King Wen of Zhou (Chinese: 周文王; pinyin: Zhōu Wén Wáng; 1152 – 1056 BC) was king of Zhou during the late...

>King Wen of Zhou (Chinese: 周文王; pinyin: Zhōu Wén Wáng; 1152 – 1056 BC) was king of Zhou during the late Shang dynasty in ancient China.
When historians call leaders in ancient civilizations outside of the Mediterranean area of influence Dukes, Kings, and Emperors, is it really an accurate comparison to Mediterranean Kings or are they different types of leaders called the same thing for simplicity?

Attached: King_Wen_of_Zhou.jpg (702x800, 82K)

The Mediterranean kingdoms could rightfully be called kings/dukes, but never an emperor. There were many neighboring kingdoms ruling small collection of cities close to one another. Shang dyansty could rightfully be called an empire. It ruled over what is essentially the heartland of northern half of China. It was effectively a unified "China" at this point. The outer regions of the Shang lied some barbarians who paid tributes to Shang.

Simplicity.

Duke, King and Emperor don't even have the same meanings in Europe.

For the most part Emperor > King > Duke > Count.


Also off topic a bit, but in the Asian sense no one outranked a Emperor, and proclaiming one to be a emperor (even in China there's various titles but they all translate to emperor in English) meant you had no political equal or superior. Which is why the Japanese tended not to mention to China they had an emperor. Or why China referred to the Japanese shogun as "king." Or why Korea proclaiming itself to be a Empire in 1897 and no longer a kingdom despite no territorial changes was a big thing. Basically for the Chinese there was only one emperor and it was the one that ruled China.

So, how did they view foreign empires and their emperors then? Higher level kings?

But this gets at the heart of what is a emperor?

Is it simply a monarch that rules a large kingdom, is it a monarch that rules over various kingdoms through feudalism, is it a monarch of a Republic (Rome, France), is it a monarch that is considered to be a successor of the Roman Empire?

The British Monarch rules over the English Kingdom, Scottish Kingdom and the Kingdom of Northern Ireland, not to mention various realms, but is called a king/queen.

In the case of China, regardless of what a country called itself their rulers were kings at best. And countries inside the Sinosphere considered China's ruler to be the emperor.

When countries broke away from the tributary system they might proclaim their kings to be emperors, but it might not be recognized by others.

Japan was a bit different. It had an emperor since I believe the 6th century. Before then the monarch was simply Great/Grand/Arch King 大王 which is higher than King 王. Japan famously wrote a letter to China in the 6th century saying "Hello from the emperor of the rising sun to the emperor of the setting sun." China was furious. During the next few centuries as the Japanese emperor lost political power the Chinese forgot there was a guy in Japan claiming to be emperor. And would award the title of King of Japan to the Shoguns. Who weren't really kings but the Chinese didn't care, and neither did the Japanese because they were barely a part of the tributary system.

Emperor basically means ruler of an empire, so as long as you claim to rule over an empire, you can call yourself emperor.
The word itself "emperor" has its origin in the latin word "Imperator", meaning to hold the "Imperium", the right to command people militarily, which was the highest military leader in a region or campaign, Roman emperors generally held the title Imperator alongs many others, as the Roman Empire retained many titles from the republic and wasn't a clear transition.
So after the fall of the WRE, different kings tried to reclaim the Roman legacy, those appointing themselves as emperors, which was one of the titles that was used back then, first came Charlemagne, then all the HRE emperors reclaiming the Roman legacy, the German and Russian words for emperor, "kaiser" and "czar" was just Ceaser adapted to their respective languages, showing the clear origin and intent in using the title.
As time passed, people disconected the meaning of "Emperor" with restoring the Roman legacy because it was used by people totally disconnected with Rome itself, culturally and in terms of territory.
By the 19th century, the word had nothing to do with Rome, as it was used by Napoleon for France, governing over Latin regions, but at the same time by Francis I for Austria, without any Latin Character, and by Russia, without any Latin character, so the meaning of the word became "ruling a vast area" and not "trying to restore the Roman legacy", this meaning was even more extended when Victoria created the title of Indian Emperor.
Now, historians use the title emperor to states that aren't related with Roman culture when they are either big or they rule over other peoples, disregarding local titles many times, it's also used as a translation of titles that means "King of kings" like Shāhanshāh in Persian.

