Female inheritance of titles

[DreadLindwyrm]

>It's not entirely unusual for someone who faded into obscurity to not be mentioned, or not have an entry in an encycloedia entry - and to only be mentioned in passing in someone elses.

What are you addressing here?

You mentioned that Henry of Cluny doesn't have an english wikipedia article.

I was noting that "unimportant" people sometimes don't get an entry of their own.

>It is not entirely unheard of for someone to be relieved of their vows in order to inherit and prevent their family being made extinct, although it is rare.

There would still be the case of illegitimacy, I have heard of few exceptional cases of tonsured people succeeding, and bastards, but I have never of tonsured bastard succeeding.


>Are you sure that your fr.wikipedia entries are accurate, and that it isn't them that are incorrect?

It's cited in Grand armorial de France. So, yeah, I'd think so, unless you have some contradicting evidence.

Now at least we're getting somewhere with sources.
Since you hadn't mentioned an actual source, that is why I was asking if you were sure that the entry was accurate, since you'd been so harsh on "unsourced english wikipedia entries".

>"Salic law", in as far as inheritance went could mean very, very different things, and it wasn't always clear if a man could inherit through a woman.
>All of these fit the basic "only males shall inherit" principle, and could be considered Salic, depending on the variant in question.

According to France in Salic succession, women are not only ineligible for inheriting, but cannot pass claims to their sons.

And according to other readings and usages of Salic law women *could* pass claims. This is one of the reasons that use of "Salic" as a definition for the inheritance laws is inaccurate and not useful.

>I have been told of succession methods where a title would be inherited not by a man's sons, but by the eldest son of his eldest sister.

Is that the "uterine succession"? I recall it being a section on Wikipedia's article on primogeniture, it was based on phony sources, so I removed the whole section.

I saw it some years ago, and don't remember the context.
I do remember it being sourced, but not what those sources were. All I can find at the moment are some references to a couple of African tribes and some references to Picts, but unfortunately they're not on sites that have an encyclopedic format.

>But as a starting point for variations of agnatic or male only inheritances

Not what I had in mind... I'm aware of all variations of it, I thought you had in mind something strictly related to sex, not completely different laws.

This is partially a response to your earlier assertion that "Salic is just a synonym for the agnatic, principal that existed since the dawn of man across various people. ".
This is not the case as there are agnatic situations that are not based in Salic law, and some of which are incompatible with particular interpretations and implementations of it.

>there are agnatic systems where a man is succeeded not by his son, but by his brother, and when all brothers are exhausted the title passes to the senior son in the next generation

What you are describing is the agnatic seniority, but you already said agnatic seniority can be considered Salic, but here you are saying it isn't Salic, which one is it?

It produces the same effects, but is not derived from Salic law. Ergo it is not Salic.

>As for male-preference being more complicated than semi-salic, I utterly disagree.

As previously said, during the period only a few successions were regulated; there were no lines of succession, only customs, and testaments. There would be no tracing of the rightful heir upon extinction of a branch, rather distant relatives who could trace their lineage would show up to claim their inheritance. In such practices, the difference between agnatic and semi-agnatic would be that, if no relative showed up with creditable heritage, nothing would prevent female relatives from succeeding, while in agnatic they would be denied such right.

And those claims of lineage would have to be traced and verified in some fashion.
But if your law is male preference, and daughters can inherit you rarely have to have distant relatives doing this, as you will usually be able to find an heir in the more immediate family. You also will much more rarely get incompatible or conflicting pedigrees, and these will be easier to sort out with there being far more chance of someone being able to identify the deceased ruler's aunts and female cousins, rather than his third or fourth cousins whose lines have been under the auspices of another country for the best part of a century.

>Depending on the variant of Salic law involved though, you might have to check sons, grandsons in the female line, uncles, sons of aunts, and so on.

That would be male-preference proximity of blood.

Not quite.
Proximity of blood would give the throne to the living second son, rather than to the son of a deceased first son.

I am talking about a situation where you trace the eldest son of the eldest son, but finding that to be extinct then go to the youngest generation to have a daughter with male issue and then trace his male-line descendants.

Again, it depends on which interpretation is in use.

>You may also have to deal with how many generations distant you have to trace before giving up

I used to think that was the case, but I no realize such limitation would be impossible. If anything, only the lineage to the first titleholder would be relevant, and the descendants of the first title holder's siblings wouldn't have any kinda claim.

As an example - the Dutch throne is currently limited to people within three degrees of kinship to the monarch.
In theory tanistry was restricted to those within a certain number of generations of a previous ruler.
Were a "males only until we exhaust all purely male lines" system of descent added to British law regarding the Crown with no other changes, there is an absolute limit on who can inherit, as the succession is limited to Protestant descendants of Sophia of Hannover. At that point you would come back and look at female lines.

