Duchy of Nassau

The Duchy of Nassau (German: Herzogtum Nassau), or simply Nassau, was an independent state between 1806 and 1866, located in what is now the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse. It was a member of the Confederation of the Rhine and later of the German Confederation. Its ruling dynasty, now extinct, was the House of Nassau. The duchy was named for its historical core city, Nassau, although Nassau was not its capital. As of 1865, it had 465,636 inhabitants. After being occupied and annexed into the Kingdom of Prussia in 1866, it was succeeded by the Province of Hesse-Nassau. The area today is a geographical and historical region, Nassau, and Nassau is also the name of the Nassau Nature Park within the borders of the former duchy.

Today, the Grand Duke of Luxembourg still uses "Duke of Nassau" as his secondary title (of pretense), and "Prince" or "Princess of Nassau" is used as a title of pretense by other members of the grand ducal family. Nassau is also part of the name of the Dutch Royal Family, which styles itself Orange-Nassau.

Nassau

Nassau is principally the name of the German town Nassau, which has given its name to many other places and entities, notably including the royal House of Nassau, the former, sovereign Duchy of Nassau (in modern-day Germany), Nassau County, New York, and the city of Nassau, Bahamas.

Nassau may refer to:

Places

Bahamas

Canada

Cook Islands

Germany

Nassau, Bahamas

Nassau /ˈnæsɔː/ is the capital, largest city, and commercial centre of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. The city has a population of 248,948 (2010 census), 70 percent of the entire population of the Bahamas (353,658). Lynden Pindling International Airport, the major airport for the Bahamas, is located about 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) west of Nassau city centre, and has daily flights to major cities in the United States, the Caribbean, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The city is located on the island of New Providence, which functions much like a business district. Nassau is the site of the House of Assembly and various judicial departments and was considered historically to be a stronghold of pirates. The city was named after Nassau, Germany in honour of William of Orange-Nassau.

Nassau's modern growth began in the late eighteenth century, with the influx of thousands of American Loyalists and their slaves to the Bahamas following the American Revolutionary War. Many of them settled in Nassau (then and still the commerce capital of the Bahamas) and eventually came to outnumber the original inhabitants.

Nassau, Rhineland-Palatinate

Nassau, a town located in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, lies in the valley of the Lahn River between the cities of Bad Ems and Limburg an der Lahn. Nassau is the seat of the Nassau district, and is part of the Nassau Nature Park. The town is on the German-Dutch holiday road, the Orange Route. As of 2002, it had a population of 5,209.

Nassau gave its name to the prominent royal House of Nassau and directly or indirectly to numerous geographical entities, including a sovereign state, the Duchy of Nassau, the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, the historical and geographical region Nassau, Nassau County, New York, and the capital city of Nassau, Bahamas.

History

The earliest known surviving mention of Nassau refers to the Villa Nassova estate of the Bishopric of Worms in a 915 deed. In 1348 the Emperor Charles IV granted Nassau town-privileges rights together with nearby Dausenau and Scheuern. Count Dudo-Heinrich of Laurenburg had the Nassau Castle built about 1100 and his descendants began to call themselves the Counts of Nassau. Count Adolf of Nassau served as the elected King of the Romans from 1292 until his death on 2 July 1298. The Counts of Nassau married into the line of the neighbouring Counts of Arnstein (Obernhof/Attenhausen), founders of the monastery at Arnstein. After the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the town became part of the Duchy of Nassau.

Duchy

A duchy (spelled with capital D when it is part of a country's name or a title of a head of state) is a country, territory, fief, or domain ruled by a duke or duchess. The term is used almost exclusively in Europe, where in present-day there is no sovereign Duchy (i.e. with the status of a nation state) left.

The term "Duke" (resp. "Duchy") should not be confounded with the title "Grand Duke" (resp. "Grand Duchy", such as the present-day Grand Duchy of Luxembourg), as there exists a significant difference of rank between the two.

In common European cultural heritage, a Grand Duke is the third highest monarchic rank, after Emperor and King. Its synonym in many eastern European languages (Russian, Lithuanian etc.) is Grand Prince, whereas most western European languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian etc.) use the expression Grand Duke. Unlike a duke, the sovereign Grand Duke is considered to be part of "Royalty" (i.e. royal nobility, in German: Königsadel). The correct form of address is His Royal Highness (HRH).

Duke (Lombard)

Among the Lombards, the duke or dux was the man who act as political and military commander of a set of "military families" (the Fara), irrespective of any territorial appropriation.

Etymology

The proper Lombard language term for the figure of the duke is not known; the oldest Lombard historiographical sources (the anonymous Origo gentis Langobardorum and Historia Langobardorum of Paul Deacon) were written in Latin. The Latin word dux was adopted to designate a political and military figure that had no exact equivalent in the classical world, thus redefining the concept of "duke" in a form that would continue to develop in later centuries.

History

The figure of the Duke emerged between the 4th and 5th centuries, after the German people settled between the Elbe and the current northern Bohemia. At that time the Lombards were nomads, forming homogeneous groups and compact families originating from the same noble clan, and able to organize themselves into quotas with military functions: the Fare. The Dukes were the leaders of the Fare. In that office they were honored as warriors for the dynastic ties and their valor shown in war, and later rewarded by the king. The figure of the Lombard Duke encompassed a mixture of military, noble, sacral (invested by the king, attended his "charisma"), political, judicial and administrative elements. In the assembly of the people in arms ( "Gairethinx"), the dukes had a prominent role, and were decisive in the election of the king.

Duchy (Kingdom of Hungary)

The Duchy or Ducatus (Hungarian: dukátus or hercegség) is the denomination for territories occasionally governed separately by members (dukes) of the Árpád dynasty within the Kingdom of Hungary in the 11th-12th centuries. The symbol of the ducal power was a sword, while the royal power was represented by the crown.

Origins

Modern historians do not share a consensual view on the origins of the Duchy or territorial units administered by members of the royal family within the medieval Kingdom of Hungary.György Györffy writes that the Ducatus or "Duchy" developed from the command over the Kabars and other ethnic groups which joined the federation of the Hungarian tribes. According to his opinion, this command was initially, even before the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin around 895, bestowed upon the heir to the supreme head of the Hungarian tribal federation, in accordance with the customs of the Turkic peoples of the Eurasian steppes. Therefore, Györffy continues, the crown prince's command over these ethnic groups transformed, in the course of the 10th century, into his authority over the territories where they settled. Tringli says that it is possible that Koppány's domains in Transdanubia and Saint Emeric's territories (he bore the title of Duke of Russians) were duchies too in accordance with steppe tradition. On the other hand, Gyula Kristó, who refused Györffy's theory, writes that the Duchy only came into being when King Andrew I of Hungary granted one third of his kingdom to his younger brother, Béla around 1048. He cites the Illuminated Chronicle which clearly states that this was the "first division of the kingdom".