Grand Duchy - Western Grand Dukes and Their Sovereignties

Western Grand Dukes and Their Sovereignties

The only grand duchy in existence today is Luxembourg. It has been a grand duchy since 1815 when the Netherlands became an independent kingdom and Luxembourg was handed over to the King of the Netherlands, William I. Luxembourg remained in personal union with the Netherlands crown until 1890 when William III, King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg, died without leaving a male heir, so that in the Netherlands he was succeeded by his daughter Wilhelmina and, in the Luxembourgish Grand Duchy, by a distant male cousin, Duke Adolf of Nassau who became HRH Grand Duke Adolphe—an arrangement necessitated by Salic law being applicable to Luxembourg but not to the Netherlands. The present Grand Duke of Luxembourg is Henri.

Additionally, other houses of Europe may style themselves as "grand duke" even if they are not wholly recognized as such by rest of the society.

The contemporary independent republics of Finland and Lithuania have been grand duchies during certain eras of their history.

The proper term of "grand duchy" was a later invention, probably originating in Western Europe, to denote lands of a particularly mighty duke, as the duchy had around the end of Middle Ages inflated to belong to rulers of a middle-sized town, shire, or similar relatively small fiefs, instead of the big provinces it once belonged to.

One of the first examples was the unofficial use of the title "grand duke" by the dukes of Burgundy during the 15th century, when they ruled a vast tract of modern day eastern France as well as most of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. The first monarchy ever officially titled a "grand duchy" was the Medici sovereignty of Tuscany under overlordship of the Holy Roman Emperors. They received the title in 1569. Tuscany remained a grand duchy until 1860, when it was annexed by Piedmont-Sardinia as part of Italy's reunification.

Expanded use of the term lapsed until the early nineteenth century, when Napoleon used the title "grand duchy" for several territories given to his allies. The elevation of these figures to the title of "grand duke" usually accompanied an expansion of their fiefs with additional lands obtained from defeated powers such as Prussia. Though Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo and his vassal territories like the Grand Duchy of Berg were erased from the European map, the representatives assembled at the Congress of Vienna consented to yet more uses of the title by restored dukes and princes, especially for several of those in the lands that had constituted the Holy Roman Empire. As a result, the 19th century saw a new group of monarchies titled grand duchy around Central Europe, such as the Grand Duchy of Hesse.

At the same time, the courtesy use of the title "grand duke" in Russia expanded because of the births of several male dynasts. The new set of grand dukes afforded the Romanovs a respite from the continued issue of the male succession that plagued it during the 18th century.

Within Germany, use of the title expanded after 1815, but its application was not universal. This is somewhat ironic, given that a Burgundian ruler in what were once Germany's western border regions first adopted the title, and considering that it was a German overlord, the Holy Roman Emperor, who first granted the official title to an Italian prince. However, in the German language (which has separate words for royal prince, "Prinz", and for sovereign prince, "Fürst"), the grand dukes of Lithuania and historic Russian states, as well as other Eastern European princes and later Russian dynasts, were referred to with the title "Großfürst", a direct translation, rather than using the version "Großherzog".

The title "magnus dux" or "grand duke" (Didysis kunigaikštis in Lithuanian) is said to have been used by the rulers of Lithuania, and after rulers from the Jagiellon dynasty became kings of Poland, it was later found among the titles used by kings of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Polish kings of the Swedish Vasa dynasty also used this grand princely title for their non-Polish territories. Modern translations normally credit the Lithuanian monarch with the title of "High King".