Grand Prince - Medieval Use

Medieval Use

Grand Prince, used in the Slavic and Baltic languages, was the title of a mediæval monarch who headed a more-or-less loose confederation whose constituent parts were ruled by lesser princes. Those grand princes' title and position was at the time usually translated as king. In fact, the Slavic knjaz and the Baltic kunigaikštis (nowadays usually translated as prince) are cognates of king. However, a grand prince was usually only primus inter pares within a dynasty, primogeniture not governing the order of succession. All princes of the family were equally eligible to inherit a crown (for example, succession might be through agnatic seniority or rotation). Often other members of the dynasty ruled some constituent parts of the monarchy/country. An established use of the title was in the Kievan Rus' and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (from the 14th century). Thus, Veliki Knjaz has been more like high king than "grand duke", at least, originally and were not subordinated to any other authority as more western (for example Polish) Grand Dukes were. As these countries expanded territorially and moved towards primogeniture and centralization, their rulers acquired more elevated titles.

Some of the first rulers of Hungary in the 10th century were grand princes: Geza and, until his royal coronation, his son and heir Stephen of Hungary.

Великий князь (Velikiy Kniaz; literally, great prince) was, starting in the 10th century, the title of the leading Prince of the Kievan Rus', head of the Rurikid House: first the prince of Kiev, and then that of Vladimir and Galicia-Volhynia starting in the 13th century. Later, several princes of nationally important cities, which comprised vassal appanage principalities, held this title (Grand Prince of Moscow, Tver', Yaroslavl', Ryazan', Smolensk, etc.). From 1328 the Grand Prince of Moscow appeared as the titular head of all of Russia and slowly centralized power until Ivan IV was crowned tsar in 1547. Since then, the title grand prince ceased to be a hereditary office and became a generic title for members of the Imperial family until the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The Lithuanian title Didysis kunigaikštis was used by the rulers of Lithuania, and after 1569, it was one of two main titles used by the monarch of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The kings of Poland from the Swedish House of Vasa also used this title for their non-Polish territories. This Lithuanian title was sometimes latinized as Magnus Dux or Grand Duke.

In 1582, king John III of Sweden added Grand Prince of Finland to the subsidiary titles of the Swedish kings, however without any territorial or civic implications, Finland already being a part of the Swedish realm.

The Holy Roman Empire ruling house of Habsburg instituted a similar Grand Principality in Transylvania (Siebenburgen) in 1765.

After the Russian conquests, the title continued to be used by the Russian emperor in his role as ruler of Lithuania (1793–1918) and of autonomous Finland (1809–1917) as well. His titulary included, among other titles: "Grand Duke of Smolensk, Volynia, Podolia", "Lord and Grand Duke of Nizhni Novgorod, Chernigov" etc.