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MonkeySage
2016-04-24, 04:10 PM
Adelard is the 6th son of a monarch. To prove himself worthy of the crown, he became a squire, serving under the Knight, Dame Nadia.

By age 17, he is knighted by his father. By age 25, he's named heir to the throne.

Now, obviously this isn't primogeniture.

Is there historical precedent for this kind of succession?

Calen
2016-04-24, 04:56 PM
When all the older children die?

I forget if I have read this in fiction or non-fiction: The king can choose his successor from among his heirs without having to choose oldest or whatever.

Also brings to mind the movie Gladiator where the emperor chooses a general to succeed him instead of his son.

UrsusArctos
2016-04-24, 04:59 PM
The Five Good Roman Emperors were all adopted sons of the previous, and I believe were adopted at a relatively older age, closer to adulthood.

Yuki Akuma
2016-04-24, 05:01 PM
I forget if I have read this in fiction or non-fiction: The king can choose his successor from among his heirs without having to choose oldest or whatever.

Depends on the constitution of the monarchy in question whether the monarch has the right to do that. It's happened in the past, but it's illegal in, say, the United Kingdom.

It may require the consent of the first six in line, or the monarch might just have total authority to name his heir on a whim. Who knows? All monarchies are different.

Alternatively, the first six could be ineligible for some reason. Maybe they're all the wrong religion, or married people from a bloodline forbidden from becoming monarchs and therefore their issue would cause problems.

Tiktakkat
2016-04-24, 05:19 PM
Adelard is the 6th son of a monarch. To prove himself worthy of the crown, he became a squire, serving under the Knight, Dame Nadia.

By age 17, he is knighted by his father. By age 25, he's named heir to the throne.

Now, obviously this isn't primogeniture.

Is there historical precedent for this kind of succession?

It depends on what kind of examples you mean.

Primogeniture was actually a rather late development for inheritance of that kind.

The Romans allowed a person to name whoever he liked as his heir, and adoptions were arranged regularly for passing on property and titles. This includes multiple emperors.

Certain Celts used tanistry, where eligible descendents of a founder were elected by the clan to succeed the current chief. This was the basis of the civil war in Scotland between Robert the Bruce and the Baliols.

Germanic peoples tended to divide an inheritance among all children, with the perceived strongest receiving the most important title. This might not be the eldest, or the heirs might wind up in a fratricidal war to reunite the holdings of their father. This was the downfall of the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties. Of course the sons might decide to start the war early, such as the children of Louis I of the Carolingians, or the sons of Henry II of England.

This later developed into agnatic primogeniture, where only heirs in the male line inherit, and cognatic primogeniture, where heirs in both the male and female line inherit. Depending on circumstances, this could cause splits in succession, such as when Victoria became Queen of England while Hanover went to her uncle. This also affected the succession to Henry VIII as well as that of James II.

Outright blood contests were common for the Ottoman throne, as well as for the ancient Persians and Parthians.

A parallel version of Celtic tanistry is used in Saudia Arabia, with kings being elected by the descendents of King Saud, often bypassing older brothers for younger ones, and now displacing older grandsons for younger ones.

MonkeySage
2016-04-24, 06:58 PM
So, this is a Germanic inspired realm, however the Emperor has absolute legislative and executive power... Sort of like the Byzantine emperors had. I was thinking it was a sort of pseudo-meritocracy; the emperor chooses his heir from among the most qualified members of his family.

MrZJunior
2016-04-24, 08:26 PM
So, this is a Germanic inspired realm, however the Emperor has absolute legislative and executive power... Sort of like the Byzantine emperors had. I was thinking it was a sort of pseudo-meritocracy; the emperor chooses his heir from among the most qualified members of his family.

If the emperor has absolute legislative and executive power he can do as he wishes.

RazorChain
2016-04-24, 09:07 PM
So, this is a Germanic inspired realm, however the Emperor has absolute legislative and executive power... Sort of like the Byzantine emperors had. I was thinking it was a sort of pseudo-meritocracy; the emperor chooses his heir from among the most qualified members of his family.

Well the Holy Roman Empire was for example a elective monarchy and was often ruled by dynasties. There are precedents from the Roman Empire for skipping over heirs to chose the most able.

