The term Dynastic Order is also used for those orders which continue to be bestowed by former monarchs and their descendants after they have been removed from power. For instance, the website of Duarte Pio de Bragança, a pretender to the throne of Portugal using the title Duke of Braganza, asserts that the Order of the Immaculate Conception of Vila Viçosa, "being a Dynastic Order of the House of Bragança and not an Order of State, continued to be conferred by the last King Dom Manuel II, in the exile."On the basis of his succession to King Manuel II, Duarte Pio continues to award those orders of the Kingdom of Portugal which were not taken over by the Portuguese Republic.
The Portuguese Republic views things somewhat differently, regarding all the royal orders as extinct following the 5 October 1910 revolution with some of them revived in republican form in 1918. For official purposes, Portugal simply ignores the orders awarded by the royal pretender, Duarte Pio.Although no one is prosecuted for accepting orders from Dom Duarte, including himself, Portuguese law requires government permission to accept any official award, either from Portugal or foreign powers, and the awards of Dom Duarte simply do not appear anywhere on either list.
A similar situation exists in Italy where the Republican Government regards the orders of the former kings to have been abolished but the last king's heir continues to award them. The Italian situation differs from that in Portugal in that Italy forbids the public wearing of the former royal orders in Italy. Nevertheless, the last Italian Crown Prince Vittorio Emanuele di Savoia widely distributes the orders that he claims to have inherited from his father.As is the situation in Portugal, the Italian pretender asserts that control of the Savoy dynastic orders exists separate from the Kingdom of Italy so that he retains the right to award the orders, and accompanying privileges, despite his recognition that "the Italian throne was formally abolished by referendum in 1946 and a republic was instituted in its place.
Various dynastic orders There are many dynastic orders of knighthood, which exist primarily in Europe. Today, dynastic orders include those still bestowed by a reigning monarch, those bestowed by a head of a royal house in exile, and those that have become extinct. Although it is sometimes asserted that the heads of former reigning houses retain the right to their dynastic orders but cannot create new ones, that view is challenged by others who believe that the power to create orders remains with a dynasty forever.In a few cases, formerly reigning families are accused of "fudging" the issue by claiming to revive long extinct orders or by changing nondynastic state orders into dynastic ones. One example of this is the Order of Saint Michael of the Wingwhich is sometimes described as a revival of a long dormant order last awarded in the eighteenth century but also described as a new order created in 2004. Another example concerns the Royal Order of Francis I of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. One branch of the family (led by Prince Carlo, Duke of Castro) claims that the Order of Francis I was attached to the crown not the state, and thus awards its as a dynastic order. The other branch (led by Infante Carlos, Duke of Calabria) regards the Order of Francis I as a state order that became extinct when the Borbon-Two Sicilies royal family accepted the abolition of their monarchy and the state's inclusion in the Kingdom of Italy. Finally, there is the example of a Russian pretender Maria Vladimirovna who published a decree on 20 August 2010 to create the entirely new The Imperial Order of the Holy Great Martyr Anastasia.
One of the most important attribute of such argument to bear in mind is the reality that a lawful sovereign successor state is the only authority fully empowered to recognize the head of a non-regnant royal dynasty that once ruled its territory.
To think of royalty is also to think of dynasty, and that, by definition, involves families, including marriages and wedding ceremonies. In this century there have been notable weddings of reigning monarchs and of their children. There have, obviously, also been many weddings within the dispossessed royal houses of Europe.
Non-regnant dynasties, whether in Italy, Germany or elsewhere, play a role in maintaining the cultural and historical identity of Old World peoples. They represent not only peoples but even places. Control of dynastic orders of chivalry is at the root of certain dynastic quarrels. Some of these institutions are very old, and have a canonical position in Church law.
