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As I understand it, it goes like this. Of course, there would be feminine equivalants, I'm just a lazy, lazy typist.

Emperor
King
Prince
Archduke
Duke
Earl
Baron
Count
Marquess

Now there MUST be a few I've forgotten, and there's a few like "Lord" that I don't know where to put.
Any input?

There's also the Baronet and Viscount, but I don't know where they rank. Additionally, different times and places have had different ratings of royalty.

Where does Marquis go?

neoolong wrote:Where does Marquis go?

Marquess=Marquis. I believe down there at the bottom.

Frank Hipper wrote:

neoolong wrote:Where does Marquis go?

Marquess=Marquis. I believe down there at the bottom.

Ah I was wondering what you meant by that. I thought that was just Marquessa without the a, but it was odd because you said it was a male list. Didn't know that there were different spellings.

Baronet IIRC is a particularly high-ranking knight, who owns land, and is thus at the bottom of that list.

An Emperor technically doesn't go above King. In the European sense, the only two Empires ruled by Emperors were the Holy Roman Empire and the Eastern Empire (Byzantium). These two empires were seen to be universal so if you ruled a land outside of them you were a simple King, but not subordinate from them. The French Empire was only Napoleon wanking off to himself so he could make his pals "kings" of vassal states.

That was my 2 AM answer, here's a simplifed one:

A King is like the head noble. An Emperor is above nobles. Obviously, this is all in theory, not always in practice.

Its often a tad more complicated that that......many of these titles vary in importance over the course of the years but there are a few notable consistencies, 'Duke' is generally always considered to be the highest landed, non-ruling family title. The title Archduke was added into the mix primarialy by the Austro-Hungarian Dynasties to refer to Dukedoms ruled by a scion of the Imperial family(Archduke Franz Ferdinand was cousin to the AustroHungarin Emperor Franz Joseph, and was Lord over the Duchy of Buda) as its spwawling size tended to cloud the social waters a bit. Also for Dukes the form of address is diffrent as well, Counts,Barons ect were always addressed as "My Lord" while Dukes were nominaly entitled to the address of "Your Grace" even by other members of the nobility who would normaly address each other as 'Sir' or 'Lady'.

Socially it was always a tad amorphous as everything had to do with your particular titles age and esteem it was held in , even minor Counts could trade on the age and lineage of their families to place themselves socially over new or younger members of the Nobility, evn if the new titles techincally out ranked them.

Frank Hipper wrote:As I understand it, it goes like this. Of course, there would be feminine equivalants, I'm just a lazy, lazy typist.

Emperor
King
Prince
Archduke
Duke
Earl
Baron
Count
Marquess

Now there MUST be a few I've forgotten, and there's a few like "Lord" that I don't know where to put.
Any input?

The order is as so:

Hereditary:

Ruling:

Emperor
King
Prince
Archduke; more common: Grand Duke.
Margrave
Count-Palatine
Landgrave

Noble:

Duke
Marquess
Earl/Count
Viscount
Baronet

Non-Hereditary:

Knight

It also varies from country to country. In England there are earls, but not in Italy. Prince is just a generic term for noble ruler, and so a king can be called a prince (Look at the dedication in the Authorized King James Bible). Any ruler, regardless of specific title, can be called a prince. The French had a specific term for the heir-apparent, dauphin. Likewise, baron can be applied generically to any non-royal noble. In France it can be used as an equivalent for the English peer.