economic ideologies). I'm not saying the idea of liberal democracy was irrelevant, but the US and NATO supported a lot of non-democratic regimes as long as they vowed to stay capitalist, and were even willing to undermine democratic pebiscites to do so. (Again, this isn't meant to imply that the USSR didn't do awful things).
Allow me to add another nitpick: it was more accurately capitalism and Marxism-Leninism. There wasn't much of a phenomenon of states withering away into communes, instead there were many copy-cats of the USSR.
TheShadowOfMadness Just call it nominal communism will you?
If you want to get technical there is debate over the amount of capitalism still left in the western world, especially after the Great Depression. Considering the amount of economic involvement the government has in modern western countries mixed economy is more accurate.
Involvement by the state does not make a capitalist economy no longer capitalist. So long as the dominant mode of production is private ownership operating under the logic of wage labour, then you have capitalism.
Enthused Norseman yeah ‘’Capitalism’’ and ‘’Communism’’. At that point they were just two nations pointing nukes at each other trying to control the world as they could.
Crusader Kings 2 taught me that emperors rule over kings, kings rule over dukes, dukes rule over counts, and counts rule over barons.
So according to that, you are an emperor if your highest ranking underlings are kings, and you are a king if your highest ranking underlings are dukes etc.
And in suggesting that, CK2 simplifies and streamlines history _a whole effing lot_. :D
+varana312
Don't make fun of muh incest simulator
I believe the Chinese also thought they were the only state in the world whose monarch had the right (the mandate of heaven) to name themselves "emperor", and everyone else (like Korea) was just a king. Because the Chinese greatly over-estimated their own importance in the world.
And this ended up causing conflict between them and Japan, whose leader also called themselves "emperor".
+VLPR
I don't. :D I like CK - even though I'm really bad at it - and it is a really good approximation to actual medieval politics.
It's just that it simplifies it a whole effing lot. ;D
They literally called themselves the "Middle Realm", which implicitly meant everyone else outside of them was uncivilised. That does seem like they thought the world revolved around them.
"The leaders of Germany kept calling themselves [Kaiser] up until WWI." Well, kind of. Would probably be more accurate to add a "with interruptions" there, since there were long periods where Germany was a group of disunited states with no common ruler at all.
That would be the time between the end of the HRE in 1806 and the foundation of the German Empire in 1871, if you discount the Austrian emperors who took on their title respective title in 1804. And even then Austria kinda continued to rule Germany via the German Confederation.
Nat Paulsen Well actually the Germans in the HRE had a common ruler. While the HRE was split into many kingdoms there were elections (the people didn't vote) about who would be Emperor. Technically you are still right due to Napoleon demolishing the HRE and founding the German Confederation or whatever its name was.
''when Rome lost control over the part of Rome that had Rome in it''
I A D O R E T H I S M A N
One way to look at it is that an empire can contain kingdoms within its realm, like a kingdom contains duchies or counties. (The Empire of Germany included the kingdoms of Prussia and Bavaria, and the Empire of Austria included the Kingdom of Hungary.)
One other thing about the early Roman Empire is that the official title for their emperor was ‘princeps’, which translates to first citizen. This word would go on to become ‘prince’ in English.
"Kingdoms are good, empires are bad."
-HCBailly
What's with the recent influx of vids, boy?
No more college
Xidnaf stopped being shy about asking for donations on Patreon, so now he's earning $537 per video. If he does around three videos a month, he can afford to have UA-cam be his fulltime job.
And well done with that. He deserves it.
Exactly right. When he asked for money on that video the most common response was "put out more content." and here he is, uploading content. Good on him.
Medio Litro I LOVE YOUR PROFILE PICTURE!!!!!!
Radical, man, I'm glad to see this video. I'm normally rather lazy about liking videos, but I'll be sure to like all of your videos. You make good stuff, and I want your channel to grow. Best of luck, bro.
I was actually wondering this just yesterday!
Thank you for the great videos!
It's good to have you back, dude!