Knaight
2016-04-24, 09:22 PM
There are plenty of cases like this. On top of that, succession has a tendency to be really messy in systems where leaders are picked based on right to rule based on their family connections, and there's plenty more cases where the leader dies, civil war occurs between a number of claimants, and then somebody other than the direct heir ends up in charge.

LibraryOgre
2016-04-26, 01:51 PM
Germanic peoples tended to divide an inheritance among all children, with the perceived strongest receiving the most important title. This might not be the eldest, or the heirs might wind up in a fratricidal war to reunite the holdings of their father. This was the downfall of the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties. Of course the sons might decide to start the war early, such as the children of Louis I of the Carolingians, or the sons of Henry II of England.


I'd point to the Anglo-Saxons who tended to elect their kings in the Witan, when things were functioning as they were supposed to (which was close to never). It might be the eldest son, but it might be someone else entirely.

Vinyadan
2016-04-26, 02:47 PM
Adelard is the 6th son of a monarch. To prove himself worthy of the crown, he became a squire, serving under the Knight, Dame Nadia.

By age 17, he is knighted by his father. By age 25, he's named heir to the throne.

Now, obviously this isn't primogeniture.

Is there historical precedent for this kind of succession?

It could be primogeniture if the other children became priests. Historically, a monk or a priest could not inherit a princedom in Europe. Otherwise, the others might have inherited something else/better and have been removed from inheritance to avoid wars which would have preemptively been unleashed to impede a personal union. Some might have died, some might have otherwise lost their rights through infamy or rebellion, or be unable to push them (blindness, for example). It all depends on how powerful the king is in comparison to the nobility, and why the others aren't OK. Heresy comes to mind: the father might have become heretic, and the other sons refused to follow him, leaving the last one as the only acceptable choice in his eyes. If he has power over the clergy, he might have forced a conversion of them, too, and have sanctioned a canon to impede succession of anyone who is of a different confession from his own, or who is married with someone of a different confession, since he can't be sure of how the child of such a union will be raised.

Tiktakkat
2016-04-26, 09:08 PM
I'd point to the Anglo-Saxons who tended to elect their kings in the Witan, when things were functioning as they were supposed to (which was close to never). It might be the eldest son, but it might be someone else entirely.

That's yet another core tendency among the Germanic peoples. And it caused quite a bit of friction with the transition to the whole "inherited titles" concept in general. (It also factored into the "official" end of the Merovingians and beginning of the Carolingians, and then to the Capetians.)
Likewise there is the strong "descended from Odin or Thor" thing that also took some time to get past.

Overall, Germanic succession from 500-1000 AD produces a lot of precedents for almost everything but strict male primogeniture, contrasting strongly to the strict male primogeniture that was taking hold and would cause so many issues for the next millennium.

JohanOfKitten
2016-04-27, 03:12 AM
There's also the ultimogeniture successions.
see there : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimogeniture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimogeniture)

But it's far from common and it can easily lead to tension and fights over the succession by older brothers (from war to assassination).

The elective monarchy evoked in the previous posts might fit better

Inevitability
2016-04-27, 05:03 AM
If the king in question is particularly ruthless, he may just kill the five elder brothers and be done with it. No conflict, no war of succession, just five deaths.

wumpus
2016-04-27, 11:03 AM
I'd point to the Anglo-Saxons who tended to elect their kings in the Witan, when things were functioning as they were supposed to (which was close to never). It might be the eldest son, but it might be someone else entirely.

Most famously choosing Harold over Alfred's heir (and presumably William was a possibility and enraged he didn't get it). I'm not quite sure how Cnut eventually got the throne, but I suspect that the rest of the Saxons looked at their king (either Aethred (the unready) or Edwin, both lousy kings) and figured that between a bloody battle and a lousy king, they were better off with Cnut.

No idea how it worked when they had four separate kingdoms.

Red Fel
2016-04-27, 11:46 AM
So, this is a Germanic inspired realm, however the Emperor has absolute legislative and executive power... Sort of like the Byzantine emperors had. I was thinking it was a sort of pseudo-meritocracy; the emperor chooses his heir from among the most qualified members of his family.


If the emperor has absolute legislative and executive power he can do as he wishes.