Potentially then you could have a situation where - by law - you had to have common male-line descent within a certain number of generations of the current ruler in order to be eligible for the throne, preventing possibilities such as having to accurately trace back several hundred years if your monarchy is that old.
It might be worded in terms of generations, or it might be worded as a span of years.

 

[SMiki Lorebringer]

>I have been told of succession methods where a title would be inherited not by a man's sons, but by the eldest son of his eldest sister.

Is that the "uterine succession"? I recall it being a section on Wikipedia's article on primogeniture, it was based on phony sources, so I removed the whole section.

This system existed in West African kingdoms and tribes – there was always a "queen mother" title passed through enatic primogeniture, but the power was held by queen mother's son (the king). King's children could never inherit; when he would die, his brother or his sister's son would become his successor. I'm not sure though if "uterine succession" is the name applied to this system.

 

[vnth]

It wasn't a law, but a custom based on the proximity of blood, which by all means, should be in the game.

I'm not quite sure what the difference is. At any rate, iirc, I don't think anyone is talking about the existence of cognatic inheritance, but which system was more popular and/or should be the default, which I'm genuinely curious as to what the answer is.

Also, if I may point out one thing, iirc, your argument only concerns gender preference, which irl, was not always separate from succession order. This is more of a ck thing to keep things simple. For instance. proximity of blood is where daughters come before uncles, but sons come before grandsons. It is different from male-preferred primo, where daughters come before uncles, and agnatic grandsons come before sons.

 

[vnth]

I'd disagree that it merging two different succession types together and then claiming that merged form was "the most common" is a fair or accurate comment.

And it *would* have negative impact to make agnatic descent the default if you then apply it wholesale and it makes non-agnatic realms be represented badly. Whether this is better or worse than what can be achieved with the combinations of successions in the game as it stands is a separate question.

It would, for example, make certain historical situations functionally impossible to replicate in game.
Eleanor of Aquitaine appears to have had two living paternal uncles, and yet became heiress to Aquitaine (and thus set the stage for the hundred years war).
It would also mess with English internal inheritances where daughters explicitly come before uncles in succession.

There was also the legal argument that Salic (and Semi-Salic) law was never intended for use outside of the Salian house, and that it was not in any shape "standard" throughout Europe, much less the rest of the continent.

It is not unusual that there are situations where ck just simply can't replicate and requires band-aid fixes. afak, there is no way to replicate proximity of blood succession. Or Geoffrey Plantagenet is inexplicably a bastard so that he can't inherit Jerusalem. The source problem of this--ck doesnt have co-rulership and jure uxoris and can't tell which title came from which wife--show up in various cases. At any rate, all of this does not answer the point originally brought up: does anyone know if ck has more heiresses than it should?

 

[Chlodio]

You mentioned that Henry of Cluny doesn't have an english wikipedia article.

I didn't, I stated "English Wikipedia doesn't even mention him", at all, in any article, nothing about him having his own article, even French Wikipedia doesn't give him his own article, but still mentions him.


>And according to other readings and usages of Salic law women *could* pass claims. This is one of the reasons that use of "Salic" as a definition for the inheritance laws is inaccurate and not useful.

Yeah, I'm not sure what you'd call inheritance where women cannot succeed but can pass claims.


>I do remember it being sourced, but not what those sources were. All I can find at the moment are some references to a couple of African tribes and some references to Picts, but unfortunately they're not on sites that have an encyclopedic format.

I didn't say it didn't have a source, I didn't ask for its source, I said its source was phony, implying I knew the source; this was it source. The part of African tribes and Picts used the same source that actually doesn't say anything about it.


> Proximity of blood would give the throne to the living second son, rather than to the son of a deceased first son.

Right, I don't know what I was getting there.


>As an example - the Dutch throne is currently limited to people within three degrees of kinship to the monarch.

Rather strange system I must say.


> In theory tanistry was restricted to those within a certain number of generations of a previous ruler.

I reckon it was limited to those people who could trace their lineage.


>there is an absolute limit on who can inherit, as the succession is limited to Protestant descendants of Sophia of Hannover. At that point you would come back and look at female lines.

Yes, setting a fixed ancestor does work.

 

[Chlodio]

@SMiki Lorebringer

Do you have a source?

 

[SMiki Lorebringer]

@SMiki Lorebringer

Do you have a source?

Here's one for the Asante: https://www.ascleiden.nl/content/webdossiers/asante-kingdom

In Asante, the family line is matrilineal - inheritance passes from the mother to her children. The Golden Stool is also passed down matrilineally, to one of the king's maternal nephews.

 

[Chlodio]

@SMiki Lorebringer
Interesting tradition, but it isn't regulated, but appears elective:

Prempeh II in turn was Opoku Ware II's uncle, making the boy one of several candidates to succeed him, as to be decided by the Queen-mother, or Nana Asantehemaa.​

 

[SMiki Lorebringer]

Yeah, it isn't primogeniture. But from what I gather, a man must belong to the same matrilineal clan in order to be eligible for election, so "uterine" might be a correct description.