The change from Augustus (Latin/classical) to Basileus (Eastern Roman/Byzantine Greek medieval) is also interesting as there was official use for centuries after the practical use lapsed. So you had literally the King of Rome/the Romans (Basileus Rhomaion) in one language and the Commander (imperator)August (Augustus) or in English the Emperor of Rome as the same title for the same person at the same time but with divergent etymologies in different languages.
The modern distinction isn’t always applied to naming conventions due to tradition and also, most of the polities and their rulers being described as Emperors or Empires had exceedingly complex titles that interwove suzerainty, direct personal rule, religious/cultural hegemony and other types of loose control). See the famous Voltaire quote about the HRE as a good example.
The irony is, the only currently existing monarch that still gets called "Emperor is really only a king, but everyone calls him "Emperor" out of tradition.
Mimi Sardinia who?
@PseudoproAK The Tennō, so the Emperor of Japan
I mean he's as much an emperor as most other historical emperors and he really does have more of a claim to the title given that modern day Japan was unified from almost autonomous states, though that was done by the Shogun not the emperor. Still though it seems to be a thing where if you're an emperor once then you'll always be an emperor, except in the case of Britain I guess which did drop the title.
@@hedgehog3180 Japan however lacks the conventionally desired linguistic and ethnic diversity that normally constitutes an empire to Western audiences. All of Japan is linguistically from the same language family (the standard language is also the same throughout), and although there is still some significant cultural variety, it is very much all the same country. So by our standards the "Emperor" of Japan should really be called a King considering the region nowadays, but as the original comment stated, it's more about tradition.
@@m_uz1244 well you can't forget Ryuku, Hokkaido (which used to be predominantly Ainu) and when they owned large chunks of Korea and Manchuria. The English translation doesn't actually equate to what the title actually is in Japanese which is Heavenly Sovereign because through the several hundred generations of almost entirely unbroken line of inheritance before recorded history in Japan to the legendary grandson of Amaterasu. Japan is considered an Empire because it's a massive and (formerly) very diverse nation.
Anatolia is not a desert. In fact, it's one of the most fertile areas in the world. Only by the border of Syria and some inner parts (Cappadocia) are deserts and notsandy just drylands
In Russian we use Korol, where the English uses King. Korol comes from Karl also known as Charles in modern English (because French!). In Turkish Karl/Korol transformed into Kral, which also means King, or cool/great /fantastic in slang.
Rex had also survived in the French roi (le roi est mor, vive le roi), royal and in Latin regal. In its turn, Rex originally meant "someone who cuts (a sacrifice to god)", it's a cognate of Russian rezat - cut.
I've always wondered where the word kral comes from, as the hughest title in the slavic world was knyaz.
@Doge di Amalfi Also king in portuguese is Rei. Which is weird because french and portuguese are the most distant parents of latin inside the romance languages group.
@Doge di Amalfi Its weird because portuguese and spanish are close related but portuguese is way more distant to latin than spanish
awesome video, always interesting to see more historical and political focused videos.
Nation state is quite a recent invention (by some crazy European dudes), a king for a nation state doesn't apply to the ancient world.
An emperor was supposed to be the ruler of the whole known world, states outside of the empire were all supposed to be client states thereof, others unworthy barbarians.
Such as a King of England, he would've been ruling Normans, Anglo-Saxons, British and Irish Celts, could you call his kingdom a nation state? As time moves on, the peoples living inside a kingdom might form a new nation, but it doesn't mean it's the so-called nation state which gives the regime its legitimacy.
Pre-imperial China had kingS, but only one king took the title "son of heaven", and the heads of all vassal states of the feudal system did't dare to call themselves kings, they only took the title granted by the son of heaven, dukes, marquises etc. Only rulers of the states in the frontiers ( 楚Chu, 吳 Wu, 越Yue) declared themselves to be kings, because they were not vassals of the the dynasty, yet they knew they were not equal to the son of heaven.