Bestowed by non-reigning head of a house The Order of St. George (Bavaria-Wittelsbach)
The Order of St. Hubert (Bavaria-Wittelsbach)
The Imperial Ethiopian Order of Saint Mary of Zion (Ethiopia)
The Order of the Holy Spirit (France)
The Order of Saint Michael (France)
The House Order of Hohenzollern (Hohenzollern, Germany)
The Imperial Austrian Order of Elizabeth (Habsburg-Lorraine) The Noble Order of the Golden Fleece (Habsburg-Lorraine)
The Order of the Starry Cross (Habsburg-Lorraine)
The Order of Saint Stephen of Hungary (Hungary)
The Order of Prince Danilo I (Montenegro)
The Order of Petrovic Njegos (Montenegro)
The Order of Saint Peter of Cetinje (Montenegro)
The Order of Saint George of Parma (Parma)
The Order of the Saint Louis for Civil Merit (Parma)
The Order of the Immaculate Conception of Vila Viçosa (Portugal, House of Braganza)
The Order of Saint Isabel (Portugal, House of Braganza)
The Order of Saint Michael of the Wing (Portugal, House of Braganza) The Order of Carol I (Romania, order founded in 1906 and discontinued with King Michael's abdication in 1947, and then revived by him on 5 January 2005 as a dynastic order)
The Order of the Crown (Romania), founded as a state order it was revived by King Michael I as a Dynastic Order in 2011.
The Order of Saint Anna (Imperial House of Russia)
The Order of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker (Imperial House of Russia, a new order created in exile on 1 August 1929 by the pretender Cyril Vladimirovich, a cousin of the last Tsar, Nicholas II of Russia)
The Royal Order of the Intare (Rwanda)
The Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation (Savoy)
The Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus (Savoy)
The Order of Parfaite Amitié (Thurn and Taxis)
The Order of Saint Joseph (Tuscany)
The Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St. George (Two Sicilies) The Royal & Illustrious Order of St. Januarius (Two Sicilies)
The Royal Order of the Crown of the Georgian Kingdom (Georgia,BagrationiGruzinsky Royal House)
The Royal Order of King David (Georgia, Bagrationi-Gruzinsky Royal House) The Royal Order of King Erekle II (Georgia, Bagrationi-Gruzinsky Royal House)
Salic Law The King of the Franks, in the midst of the Military Chiefs who formed his armed Court, dictates the Salic Law (Code of the Barbaric Laws).--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the "Chronicles of St. Denis," a Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century (Library of the Arsenal).
The Salic Law (Lat. Lex Salica) was a body of law codified to govern the Salian Franks in the early 5th century during the reign of Clovis I. It was the basis for the laws of Charlemagne, but by the 12th century, both the Frankish kings and their laws were no more.
This set of laws determined matters such as inheritance, crime, murder, and so forth in a kingdom with diverse groups and ethnicities. The laws went into extreme details concerning damages to be paid in fines for injuries to person or to goods, such as slaves, and for theft and unproven insults. One third of the fine went to court costs. Interpretation of the laws was put in charge of a jury of peers.
The great detail of the laws and what we retain of their interpretations give interesting insights in Frankish society. Female inheritance
One provision of the Salic Law continued to play a role in European politics during the Middle Ages and beyond. Concerning the inheritance of land, the Salic Law provided. But of Salic land no portion of the inheritance shall come to a woman: but the whole inheritance of the land shall come to the male sex.
As actually interpreted
by the Salian Franks, the law simply prohibited women from inheriting Salic land, and under Chilperic I, the law was actually amended to permit inheritance of land by a daughter if a man had no surviving sons. However, during the Hundred Years' War4, French jurists resurrected the longdefunct Salic Law and re-interpreted it to forbid not only inheritance by a woman, but inheritance through a female line in order to disqualify the claim of the descendants of Edward III of England on the French throne.
Notwithstanding the Salic Law, when Francis II of Brittany died in 1488 without male issue, his daughter Anne succeeded him and ruled as duchess of Brittany until her death in 1514.
This law by no means covered all matters of inheritance -- only those lands considered "Salic" - and there is still debate as to the legal definition of this word. Only several hundred years later, under the Capetian kings of France and their English contemporaries who held lands in France, did Salic law become a rationale for enforcing or debating succession. By then somewhat anachronistic (there were no Salic lands, since the Salian monarchy was long dead), the law was resurrected by Philip V to support his claim to the throne by removing his niece Jeanne from the succession, following the death of his nephew John. When the Capetian line ended, the law was contested by England, providing a putative motive for the Hundred Years' War.
