Gesta Theodorici - Theodoric the Great (455-526)

King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the title may refer to

tribal kingship A tribal chief or chieftain is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom. Tribe The concept of tribe is a broadly applied concept, based on tribal concepts of societies of western Afroeurasia. Tribal societies are sometimes categorized as ...

. Germanic kingship is cognate with Indo-European traditions of tribal rulership (c.f. Indic '' rājan'', Gothic '' reiks'', and Old Irish '' rí'', etc.). *In the context of classical antiquity, king may translate in Latin as '' rex'' and in Greek as ''

archon ''Archon'' ( gr, ἄρχων, árchōn, plural: ἄρχοντες, ''árchontes'') is a Greek word that means "ruler", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem αρχ-, mean ...

'' or ''

basileus ''Basileus'' ( el, ) is a Greek term and title that has signified various types of monarchs in history. In the English-speaking world it is perhaps most widely understood to mean "monarch", referring to either a "king" or an "emperor" and al ...

''. *In classical European feudalism, the title of ''king'' as the ruler of a ''kingdom'' is understood to be the highest rank in the feudal order, potentially subject, at least nominally, only to an emperor (harking back to the client kings of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire). *In a modern context, the title may refer to the ruler of one of a number of modern monarchies (either absolute or constitutional). The title of ''king'' is used alongside other titles for monarchs: in the West, emperor, grand prince, prince,

archduke Archduke (feminine: Archduchess; German: ''Erzherzog'', feminine form: ''Erzherzogin'') was the title borne from 1358 by the Habsburg rulers of the Archduchy of Austria, and later by all senior members of that dynasty. It denotes a rank within ...

, duke or

grand duke Grand duke (feminine: grand duchess) is a European hereditary title, used either by certain monarchs or by members of certain monarchs' families. In status, a grand duke traditionally ranks in order of precedence below an emperor, as an approxi ...

, and in the Islamic world,

malik Malik, Mallik, Melik, Malka, Malek, Maleek, Malick, Mallick, or Melekh ( phn, 𐤌𐤋𐤊; ar, ملك; he, מֶלֶךְ) is the Semitic term translating to "king", recorded in East Semitic and Arabic, and as mlk in Northwest Semitic duri ...

sultan Sultan (; ar, سلطان ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it ...

, emir or hakim, etc. *The city-states of the

Aztec Empire The Aztec Empire or the Triple Alliance ( nci, Ēxcān Tlahtōlōyān, Help:IPA/Nahuatl, �jéːʃkaːn̥ t͡ɬaʔtoːˈlóːjaːn̥ was an alliance of three Nahua peoples, Nahua altepetl, city-states: , , and . These three city-states ruled ...

had a Tlatoani, which were kings of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica. The

Huey Tlatoani ''Tlatoani'' ( , "one who speaks, ruler"; plural ' or tlatoque) is the Classical Nahuatl term for the ruler of an , a pre-Hispanic state. It is the noun form of the verb "tlahtoa" meaning "speak, command, rule". As a result, it has been variousl ...

was the emperor of the Aztecs. The term ''king'' may also refer to a king consort, a title that is sometimes given to the husband of a ruling queen, but the title of prince consort is more common.

Etymology

The English term is derived from the

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

''cyning'', which in turn is derived from the Common Germanic *''kuningaz''. The Common Germanic term was borrowed into Estonian and Finnish at an early time, surviving in these languages as . It is a derivation from the term ''*kunjom'' "kin" (

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

) by the ''-inga-'' suffix. The literal meaning is that of a "scion of the oblekin", or perhaps "son or descendant of one of noble birth" ( OED). The English term translates, and is considered equivalent to, Latin '' rēx'' and its equivalents in the various European languages. The Germanic term is notably different from the word for "King" in other Indo-European languages (''*rēks'' "ruler"; Latin '' rēx'', Sanskrit '' rājan'' and Irish '' ríg''; however, see Gothic '' reiks'' and, e.g., modern German ''Reich'' and modern Dutch ''rijk'').

History

The English word is of Germanic origin, and historically refers to

Germanic kingship Germanic kingship is a thesis regarding the role of kings among the pre-Christianized Germanic tribes of the Migration period (c. 300–700 AD) and Early Middle Ages (c. 700–1,000 AD). The thesis holds that the institution of feudal mon ...

, in the pre-Christian period a type of

. The

monarchies of Europe Monarchy was the prevalent form of government in the history of Europe throughout the Middle Ages, only occasionally competing with communalism, notably in the case of the Maritime republics and the Swiss Confederacy. Republicanism became more ...

in the Christian Middle Ages derived their claim from Christianisation and the

divine right of kings In European Christianity, the divine right of kings, divine right, or God's mandation is a political and religious doctrine of political legitimacy of a monarchy. It stems from a specific metaphysical framework in which a monarch is, before b ...

, partly influenced by the notion of sacral kingship inherited from

Germanic antiquity Early Germanic culture refers to the culture of the early Germanic peoples. Largely derived from a synthesis of Proto-Indo-European and indigenous Northern European elements, the Germanic culture started to exist in the Jastorf culture that de ...