Like the kings of England, the kings of Wu also ruled all sorts of peoples, Chinese and indigenous peoples. And after hundreds of years they all became Chinese, just like all sorts of people had ever lived in France except recent immigrants and Jews, they all became French. A state can forge a new nation, not the other way around.
@Sam Wallace You're right, before the Norman Invasion England did have some form of unification for about a century, the examples I gave were indeed flawed. But I think the point that I tried to make still stands. Kingdoms were not some natural consequences by peoples trying to unite themselves throughout the ancient history. Even those monarchs of house of Wessex were not unlike those Norman invaders came later, they too were just conquerors. For example , the people of Northumbria, did they willingly join the unified kingdom? I don't think so. Given those kings opportunities, they would conquer territories as much as possible, no matter what kind of people living there. China conquered Vietnam several times, If that place were ruled successfully and long enough by Chinese authorities, the people thereof would very likely have been assimilated into the Chinese ethnicity, just as any other indigenous group of people of other provinces. Just look what the Vietnamese did to the Cham people!
@@thatchacre5763 Not all people indigenous to France are the same ethnicity and nation. The Alsatians, Corsicans, Occitans, Basques, Savoyards, Catalans, and Bretons each are ethnic minorities in France which do still have their own unique identity and will probably have one forever. While the French government did start a forced assimilation campaign, which made it so they became less culturally distinct and most people lost their language, there's still people who learn those languages, schools, websites, books, songs etc being made in those languages. And a non-negligeable amount of those ethnic minorities support independence from France. I would even argue that France is overall a more multinational state than Yugoslavia, because in Yugoslavia, most people were Slavs and there was a Serbo-Croatian speaking majority while in France there's Germanic, Celtic, Basque people, at least four romance people and also Polynesians and Africans. Yet I don't see anyone seriously arguing that Yugoslavia was a nation state. Soo it seems that the question of who's an ethnicity and a nation and who's not is often really anachronistic and also heavily defined by the current political situation and propaganda.
@@gamermapper Of course not all attempts of assimilation are successful and complete, some ethnic groups as groups did survive to the modern days. However we are talking about the pre-modern world, aren't we? Before nationalism had been first invented, people didn't care about their ethnic idenity that much. A father might consciously believe he belonged to a certain race. His son on the other hand might not think the same way. For example, Manchu conquerors forcefully drafted a lot of Han Chinese as their banner soldiers. They used those soldiers to conquer the other Han Chinese people. Did those Han soldiers feel the confliction? Maybe in the first generations. Afterwards the new generations accepted their new identity. At the end of the Qing Dynasty. Most of the Han Banner Soldier had already forgotten their Chinese ancestry. Today, when you meet a man who claims to be a Manchu, don't assume he is a "genuine" Manchu by blood. Was Napolean a French or a Corsican? How about the royal family of UK, are they English or German? You see, even those aristocrats couldn't be determined clearly, let along commoners.
This is REALLY high quality content!! Love it!! =D
Another good video from you. Keep up the good work.
The HRE wasn't as German as you would think. It has Dutch, Czech, Silesian (is kind of a Polish-Czech in the simplest terms), French, Belgian (I think), and Italians. (Not including the different types of German like Swiss and Austrian, and I may of missed some groups).
Dutch were considered to be Germans up until quite recently. Especially in the later days the HRE consisted almost entirely of German speaking territories which is why contemporaries referred to it as "German empire" at the time. It was certainly as ethnically homogenous as Russia is today.
Austrians also considered themselves as "Germans" until 1945/1952, or even today depending on whom you ask.
Also french but from France
The Rite Man The Rite Man The Rite Man Depending on the period. France was not French, England was French. Italians were not a thing, Belgium was an old Roman province, and Dutch was a dialect known as Frisian. Polish, Silesian and Czech were all part of the same west-Slavic group and most European kings were French speaking Germans. It’s hard to make any sense of nationhood until late 19th century.
