Fürst
Fürst is a German word for a ruler and is also a princely title. Fürsten were, since the Middle Ages, members of the highest nobility who ruled over states of the Holy Roman Empire and later its former territories, below the ruling Kaiser or King.
A Prince of the Holy Roman Empire was the reigning sovereign ruler of an Imperial State that held imperial immediacy in the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire. The territory ruled is referred to in German as a Fürstentum, the family dynasty referred to as a Fürstenhaus, and the descendants of a Fürst are titled and referred to in German as Prinz or Prinzessin.
The English language uses the term "prince" for both concepts. Latin-based languages also employ a single term, whereas Dutch as well as the Scandinavian and Slavic languages use separate terms similar to those used in German.
An East Asian parallel to the concept of "ruling prince" would be the Sino-Xenic word , which commonly refers to Korean and non-East-Asian "kings", but usually refers to non-imperial monarchs in ancient China and Vietnam and therefore is frequently translated to "prince", especially for those who became rulers well after to the first adoption of the title 皇帝 by Qin Shi Huang. Some examples include China's Prince Wucheng and Vietnam's Prince Hưng Đạo. On the other hand, the son of a monarch would go by different titles, such as , or . A "European sovereign prince" may have the same title as a "duke", namely, and "principality" is translated to the same word as "duchy", namely.
Since the Middle Ages, the German designation and title of Fürst refers to:
- rulers of the states that made up the Holy Roman Empire, below the ruling Kaiser or König ;
- members of the nobility above the rank of Graf but below Herzog ;
- a ruler or monarch.
Use of the title in German
The rank of the title-holder is not determined by the title itself, but by his degree of sovereignty, the rank of his suzerain, or the age of the princely family. The Fürst ranked below the Herzog in the Holy Roman Empire's hierarchy, but princes did not necessarily rank below dukes in non-German parts of Europe. However, some German dukes who did not rule over an immediate duchy did not outrank reigning princes. Likewise, the style usually associated with the title of Fürst in post-medieval Europe, Durchlaucht, was considered inferior to Hoheit in Germany, though not in France.
The present-day rulers of the sovereign principality of Liechtenstein bear the title of Fürst, and the title is also used in German when referring to the ruling princes of Monaco. The hereditary rulers of the one-time principalities of Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Albania were also all referred to in German as Fürsten before they eventually assumed the title of "king".
Other uses in German
Fürst is used more generally in German to refer to any ruler, such as a king, a reigning duke, or a prince in the broad sense. Before the 12th century, counts were also included in this group, in accordance with its usage in the Holy Roman Empire, and in some historical or ceremonial contexts, the term Fürst can extend to any lord.The descendants of a Fürst, when that title has not been restricted by patent or custom to male primogeniture, is distinguished in title from the head of the family by use of the prefix Prinz.
A nobleman whose family is non-dynastic, i.e. has never reigned or been mediatised, may also be made a Fürst by a sovereign, in which case the grantee and his heirs are deemed titular or nominal princes, enjoying only honorary princely title without commensurate rank. In families thus elevated to princely title in or after the 18th century, the cadets often hold only the title of Graf, such as in the families of the princes of House of Bismarck, Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg and Karl August von Hardenberg. However, in a few cases, the title of Fürst is available to all male-line descendants of the original grantee.
Derived titles
Several titles were derived from the term Fürst:- Reichsfürst was a ruling Prince whose territory was part of the Holy Roman Empire. He was entitled to a vote, either individually or as a member of a voting unit, in the Imperial Diet. Reichsfürst was also used generically for any ruler who cast his vote in either of the Reichstags two upper chambers, the Electoral College or the College of Princes : Their specific title might be king, grand duke, duke, margrave, landgrave, count palatine, burgrave, Imperial prince or Imperial count. Usually included in this group were the reichsständisch Personalisten, Imperial princes and counts whose small territories did not meet the Fürstenrats criteria for voting membership as an Imperial estate, but whose family's right to vote therein was recognised by the Emperor. Officially, a Prince of the Church who voted in the Electoral or Princely College, along with a handful of titular princes might also be referred to as Reichsfürsten.
- Kirchenfürst was a hierarch who held an ecclesiastic fief and Imperial princely rank, such as prince-bishops, prince-abbots, or Grand Masters of a Christian military order. All Cardinals are deemed to be Princes of the Church and considered to be equal to royal princes by the Church.
- Landesfürst is a princely head of state, i.e. not just a titular prince. A Land was a geopolitical entity with statehood, whether fully independent or not. The term is sometimes translated as in states bound together only in a personal union their joint ruler reigns as a Landesfürst in each of the realms under different titles and constitutions, thus, e.g., the Habsburg emperors held a different regnal style in each of their Cisleithania realms.
- Kurfürst was a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire with a vote in the election of the Holy Roman Emperor, as designated by the Golden Bull of 1356 or elevated to that status subsequently. Originally, only seven princes possessed that right, of whom four were secular and three ecclesiastic. This prerogative conferred on its holders rank inferior only to that of the Emperor, regardless of the specific title attached to each Elector's principality. Kur is derived from kur / küren, "to choose". Properly an office of the Empire rather than a hereditary title, during the long de facto tenure of the Imperial throne held by the House of Habsburg, the Electorates were less distinguished from other Imperial princes by their right to choose an emperor than by the right to transmit the fief associated with the office to a single heir by primogeniture, originally unknown in Germany, rather than to divide lands among descendants in multiple appanages, allowing preservation of each Elector's territorial integrity and power.
- Großfürst was a rare title in German-speaking lands, and was used primarily to translate titles borne by rulers outside the Holy Roman Empire. In 1765 Empress Maria Theresa proclaimed the Hungarian province of Transylvania to be a "Grand Principality", whereafter it became one of the titles of the Emperor of Austria in 1804.
- Fürstprimas referred to the head of the member states of the Napoleonic Confederation of the Rhine established in 1806, then held by the Archbishop-Elector of Mainz, Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg. Today it is a rarely used episcopal title: Upon the elevation of the Archdiocese of Esztergom archbishop, Christian August of Saxe-Zeitz, to a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1714, his successors bear the title of a Prince primate up to today. The Archbishops of Salzburg still hold the title of Primate though their diocese is located in Austria.
Origins and cognates
Various cognates of the word Fürst exist in other European languages, sometimes only used for a princely ruler. A derivative of the Latin princeps is used for a genealogical prince in some languages, but a prince of the blood is always styled prins; and Icelandic where fursti is a ruler, and a prince of the blood royal is prins, while in other languages only a princeps-derived word is used for both irrespectively. In any case the original term may also be used.