Shakespeare uses the Salic law as a plot device in his play Henry V, and states that it was upheld by the French to bar the claim of Henry V from the throne of France. The play Henry V starts with the Archbishop of Canterbury being asked if Henry's claim can be upheld despite the law. The Archbishop says that it is not a French law but a German one.
The Salic law is responsible for some interesting chapters of history. The Carlist Wars occurred in Spain over the question of whether the heir to the throne should be a woman or a male relative. The War of the Austrian Succession was triggered by the Pragmatic Sanction in which Charles VI of Austria, who himself had inherited the Austrian patrimony over his nieces because of Salic Law, attempted to ensure the succession of/ to forward the inheritance directly to his own daughter Maria Theresa of Austria.
The British and Hanoverian thrones separated after the death of King William IV of the United Kingdom and of Hanover. Hanover practiced the Salic law, while Britain did not. King William's niece Victoria ascended the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, but the throne of Hanover went to William's brother Ernest, Duke of Cumberland; Salic law was also an important issue in the SchleswigHolstein question.
In the Channel Islands (the only part of the formerduchy of Normandy still held by the British Crown) Queen Elizabeth II is traditionally ascribed the title of Duke (never Duchess) of Normandy. The influence of Salic law is presumed to explain why she is toasted as "The Queen our Duke." The argument would similarly apply in the Isle of Man where she holds the title of Lord of Man.
4 (The Hundred Years' War was a 116-year-long armed conflict between England and France, beginning in 1337 and ending in 1453. Although the Hundred Years' War spanned the reigns of five English and five French (Valois) kings, this period was not one of continuous warfare, but was a series of peaks and valleys of conflict abroad and internal strife at home. The war was significant because of new weapons and tactics that ended the age of chivalry, the first standing armies in Europe since the Roman Empire, changes in the roles of nobles and peasants, and overall key developments in the early growth of nations and new monarchies).
Legitimist Royal Lines Frequent dynastic viewpoint presented over the years by self-styled scholars of dynastic history and laws have cited only "selective" evidence, conveniently omitting facts which might adjudicate the credibility of the cases being advanced. These examinations are strengthening by various tactics, such as the presentation of source documents outside of their proper historical context. Such persons may deliberately omit unfavorable facts, or present inaccurate interpretations and translations from foreign languages. This approach differs fundamentally from that employed in a court of law, or before the government of a democratic state, where opposing sides are permitted to submit their evidence before the juridical authority empowered to render a decision supported by legal statute and practice.
Where interfamilial disputes are involved, a natural consideration is the credibility of those supporters by whom cases are persistently advanced on behalf of non traditionalist royals whose claims to dynastic Head of the House are not generally accepted in their own ancestral realms or by their own royal family.
The circumstances that determine the legitimacy and general acceptance of an individual's claim to Head of the House of a non regnant dynasty must be based on more than a pseudo researcher justification presented outside the jurisdiction of a competent authority.
Anyone who closely examines not only the legalistic ideas advanced by the selfproclaimed "experts" in dynastic law, but also their ethnic and religious backgrounds, may find it peculiar that some of the most dialogue of these "experts" have absolutely no ancestral connection to a country they advocate.
A nation's decision to grant such recognition is based on the advice of informed scholar’s expert in such matters, as opposed to theories espoused by self-styled "scholars" in a foreign country.
Saxe-Gessaphe is the name of a family descended in the female line from former kings of Saxony, a member of which has been recognized by the pretender to that throne as eventual heir to the deposed dynasty's rights. The claim is contested by an agnatic descendant of the former royal house, and both claims are clouded by conflicting interpretations of the dynastic laws which governed the succession to the throne of Saxony, and by familial dispute.
German pretenders
Revolution filled the air at the end of the 1800s and beginning of the 1900s, destroying many ancient monarchies. The majority of the revolting nations replaced their thrones with communist governments. While democracy plods on from day to day, the heads of the Royal Families deposed, continue to use their titles, claim their thrones, and interact with other ex-royals on a regular basis.