And it's even less German when talking about Charlemagne's empire, which actually just invaded most of today's Germany. Otto is probably a better starting point for the HRE as we often understand it (the one from the late middle-age), especially if you want a very "German" HRE (East Francia was more Germanic overall than the two parts together).
Xidnaf: Or they referred to themselves as "Cesar'
Me *Suddenly in German WW1 uniform* DID SOMEBODY SAY KAISER
Love your videos keep up the good work!!!!
Just found your channel thanks to Hank Green. EXCELLENT content!
I think you left out some important reasons about naming someone/a territory an Emperor/Empire : Translation and Title Ranks.
Since the Roman Law Rennaissance in the 12th century, the Noble title of Emperor is considered as being of a greater status than the King's one (Emperor > King > Duke > Marquis...), we translated some foreign terms to "Emperor" when it meant a title greater than King.
Meaning that, there isn't only a "Emperor = a Roman thingy in Europe/Emperor = a big kingdom elsewhere" duality.
Example:
Assyrian Empire -> the chief was called "šar šarrāni", meaning King of Kings.
Macedonian Empire -> Alexander was called "Basileus ton Basileon", King of Kings.
The Persian Empires -> "Shahanshah", King of Kings.
Japan Empire -> the chief is called "Koutei" since the conquering of all the small Kingdoms in the 8th century. Meant something greater than a King ("Ou"). There is also a notion of universality/unification in the word "Koutei".
Mongol Empire -> "Khagan", meant something greater than a Khan (King). Genghis Khan was even called "Yekhe Khagan", or Great Emperor.
Korean Empire -> Reformation of the Kingdom, wanted express than Korea is being something greater than a Kingdom.
And so on. So, yeah, translation of titles into Western language coupled with our view of "Titles' Hierarchy" is also relevant here, not only the "dimension" of the territory (well, Japan and Korea are quite small).
Xidnaf...uploaded...again? PRAISE THE LORD!
hail emperor xidnaf!
you mean King Xidnaf?
Congratulations on passing 100k subscribers! When you get your silver play button, you should do a video about the word "play" and why it has so many different meanings.
keep the good work bro. I hope you get the best in this life and the next also best wishes for you my friend
Could you make a video about the *Uralic language family* , please?
Seuraavan kerran, me puhumme suomea!
tavvoo savvoo?
karameldansen.
ooh thats an interesting one
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Great video. Just a minor correction that 黃帝 (emperor) in Korean is 황제 while 제국帝國 is a direct translation of "empire", and it might be worth noting the translation of king (王=왕).
In east asia there are 皇帝 and 王, the first being the word for translating emperor and the latter for king. The two words are used slightly differently from their English versions and has an interesting history. Basically, Chinese rulers after the Quin dynasty called themselves emperors. Sejong was a king since he was Korean, not Chinese. Japan was able to use a letter from 皇帝(emperor) for the name of their ruler 'cause they were further away from china. Would be fun if you could do a video about it!
As a Brazilian, the way you pronounced "imperador" made me laugh. Thanks man, and keep up the good work, but maybe try and get the pronunciation right the next time... Or not, I could use a good laugh while learning ;)
verdade eu achei seu comentario procurando um br comentando sobre isso
there's a good book on this by Peter Wilson called 'Holy Roman Empire: a thousand years of Europe's History' where they discuss the medieval belief that there can only be one empire at a time, and the idea remained until 1815 when Napoleon styling himself as an Emperor and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire led to this being less of an issue - nevertheless, it's an interesting read which discusses the difficulties of centralising the HRE because of the title of 'Emperor', and their will to hold on to being the military 'arm' of the Vatican was ultimately its downfall
(this is vastly oversimplified, but I'd highly recommend the book, it's a bulky read but it's good)
Napoleon's emperor title was vastly different from the traditional HRE one. He styled himself a modern emperor of a distinct nation-state while the HRE title still had the theoretical claim to rule all of Christianity.
2 videos in a span of weeks. That's it, it's the Apocalypse guys
1:14 The island in the Tiber is a fine detail not many people would draw nor notice! Good job!