>Emperor basically means ruler of an empire, so as long as you claim to rule over an empire, you can call yourself emperor.
Its more complex than that in Europe. There's a reason why the Portuguese, Spanish, French (royalists), Belgians, British, etc never called themselves emperor, yet all ruled over empires.

Saying that an emperor is a ruler of an empire, is very simple and is really only used when translating foreign ranks.

>By the 19th century, the word had nothing to do with Rome, as it was used by Napoleon for France
Not at all, there's a reason why Napoleon wasn't king of the French. Because France was a republic. Republics cannot have kings, but because of Rome, they can have emperors. And Napoleon was proclaimed a emperor in the style of the Romans. Basically a enlightened monarch. Not a despotic king.
Mexico's reason for choosing an emperor was the same as the French. Especially under Maximilian I

There's a few different reasons why Dom Pedro of Brazil was an emperor and not a king, although previously there was a kingdom of Brazil which had the same borders.

Austria's reasons were ego, Francis II new the HRE was coming to an end and didn't just want to be a king.

Russia's claim to emperor is pretty Roman, Tzar, is the Russian word Ceasar, and was created after the fall of Byzantium. Although admittedly the Slavic term Tzar is more complicated than that.

I'm not saying that the title of emperor isn't just a king who rules an empire, but I am saying its can be, and historically has been more complicated than that. And is more similar to the Chinese emperor, ie a monarch without superiors from when Bulgaria was fighting with Byzantium.

As for translations of nations outside of Europe, I can't argue because they didn't consider themselves to be emperors. We do. They had their own words that evolved from different contextes

Japan and China don't even the same Imperial system. Japan's "Emperor" is a 天皇, but China's "Emperor" is a 皇帝.

Fun fact: When the "First Emperor" of China was inventing his new title, he asked his scholars for proposals. They replied that in ancient times before written history, the first rulers were called 天皇, 地皇, and 泰皇, with the last as the most prestigious, and proposed using the third. The First Emperor modified it to 皇帝 to be above all three titles. So in the old Qin system, the Chinese "Emperor" would still outrank the Japanese "Emperor."

China's a bit of a problem.

The Royal/Noble Titles do roughly have an english equivalent.

>King (actually, this generally means Monarch), Wang 王
>Duke, gōng 公,
>Marquis, hóu 侯
>"count" bó 伯
"viscount" is actually erroneous. "zǐ " (子) simply mean's master.
Then Baron. nán 男 (though this really means "man of X")

The problem shows up when you reach Emperor. Huangdi 皇帝. This is, "Emperor" is a very shite translation of a title that literally means "divine august sovereign." In addition it was a title that didn't exist "naturally," it was fucking invented by Qin Shi Huang to mark the unification of the states under one Empire.

"Emperor" is a shit translation of Huangdi largely because Emperor refers to any old ruler of an Empire, while Huangdi refers to a very specific person ruling a very specific realm: the Bearer of the Mandate of Heaven who governs Tianxia (All Under Heaven).

It's basically similar to the title of POTUS. There's many presidents but only one POTUS. You're not gonna call the president of France POTUS.

Attached: Emperor Taizong.png (250x441, 119K)

Contd.
The title of Huangdi (皇帝) was considered by the Chinese above a mere monarch 王. However when they call other country's Emperors as 王, it wasn't really so much of a derogatory term, but simply they didn't know what else to call that country's chief leader as.

The problem was when East Asians made Chinese Lingo and Writing their Lingua Franca. Since these people often had emperors of their own, they called their monarch as Huangdi as well (well, save for Japan), since they too think he's higher than the king. Which pisses China off since there can only be one Huangdi and thats their ruler.

Again, to return to the POTUS analogy: its like when other countries adopt english and call their president the POTUS.

Attached: Qianlong_emperor_hunting_with_concubine.jpg (511x368, 75K)

But IMO the worst mistranslation of a title is Sultan. Europeans think "Sultan" is a middle eastern equivalent of a King. Actually it's a title that merely means "governor." It's even worse when they keep on calling the Ottoman ruler "Sultan" when the cunt is known amongst his subjects as the Padishah. But then again the Osmanli dynasty started as Sultans of Rum and maybe his OG title got stuck.