Line of succession to the former Italian throne
The Italian monarchy was abolished in June 1946 following a referendum which established a republic. The present pretender is in dispute between Vittorio Emanuele, Prince of Naples and Amedeo, 5th Duke of Aosta.
(Picture: Vittorio Emanuele) The Duke of Aosta's attempt in 2006 to assume the headship of the house, and his, and his sons assumption of the name "di Savoia" and the arms of the Royal House of Savoy and that of the Prince of Piedmont, the Prince of Naples and his son filed a lawsuit against the Aosta branch. The lawsuit was successful with the court of Arezzo ruling in February 2010 that the Duke of Aosta and his son must pay damages totaling 50,000 Euros to their cousins and cease their use of the arms of the Royal House and those of the Prince of Piedmont. They were also forbidden to use the name "di Savoia", instead they must resume the name "di Savoia-Aosta".The Duke of Aosta is appealing the ruling.
The Italian Republic, according to constitutional laws, recognizes Vittorio Emanuele di Savoia as Head of the Royal House of Italy. Vittorio Emanuele is the son of the last King Umberto II and was regarded as the head of the house of Savoy unopposed until the 7 July 2006 when the Duke of Aosta declared himself to be the head of the house and Duke of Savoy.
Line of succession to the former Albanian throne
Crown Prince Leka of Albania (Leka I Zogu), (born April 5, 1939 - November 30, 2011, the Royal Palace, Tirana) is the only son of King Zog I and Queen Geraldine. He was christened Crown Prince Skander at birth. He is the pretender to the Albanian throne.He is known, and is often referred to by many people including monarchists and members of the media, as King Leka I. King Zog I was forced into exile only two days after the birth of Leka and soon officially replaced on the throne of Albania by Victor Emmanuel III of Italy but without having abdicated.
Prince Leka began life in exile in various countries. After travelling across Europe, the royal family settled in England, first at The Ritz in London,
then moving for a very short period in 1941 to Sunninghill near Ascot in Berkshire, and then in 1941 to Parmoor House, Parmoor, near Frieth.
Leka became heir apparent of the throne on 5 April1957. At the death of King Zog I in 1961, Leka was proclaimed King of the Albanians by a convened Albanian National Assembly-in-Exile, in a function room at the Hotel Bristol, Paris. He also holds the position of Sovereign Grand Master of the Orders of Scanderbeg, Fidelity and Bravery.
Died on November 30, 2011
The dynasty was founded by Zogu the Great who migrated from Kosovo in the late 15th century. His son, Zogu the Small was then appointed Governor of Mati by the Ottoman Sultan, with the position of Governor then becoming hereditary among the Zogu clan. The ancestral home of the Zogu was Castle Burgajet.
The most famous member of the dynasty is Zog I, Skanderbeg III, who in 1928 was proclaimed King of the Albanians and ruled until the Italian invasion in 1939. King Zog fled the country with the all powers (legislative and executive) given by the Albanian Parliament. All members of parliament unanimously granted to King the full powers and the authority to represent Albania inside and outside until the day when Albania would be free (See « Histoire de l’Albanie et de sa Maison Royale 1443-2007 » (5 Volumes), Patrice Najbor, JePublie, Paris, 2008, pp.720 à 722).
Since the death of King Zog in 1961, the pretender and head of the House of Zogu was Zog’s son Leka, Crown Prince of Albania, until his death in 2011. Leka has one son, Prince Leka II of Albania (b. 1982) - the current pretender.
According to the Statute of 1928 of the Albanian Monarchy, the Heir of the royal crown is the oldest son of the Royal Family. Thus, His Royal Highness Crown Prince Leka II is proclaimed successor of the Royal crown, by His Majesty the King, after He accomplishes the age of 18 years of age. HRH Leka II, Prince of the Albanians was announced Inheritor of the crown in 2000, upon the oath He committed in front of HM Leka I, King of the Albanians, in Johannesburg.
The Legitimacy of Non Reigning Royal Families Page 11