God I love this channel it always blows my mind
Good one Xif
Also, the title Tsar was used for the first time by the Bulgarian tsar Simeon (or maybe Petar, there's still debate over this). This was indeed a Slavic adaptation of the 'Caesar' title. Russians later took the title as well along with the idea of the Third Rome which was also invented by the Bulgarians after the fall of Constantinople to the Latins in 1204.
Simply wrong, Simeon styled himself as basileus not caesar the first "tsar" was Tervel.
Good video bro!, I learned a lot on it. Never knew that Russian SAR came from CEASAR. Keep the good work
also you should do a lot of Etymosemanticology videos. I like them.
The Korean empire, 대한제국, was a self-declared, short-lived empire (and not at all big or diverse) from 1897 to 1910 before the Japanese took over. I think the title "empire" was to be like "WE'RE A SOVEREIGN INDEPENDENT STATE" rather than "WE OWN BIG LANDS AND HAVE BIG POWER"
A bit of context needs to be put in here. Historically, Korean states were often overshadowed by their giant Chinese neighbor and had to accept tributary status. The Chinese had a rigid system defining these relationships where the Chinese emperor (huangdi - 皇帝 ) sat at the top and the tributary kings (wang - 王 ) paid obeisance to him. There were ranks below these which the emperor and kings could bestow upon their vassals, such as dukes (gong - 公 ) and marquesses (hou - 侯 ). Thus, since Joseon was a Chinese tributary state, their ruler kept the title of king. Taking on the title of emperor was their way of declaring independence from China. This is why in the case of Korea and China, the distinction between emperor and king is not arbitrary.
Ironically, this idea itself is inherently Chinese because it was based on the dukes of Zhou declaring independence from the Zhou king by adopting his title. This in turn was why the First Emperor had to invent the imperial title to begin with, to distinguish himself as being higher in rank than the various kings ruling Chinese states he'd conquered.
I wonder how much in this case the desire to be 'western' factored into their choice of names... well, assuming they choose to present themselves as the 'korean empire' as opposed to western powers coming up with the name.
This makes me feel bad for knowing close to nothing about (eastern) Asian history. It sounds about as fucked up and weird as the rest of the world's, which is a great thing to begin with.
(Leaving a comment as investment in future discussion)
agree. There might be strange cases. But if you want to speak about Sejong the Great (and imho he was one of the greatest Ruler Mankind has known), than you have to use the title King and not Emperor.
+
Did you just call the HRE homogeneous? Kek
Well, more homogenous than China or Russia. But yeah, I think the HRE would probably be next in line after those two. At least there most of the population could somehow with a lot of effort understand each other when speaking.
Graup Austria-Hungary* Ottomans*
Ottomans, yes, I agree, forgot about that one, Austria-Hungary, don't agree, I thought we were talking about the HRE as it existed up until 1806 and as far as my understanding of the topic goes, Austria-Hungary would be the country to continue the HRE. I guess, they're probably on the same level or something like that. (Even though Austria-Hungary had the Balkans, which is a mess itself, but then we'd have to throw Jugoslavia into the mix aswell and I'm pretty sure nobody want's to start that discussion)
My history teacher always triggered me when he referred to the HRE as Germany.
Technically its full name was 'Heiliges römisches Reich deutscher Nation' (Holy Roman Empire of German Nation) so it's not the most inaccurate thing to say. It's not really right but you know, 'Holy Roman Empire' is a lot of syllables for something that covered most parts of modern Germany (and vice versa). I get why people don't like referring to it as the same thing, but for me lazyness rules and why use 6 syllables when you can also use just two and everybody already knows, what you are talking about.
Super interesting! Thanks for making the video. Can you also talk about the differences between kings and emperors in the context of Chinese history please? How did they go from having kings to having emperors AND kings?
Xidnaf AND Bill Wurtz are uploading some cool history biz today? IT'S A GOOD WEDNESDAY, MY DUDE.
