Royal Succession

The system of royal succession in the Vandal kingdom of North Africa has long been regarded as idiosyncratic within the early medieval west, but its fullest implications have rarely been investigated closely. The present article examines the origins of succession by agnatic seniority under the strong rule of King Geiseric, and argues that it was one of several innovations intended to establish the emergent Hasding royal house against other aristocratic challenges. The article goes on to explore the consequences of this law in the two major dynastic crises of the Vandal kingdom: under Huneric in c.481 and under Hilderic in 530. In both cases, the standard narratives of events are challenged, and with them assumptions about the ‘constitutional’ status of Geiseric's law of succession.

Genealogical chart showing the descent of King James (of the King James version of the Bible) from Arrius Calpurnius Piso, the main author of the gospels & creator of Christianity. Also see the paper 'The Audacity Of King James' in AcademiaEdu as well as related papers RE: the Roman creation of Christianity.

This piece discusses the position of female heiresses and regnant queens, examining the structural and situational factors which can either aid an heiress in coming to the throne or conversely bar her accession. While the majority of the examples here will be drawn from premodern Europe, consideration is given to global examples to give a wider perspective of the continuity of experience of female heiresses and rulers in different temporal and cultural settings.

This paper examines the thoughts of two prominent Korean Confucians of the late Goryeo 高麗 period (918-1392), Yi Saek 李穡 (1328-1396) and Jeong Do-jeon 鄭道傳 (1342-1398). Although they were both renowned as followers of Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism, they held differing views on several important issues. One of these issues was the royal successions of King U 禑王 (32 nd) and King Chang 昌王 (33 rd). Yi Saek considered them to be legitimate rulers of Goryeo, while Jeong Do-jeon denied their legitimacy and accused those involved in their enthronements of treason. In order to conceptualize their differences, I first explain the distinction between the ownership conception and the service conception of political authority introduced by Joseph Chan. Based on this philosophical framework, I analyze and compare the thoughts of Yi Saek and Jeong Dojeon. My conclusion is that they based political legitimacy on different grounds: for Yi Saek, legitimacy is based on the founder's achievements in setting up the cultural and political foundation of Goryeo, whereas for Jeong Do-jeon, it is based on the founding king himself, who established the dynasty in 918. Accordingly, I call their views the "founding service" conception and the "founder's ownership" conception of political authority, respectively. I hope this analysis and comparison of their differing conceptions of political authority can contribute to a better understanding of their political thoughts and the development of the concept of political legitimacy in Korean history.

This paper examines the story of Shun’s 舜 ascension to the throne. This story has drawn considerable attention throughout Chinese history because of its significance with regard to political succession. However, in this paper, I shed light on a different dimension of the story: its relevance to the issue of contingency. I investigate four texts, two excavated and two transmitted: Qiongda yi shi 窮達以時 (Failure and Success Depend on Times), Tang Yu zhi dao 唐虞之道 (The Way of Yao and Shun), the Mengzi 孟子, and the Xunzi 荀子. At one extreme, Qiongda yi shi highlights that Shun became a king by pure chance, while at the other extreme, Xunzi interprets the event as a necessary one, emphasizing that Shun cannot but succeed Yao. The other two texts fall somewhere in between the two extremes. I use these four texts to showcase different ways of thinking about areas over which humans are believed to lack control. My claim is that these four texts offer different accounts of the same event of Shun’s ascension, because they see the event from different perspectives: from a perspective of the chosen, from a perspective of the chooser, from a mise-en-scène, and from a perspective of not of this world, respectively. I argue that the diverse perspectives of these texts entail the different understandings of several related issues such as the degree of human control over the event, the important features of the event, and the content of the moral and political lesson that we draw from the event.

Christoph De Spiegeleer explores the impact of the untimely deaths of three young heirs to the throne on the 19th-century Belgian constitutional monarchy. The chapter starts with an account of the deaths of Prince Louis-Philippe (1834), Prince Leopold (1869) and Prince Baudouin (1891) and links them to Belgium’s fragile international position and its growing linguistic and political tensions. The centre of gravity of the problems caused by the premature deaths of the heirs moved from an international to a national level. When Louis-Philippe died in 1834 the Belgian monarchy had still to consolidate itself in the international order whereas Baudouin’s death in 1891 triggered popular responses directed at national issues. De Spiegeleer concludes with an analysis of the changing strategies used by the royal family and politicians to cope with the succession crises triggered by these deaths

The article analyses two passages ( Hdt. 7,2-3 and Plu. Art. 2,2-3 ) which suggest that that there was a purported law in Achaemenid Persia that overrode royal primogeniture in specific circumstances.  The available pieces of literary, linguistic and historic data do not support the hypothesis that such a law was obeyed in Persia. Moreover, the analysis of the records of neighbouring countries proves that younger sons occasionally inherited the royal power despite having older brothers, but there was no law that enforced such an inheritance pattern. In Persia, the ruler could pass on his power to any person he deemed worthy, without any legal limitations. As such, the discussed law appears to be a figment of literary imagination.

De façon très traditionnelle, les rois d’Aragon, comme leurs contemporains, couchent par écrit leurs volontés testamentaires à plusieurs reprises au cours de leur règne. Pierre IV (1336-1387) ne déroge pas à cette règle et sept de ses testaments, datés de 1356 à 1379, sont actuellement connus. Cet article examine un dossier daté de 1354, composé du testament et de deux codicilles jusqu’alors inconnus de ce souverain. Avant de quitter la Péninsule ibérique pour une expédition militaire en Sardaigne, ce roi prend soin de tester. Outre des dispositions concernant sa sépulture, ses legs pieux, le règlement de sa succession et de l’héritage en faveur de ses enfants, ce dossier présente l’intérêt de définir, avec grande précision, les termes d’une régence que la Couronne connaîtrait, si Pierre IV venait à mourir avant la majorité de son fils unique, l’infant Jean, alors âgé de 3 ans. Le dispositif original qui s’y dessine souligne sa conception mature de l’exercice du pouvoir royal, mais aussi les craintes du souverain quant au futur de la Couronne d’Aragon.