"I like this answer." - Thomas Hobbes

Seriously. In a setting where the Emperor is an absolute authority, who is going to challenge his decision to award the crown as he sees fit? Who can? Or, to put it differently,

King Jaffe Joffer: Even if she agreed, they still could not marry, it is against the tradition.
Queen Aeoleon: Well, it is a stupid tradition!
King: Who am I to change it?
Queen: I thought you were the King?
Can people dispute it after he dies? Of course. But they were probably going to do that anyway.

Tiktakkat
2016-04-27, 01:41 PM
No idea how it worked when they had four separate kingdoms.

Pretty much the same, except after the individual kingdoms (and there were 7 primary (heptarchy) plus another dozen minor ones) chose their rulers, they would fight each other to be recognized as the "king" of "all" the "English" (sometimes called "Bretwalda").
In the process the lesser kingdoms disappeared, typically being assigned to secondary heirs or other relatives.
And over 5 centuries, the winner of these battles changed, from the Northumbrians to the Mercians to the House of Wessex, with an interruption from the Danes, ending with the arrival of the Normans.

Cnut wound up with the throne because Aethelraed Unraed (Noble-Counsel Ill-Counsel - its a deliberate play on words in Old English) was both a lousy military leader and a lousy politician, getting into a war he lost with Cnut while also murdering and abusing the Anglo-Saxon ealdors (who included the power reduced former kings) to the point the survivors simply abandoned him for the pagan Cnut.

Lvl 2 Expert
2016-04-30, 02:11 AM
It depends a little on how strict your setting is with these rules. In the real world plenty of first borns have been passed by among royalty. Sometimes two entire generations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XV_of_France) got skipped (granted, this was generally because those people were dead) and the title passed to a great-grandson of the old king. It's not just a royalty thing either. Admiral Michiel de Ruyter started sailing at age 11, as a cabin boy. And apparently, he's not even nearly alone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabin_boy).

Over a hundred billion humans have existed so far, there are plenty of real rags to riches stories among them. Is it typical and common in any history-based setting to go from squire to king? Probably not. But PC's don't need to stick to what's common.

MonkeySage
2016-04-30, 01:47 PM
What about a Prince taking on the role of a squire(later a knight) to prove his worth to his father?

Vinyadan
2016-04-30, 02:18 PM
What about a Prince taking on the role of a squire(later a knight) to prove his worth to his father?

That's not a problem. Being a knight was a different deal from being a king or a duke; knighthood was something unifying all knights, independently from their rank. The king likely also is a knight, as were various emperors (Frederick Barbarossa dubbing his sons knights in Mainz in 1184 comes to mind), and it is very possible that the king himself will be the one to bestow the title on his son, once he is ready.

Honest Tiefling
2016-04-30, 02:58 PM
If the 6th son is the eldest son of the first (or only) wife, while the others are sons of concubines or lesser wives, there might be a precedent for him to inherit because the first wife's in-laws might get a bit antsy if he didn't.

GreatWyrmGold
2016-04-30, 07:19 PM
So, this is a Germanic inspired realm, however the Emperor has absolute legislative and executive power... Sort of like the Byzantine emperors had.
The Byzantines seemed to have relatively free ideas of inheritance, both in that emperors had a fair amount of freedom in selecting an heir and that succession crises often ended with the crown going to the general with the biggest army. Not to the Imperial descendant he supported, the general.
Of course, bigger-army diplomacy is far from rare in even monarchies which theoretically have set inheritance laws. Inheritance law really only matters if no one cares enough to contest it. (Which was generally the norm...but still.)

Hoosigander
2016-04-30, 10:40 PM
Just to add another inheritance system for the curious, in Agnatic Seniority the siblings of a monarch are given preference to the sons, who only inherit after all the previous generation has died. In such a system a sixth son would inherit, although it wouldn't fit Monkeysage's purposes since the heir would be more likely to be 75 than 25. The Rurikid Dynasty that ruled the Kieven Rus was the most famous example, although the Saudi ruling family is quasi-Agnatic Seniority since brothers often inherit in preference to sons.

tomandtish
2016-04-30, 11:58 PM
What about a Prince taking on the role of a squire(later a knight) to prove his worth to his father?