I always thought of Emperor title as pretending to universal rule. I mean, an Emperor assumes to rule over the World or a good chunk of it
Please forgive me, but I must mention your pronunciation of imperator is off. Stress is after the 'impe'.
Hi Xidnaf, I really enjoy your videos. Would you consider making one related to this essay?
(mises.org/library/reply-current-critiques-formulated-against-hoppe%E2%80%99s-argumentation-ethics)
This is mostly a philosophical debate that involves the "argumentation requirements" and ethics that I also find very fascinating!
Yay Xidnaf vids!
But something was up with the audio :o
I'm early so have a great day! :)
and always turn on captions
Where are you from? Why the captions? xD
It's probably for fun, the automatic captions usually make a hilarious mess.
Yeah, this guy is like a machine gun xD
I would like to add just one more thing. In the Byzantine empire, a man could only be emperor if he was made so by the patriarch of the church. Only the patriarch could appoint emperors, whereas archbishops, and other church members of similar status could appoint kings. Because the church was united at the time, at least the Orthodox one, the emperor could only be the head of the Byzantine empire. After that, with the divide in the church, came the possibility of other empires. Which leaders of each country exploited... And so, as you said, the real meaning of being an emperor was lost
And of course, this is not related to the eastern empires, this is just European history
Can you do an in-depth video on Lojban? Maybe even a video series? I bought the grammar book and am reading it right now, but I don't always understand everything the first time I read through it. You have a way of making things understandable the first time around.
Yeay Xidnaf videos
Uhm... You realize the word Tsar (Цар) was used way before the Russians did and way before the Ottomans rose to power. It was used by the Bulgarian countries and Empire for centuries and might have been used by other people even longer before that.
It is bastardized form of the title caesar bestowed upon khan Tervel after he helped during the Siege of Constantinople. As far as I know caeser as a title was used to mean junior emperor, or something of these sort.
От кога има толкова Българи тука? Българи Юнаци
Yea thats pretty sad that he didnt mention bulgaria even the serbs used it before the russians
One more thing, emperors can control more than one kingdom, so... an emperor and a king have the same kind of power, but an emperor may have multiple kings, or reigns, and the king, only his own.
A second thing to remember, at that time, they liked to use the title of emperor when the nation was, or was once considered an empire. Like they've been trying to keep up their traditions.
@TheWeeaboo So what? England and Spain was considered a Empire in terms of conquest. But their internal structure was still a kingdom since the original territory was still the only focus.
Empires have other kingdoms because they assimilate them into *part* of the empire. England and Spain didn't integrate the other kingdoms and territorys as *part* of them, just as wheels.
@TheWeeaboo What i said first is still valid as long as you consider that things can overlap. But in essence stay the same
@TheWeeaboo lol, i never really played those games
Princeps was the preferred/used term though, as well as imperator or caesar as the “emperor” was really just a bundle of separate powers and privileges
Xidnaf uploads right after 3blue1brown finishes an awesome series? yisss...
A new Wendover video, new Veritasium and now a new Xidnaf video, it's my lucky day
Only this channel focuses on linguistics.
vlogbrothers also uploaded a video today
Bill Wurtz topping them all off
;.lm jmmmm/nnn/n
nnmmm.
4:10 "皇帝" in Korean is "황제" not "제국".
("제국(帝國)" means empire and "황제(皇帝)" means emperor.)
帝國 = Đế Quốc
皇帝 = Hoàng Đế
there is also an interesting relationship between the title king of kings which is sometimes translated as emperor and emperor
Very interesting topic!
corrections the Byzantine empire was vary depending diverse with Arabs, slavs, Armenians, Greeks, macedonia and even Norse.
Macedons were Greeks... Same as the rest Athenians, Thebans, even Cretans...
@@firstchushingura It's like calling anatolian greeks anatolians... and even then it is more accurate.
Mainly Greeks, Armenians, Albanians, some Persians, few Arabs, few Jews, Kurds, few Laz, few Russians and few Georgians.