. The Early Middle Ages begin with a fragmentation of the former Western Roman Empire into

barbarian kingdoms The barbarian kingdoms, also known as the post-Roman kingdoms, the western kingdoms or the early medieval kingdoms, were the states founded by various non-Roman, primarily Germanic, peoples in Western Europe and North Africa following the collap ...

. In Western Europe, the kingdom of the Franks developed into the Carolingian Empire by the 8th century, and the kingdoms of

Anglo-Saxon England Anglo-Saxon England or Early Medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th centuries from the end of Roman Britain until the Norman conquest in 1066, consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927, when it was united as the Kingdom o ...

were unified into the kingdom of England by the 10th century. With the breakup of the Carolingian Empire in the 9th century, the system of feudalism places kings at the head of a pyramid of relationships between liege lords and vassals, dependent on the regional rule of

baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knig ...

s, and the intermediate positions of counts (or earls) and dukes. The core of European feudal manorialism in the High Middle Ages were the territories of the former Carolingian Empire, i.e. the kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire (centered on the nominal kingdoms of Germany and Italy). In the course of the European Middle Ages, the European kingdoms underwent a general trend of centralisation of power, so that by the Late Middle Ages there were a number of large and powerful kingdoms in Europe, which would develop into the great powers of Europe in the Early Modern period. *In the Iberian Peninsula, the remnants of the Visigothic Kingdom, the petty kingdoms of Asturias and Pamplona, expanded into the

kingdom of Portugal The Kingdom of Portugal ( la, Regnum Portugalliae, pt, Reino de Portugal) was a monarchy in the western Iberian Peninsula and the predecessor of the modern Portuguese Republic. Existing to various extents between 1139 and 1910, it was also kno ...

, the

Crown of Castile The Crown of Castile was a medieval polity in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and, some decades later, the parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accessi ...

and the Crown of Aragon with the ongoing Reconquista. *In southern Europe, the

kingdom of Sicily The Kingdom of Sicily ( la, Regnum Siciliae; it, Regno di Sicilia; scn, Regnu di Sicilia) was a state that existed in the south of the Italian Peninsula and for a time the region of Ifriqiya from its founding by Roger II of Sicily in 1130 un ...

was established following the Norman conquest of southern Italy. The Kingdom of Sardinia was claimed as a separate title held by the Crown of Aragon in 1324. In the Balkans, the

Kingdom of Serbia The Kingdom of Serbia ( sr-cyr, Краљевина Србија, Kraljevina Srbija) was a country located in the Balkans which was created when the ruler of the Principality of Serbia, Milan I, was proclaimed king in 1882. Since 1817, the Princi ...

was established in 1217. *In central Europe, the Kingdom of Hungary was established in AD 1000 following the Christianisation of the

Magyars Hungarians, also known as Magyars ( ; hu, magyarok ), are a nation and ethnic group native to Hungary () and historical Hungarian lands who share a common culture, history, ancestry, and language. The Hungarian language belongs to the Uralic ...

. The kingdoms of Poland and

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

were established within the Holy Roman Empire in 1025 and 1198, respectively. *In eastern Europe, the

Grand Duchy of Moscow The Grand Duchy of Moscow, Muscovite Russia, Muscovite Rus' or Grand Principality of Moscow (russian: Великое княжество Московское, Velikoye knyazhestvo Moskovskoye; also known in English simply as Muscovy from the Lati ...

did not technically claim the status of kingdom until the early modern Tsardom of Russia. *In

northern Europe The northern region of Europe has several definitions. A restrictive definition may describe Northern Europe as being roughly north of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, which is about 54th parallel north, 54°N, or may be based on other g ...

, the tribal kingdoms of the Viking Age by the 11th century expanded into the North Sea Empire under Cnut the Great, king of Denmark, England and Norway. The Christianization of Scandinavia resulted in "consolidated" kingdoms of

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

and Norway, and by the end of the medieval period the pan-Scandinavian

Kalmar Union The Kalmar Union (Danish language, Danish, Norwegian language, Norwegian, and sv, Kalmarunionen; fi, Kalmarin unioni; la, Unio Calmariensis) was a personal union in Scandinavia, agreed at Kalmar in Sweden, that from 1397 to 1523 joined under ...

Contemporary kings

Currently (), fifteen kings are recognized as the heads of state of sovereign states (i.e. English ''king'' is used as official translation of the respective native titles held by the monarchs). Most of these are heads of state of

constitutional monarchies A constitutional monarchy, parliamentary monarchy, or democratic monarchy is a form of monarchy in which the monarch exercises their authority in accordance with a constitution and is not alone in decision making. Constitutional monarchies dif ...

; kings ruling over absolute monarchies are the King of Saudi Arabia, the King of Bahrain and the King of Eswatini.The distinction of the title of "king" from "sultan" or "emir" in oriental monarchies is largely stylistics; the Sultanate of Oman, the State of Qatar, the

State of Kuwait Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...

and the United Arab Emirates are also categorised as absolute monarchies.

Notes

References

*Thomas J. Craughwell, ''5,000 Years of Royalty: Kings, Queens, Princes, Emperors & Tsars'' (2009). *David Cannadine, Simon Price (eds.), ''Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies'' (1992). *Jean Hani, ''Sacred Royalty: From the Pharaoh to the Most Christian King'' (2011).

External links