That's not a problem. Being a knight was a different deal from being a king or a duke; knighthood was something unifying all knights, independently from their rank. The king likely also is a knight, as were various emperors (Frederick Barbarossa dubbing his sons knights in Mainz in 1184 comes to mind), and it is very possible that the king himself will be the one to bestow the title on his son, once he is ready.

And it wasn't even unheard of for them to serve as a page prior to becoming a squire.

In fact, this is probably more the norm. Up until about the reign of the Tudors, it was fairly common to send a young prince off to live with another family for training. Edward the 2nd was effectively raised by a foster family and educated by Dominican Friars. King John spent time in an abbey, and then some time being raised by Henry the Young King. Richard the 3rd was actually sent to the Low Countries (Belgium and Denmark) at age 8. Henry the 2nd spent time in Anjol and Bristol.

So there's nothing uncommon about having them educated, trained, and even sending them off to be educated and trained. You can argue whether or not they actually EARN the title of squire or knight, but having them (appear to) go through the process is not at all unusual.

And as others have said, primogeniture as we tend to think about it is pretty much from medieval times. You could certainly use a Roman model where rank is (for the most part) earned.

wumpus
2016-05-01, 02:49 PM
"I like this answer." - Thomas Hobbes

Seriously. In a setting where the Emperor is an absolute authority, who is going to challenge his decision to award the crown as he sees fit? Who can? Or, to put it differently,

Can people dispute it after he dies? Of course. But they were probably going to do that anyway.

Dead Emperors certainly don't have absolute authority. Also there is a certain tradition that holds that the Praetorian guard had a huge say in who was going to be Emperor. For a good idea of how this works, consider "modern" North Korea (while Saudi Arabia is technically a "real" monarchy, I suspect that the Saudi princes have much more power than any relative of Kim Un).

Red Fel
2016-05-01, 08:14 PM
Dead Emperors certainly don't have absolute authority.

Which is why I made two points. First, while alive, he has the absolute authority to appoint whomever he wants to whatever role he wants whenever he wants, irrespective of what his challengers or detractors may argue, legitimately or otherwise. Second, after he dies, his succession will be challenged, irrespective of what he ordered in life, publicly popular or otherwise.

Honest Tiefling
2016-05-01, 08:16 PM
It occurs to me that Greece once booted out their king and then snagged some random extra royal the Danes had lying around to become the new king. You didn't mention which throne he is the heir to. Through if the people have enough power and are likely to murder the crap out of Brothers 1-5, he could technically step in but on much weaker footing.

tomandtish
2016-05-01, 09:42 PM
It occurs to me that Greece once booted out their king and then snagged some random extra royal the Danes had lying around to become the new king. You didn't mention which throne he is the heir to. Through if the people have enough power and are likely to murder the crap out of Brothers 1-5, he could technically step in but on much weaker footing.

George the First of Greece. And this was in the mid 1800s if memory serves me correctly. They had kicked out the previous one, and George was eventually elected by plebiscite.

Red Fel brings up an interesting point though, namely that a lot of this depends on what you WANT the norm to be (since I think we've established that there is precedent for doing it).

Is the norm in the realm primogeniture (or some other designated order based on lineage) and it's being bypassed?

Is the norm selection of the most able (as determined by whatever means)?

Is the norm that the ruler picks their successor however the heck they want?

Remember, even if there wasn't historical precedent you could still do this, since it is a game. But I assume the point is that some tension is going to arise from it (otherwise it wouldn't really matter). How that tension develops depends on what the normal manner of succession is, and whether it is being bypassed in this case.

Red Fel
2016-05-02, 08:37 AM
Remember, even if there wasn't historical precedent you could still do this, since it is a game. But I assume the point is that some tension is going to arise from it (otherwise it wouldn't really matter). How that tension develops depends on what the normal manner of succession is, and whether it is being bypassed in this case.

Keep in mind that, even if the normal rules of succession are complied with, there may still be some tension after the Emperor dies. Wars of succession have historically been a thing. Usurpation has historically been a thing. There will always be someone who, legitimately or otherwise, believes himself to be the "rightful heir," and such people are frequently able to gather supporters, generally those who either (1) dislike the heir designate, or (2) see the challenger as their opportunity to be closer to the seat of power.

But yeah. Even if you don't deviate from the normal rules of succession, you can expect some unrest after the current monarch's death; if you do deviate, you can expect more.