I'm sorry, but isn't Ceasar (and his descendants) from the Jullii family (or house of Julius)? On top of that, Ceasar was just the title they took to mean "ruling like ceasar" , instead of calling themselves, well.. kings. Also the emperorship (or Ceasarship) didn't stay within one family, due to internal strive and adoption emperors.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_(gens)
Awesome graphics!!
Never once in my life have I heard someone say there was a difference between the words “king” and “emperor”
Emperor Akihito boi
great reply ;)
Would the character 皇 not be Emperor in Japanese? The character come from probably mythical rulers of ancient China (三皇五帝). In Chinese the official title of the emperor is 皇帝 with both characters essentially meaning emperor or sovereign. It's also possible to called the emperor 天子 which is essentially the son of heaven. So would 天皇 not be emperor from heaven or something like that?
Japan is an almost entirely homogenous country 'ruled' by an Emperor.
'Reigned' is more like it. The Prime Minister is the one who RULES over Japan, since it's a parliamentary monarchy and stuff.
Well Westerners gave him that title. And it did at least apply during World War II.
While Westerners translated 天王 (tennou) as "Emperor", it's a pretty solid translation of at least the historical implication of the title.
Japan's head of state had consistently insisted on being equivalent in rank to China's head of state, and important not any kind of vassal. China's head of state had several tributaries who everyone called "kings" (including the kings of Korea, including King Sejong himself), so translating his title as "Emperor" is pretty easy. Japan was kind of in an odd state of being clearly independent from China and yet clearly weaker; however, because of their insistence that their head of state was equivalent in rank to the Chinese head of state it's not much of a stretch to translate their title as "Emperor".
The other thing you could do is go super literal and translate it as "heavenly king", but that misses a lot of the political implications of the title, and specifically of the title not being just "king".
@@brianb.6356 A worde of clarification:
It's written 天皇, where while the pronunciation is the same (Ten'ou), the 皇 part isn't simply "king", but - as you implied - the "king" that "emperor" in "Heavenly Emperor of China" stands for.
I've never really thought about it until now, but despite the fact that there were many "empires" before Rome, we don't really use the Term ""emperor" to describe the leaders of those ancient state. I had never considered that the title of emperor was synonymous with the leader of Rome or implied to be equivalent to such.
Well, the Ancient Persians were called the Shahanshah (King of Kings), which is pretty much what Emperor means. Other than that I guess China would be the only other.
VERY Informative!
rex/regis has a long e. Same applies to lex/legis, and the a in pax/pacis is also long.
and probably an R close to an Italian R but he already said he couldn't make that R so I'll let that one pass.
So, it's "Rayx"?
Pause the video and read the screen when he says rēx
The Byzantine empire was very diverse
Sharkalope productions So, are Byzantines Romanised Greeks or Hellenised Romans ?
Bloody Marine, hellenized romans, what we call modern day Greeks were quite often a minority compared to Anatolian and Armenian romans.
Tyler Ellis Thanks for your answer . I always thought it was the other option because of their (official)language 😂 and the nickname or surname of their rulers (Komnenos, Porphygenitos, Copronymous, Bulgaroktonos...)
Bloody Marine, well Greek was part of the hellenized Roman culture at that time but their quite a lot Roman elements people ignore, like how imperator was still used alongside basileus and under some emperors like Basil I son it was their main title in Latin, Latin also continued to be used on the coins till alexios. Then things like the senate and chariot racing even public baths were still used in Constantinople and maintained. And we can't forget during the Byzantines height under the Macedonians it controlled significant parts of Italy and Armenia, heck you know their was so many Armenians in the nobility that they tried to overthrow Basil ii and move the capital to Antioch, things like that don't happen in an all Greek empire.
The Byzantine empire *AFTER the arabian Muslim conquests in the early 7th century AD* was mostly Greek in culture and ethnic background. Even after the arrival of the Slavs in the Balkans the majority of people within Byzantium were Greek. So it may have been diverse in the sense that many groups of people at times lived under the Byzantine borders but numerically the majority of them belonged to the same ethnic group.