Europenises just think it's royalty largely because in the Medieval Ages, the Caliphate broke up and individual governors ruled like Kings over their provinces-turned-personal realms.

The arabic for King is "Malik."

Attached: SUltan Mehmed II.jpg (595x802, 464K)

>divine august sovereign

So Augustus?

>you're a 'governor'
>name your heir 'king king'

Turks really are pathological pisstakers aren't they?

>Japan and China don't even the same Imperial system. Japan's "Emperor" is a 天皇, but China's "Emperor" is a 皇帝
The Tenmu Emperor of Japan took the title 天皇 from the Tang Dyansty emperors. Wu Zetian, Ruizong, Daizong, etc were all 天皇. It fell out of fashion after the Tang dynasty but remained in Japan.

天子 is a title that both Chinese and Japanese emperors used.

There isn't really a ranking system with imperial title.

>Its more complex than that in Europe. There's a reason why the Portuguese, Spanish, French (royalists), Belgians, British, etc never called themselves emperor, yet all ruled over empires.
You are using "empires" in the meaning of that was given by historians much later after the title was created, meaning there "Ruling over large territories or population or over various peoples at the same time", before, empire was a title like many others, and even before than that, empire wasn't really the name of a government.
In Europe, emperor is used as the ruler of a government called empire, so Napoleon III was Emperor of the French, when he held the same territories that the Second Republic and the July Monarchy, (during his reign he created a colonial empire, but he was using the emperor title regardless of it), his actual reason to use the title of empire was to reclaim Napoleon's heritage, he intended to emulate Napoleon, which is why he started a imperialistic policy, acquiring colonies and influencing Mexico, while Napoleon I tried to emulate the Roman and Carolingian Empire, after the coup d'etat that put him in power, he used the Consul title, which was also Roman, and, in the same way that Roman emperors, he transformed a republic into a monarchy.

Over your second point, was I was originally meaning was that at the same time there was the French Empire, which had Roman heritage at many levels, and the Russian and Austrian empires, which weren't Roman at all. Still, Emperor doesn't really means being a "totalitarian governor of a republic" or something, it was never used as such, the reason to use it was only to claim Roman and Carolingian heritage and put himself at the level of the Holy Roman emperor.

Russia's claim is not Roman at all, is basically anti-Roman, during the fall of Byzantium, the Moscow Knyaz was married to a Byzantine princess, so he claimed, by bloodright, that the Roman Empire was, de iure, belonging to the Moscow Knyaz.

(cont)
Roman emperors were, many times, adopted by the previous emperors, and the Roman empire didn't have a straight succession line for most of it existence, Russian claim was basically a thing of prestige and putting themselves as the leader of the Orthodox church, because the Ecuminal Pratiarch depended of the Roman emperor, because "bloodright" is the worst right to claim Rome.

Russian's claim is at the same level as the Spanish claim to the Roman empire, because the Catholic Monarchs bought the title from Andreas Palaiologos, just a formality due to how titles and succession was understood in medieval and early modern times.

These explained well

>Russia's claim is not Roman at all
>he claimed, by bloodright, that the Roman Empire was, de iure, belonging to the Moscow Knyaz.

I meant "Roman" in the sense that the claim didn't work according to original Roman succession, the original Roman empire succession wasn't about being the biological son of the emperor, and during the ERE, when succession laws were more formalized, succession was different than the average medieval kingdom. The Moscow Knyaz basically said "my wife is the daughter of an emperor so she can claim the empire" which is not how Roman succession worked.

Not only this, also "sacred" heritage of Byzantine Empire, since Constantinople captured by turks, Third Rome ideology is all about this.

Very good thread.

Also I have something to add:
"Huang Di(皇帝)" is actually a term combined by two different titles: "皇Huang" and "Di帝", they're originally the titles of 8 legendary rulers in mythical period(三皇五帝) and they all have the meaning of "Emperor", but combined them together as "皇帝HuangDi" was first did by Chin Shi Huang after he united China. Before that, Chinese supreme rulers usually called themselves "王Wang"(King), as for 皇帝HuangDi is more like a title reprsent "King of Kings" which is one and only ruler above all kings under heaven.