Ottomans didn't call theirselves kayser-i-rum as far as I remember from my history classes. An Egyptian caliphate mentioned one of our emperors by that title in one of his letters. I think they used imparator (emperor) to refer themselves after Mehmed the Conqueror took Konstantinapol and renamed it Konstantiniyye. But they could be using that too, idk that for sure.
Hay cool episode! Could you also do an episode on why presidents are called well president, and why chancellor's are called that. I know that there is a naming convention where presidents are directly elected by the people and chancellor's are elected by representatives who are elected by the people.
The problem with an "Emperor" is that most people don't understand the Roman concept of an Imperator or Imperium in general, so they idea of the title is one that has been bastardized by dark age European kingdoms of Barbarian origin who tried to emulate the Roman model but with no understanding of it
You are so wrong. Half truth not well understood are sometimes worse than ignorance...
You refer to the early Republican concept of "imperator", I guess. Later, early in Imperial times, it became a title only given to what we call Emperors. Even during the Republican era, the concept of Emperator drasticly changed. And it was only partially related to the concept of Imperium, which is much older than the title of Imperator, and has a broader meaning.
The concept of Imperator was not"bastardised" by any other than the Romans themselves and it was centuries before the earliest date you can imagine to be the beginning of any "dark age".
By the way "dark age" is strictly an English concept : only in Brittania, nowhere else in Europe, was there a discontinuity with almost no written records - a dark age - between the Roman occupation and what is called the middle ages.
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BornForever009 I am transgender
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I love you Xidnaf!
Welcome back to UA-cam
Great video!
The head of the Rome empire was generally called Au·gust, first among equals. That is why Octavian is called August, it's not his name, it's his title.
The reason that Sejong was not an emperor was because he rules the Joseon Dynasty which for the most part was a state that paid tributes to they ruling dynasty of "China" which ever it may be Ming, Qing, etc which had the emperor. Calling yourself a king in Chinese history meant you were lower than the emperor. This comes from the end of the Zhou Dynasty (Warring States) up until this point the ruler of a dynasty was still called a king (王) (political struture like feudalism). So when Qin defeated Chu, Qinshihuang proclamed himself emperor(皇帝) to signify that he was above the rank of king since he had defeated all of them.
I have been wondering this recently.
You should do a video on the Inuit writing system used in northern Canada. Personally I've always found it really interesting, cause it's pretty much completely unlike any other writing system I've come across.
A Bill Wurtz and Xidnaf upload on the same day!!
Imperator has also taken up the meaning of Emporer. Mainly because for most of the time of Rome being an empire the Emporer was the guy who had his troops in Rome (simplified speaking)
@Xidnaf All right, a very informative video! Just one question: What about Sultans (modern day or not)? Are they emperors? And what about their domains? Are they empires or sultanates?
In German sources the Ottoman sources was called the emperor of Turkey.
Nice video! I learned stuff
Hey Xidnaf, was wondering if you could do a video on Ludwig Wittgenstein and his philosophical theories on language and linguistics. Thanks.
Jay, you uploaded!
Oh, and in germany, we call Napoleon (and his succesors) Kaiser, I always thought it was a title you took when you didn't want to call yourself king. For example, if the people you want to rule decapitaded the last king. Or if you're already a king and will occupy both positions at the same time, like the kaiser of the german kaiserreich, who was also the king of prussia, which was part of said kaiserreich.
Yeah, you're pretty much right. France had no business having an emperor as head of state. They used to be a kingdom for centuries, then a republic and now the new leader wanted something new and prestigious.
I like to use the definition that an Empire is the King of multiple Kingdoms unitarily, instead of federally. This means that one kingdom has more power than the others, and fits with how it generally worked. The Russian Tsar had the multiple Russian kingdoms, the Ottoman emperor had his provinces, the British Indians had their multiple rajas. This is different to the United Kingdom, which was the primary kingdom of the British Empire, as all of the kingdoms were at least nominally equal. Just my idea.