The Guelphs and Ghibellines

Cause Before Symptom - With Your Host James Carner

The Guelphs and Ghibellines

The Guelphs and Ghibellines warred against each other during the dark ages. They were two German houses fighting what was called the investiture controversy which meant who would select popes, dynasties or the church, as back then the pope was more like an emperor than a man of god.

The Investiture Controversy was a power struggle between the papacy and European secular rulers that was resolved by the Concordat of Worms in 1122: 

* The conflict 
The controversy began in 1076 when Pope Gregory VII condemned lay investiture, the practice of secular rulers appointing church officials. This was seen as an unjustified assertion of secular authority over the church. 

* The resolution 
The Concordat of Worms was an agreement between Pope Callixtus II and Holy Roman Emperor Henry V that gave the church the power to invest bishops with sacred authority. The emperor gave up his right to appoint bishops, but retained the right to invest them with land and to arbitrate disputes over their election. 

* The outcome 
The Concordat of Worms ended the political conflict, but the controversy continued to resurface in later centuries. The controversy weakened the imperial power of previous emperors, which led to nearly 50 years of civil war in Germany. The papacy also grew stronger in power and authority.

History records these dynasties are long gone and other families rose to power. There is a conspiracy that these families never left but rather changed names and still have control but in different ways.

My research has found some information that leads the Ghibellines to Somaglia families house of Hohenstaufen (Dukes of Swabia). A municipality in the Province of Lodi, Lombardy, Italy. It's a small town with a rich history, but not directly linked to a noble family. And the Guelphs are The Duchy of Franconia house of Welf (Dukes of Bavaria) which effectively dissolved over time, with its territory becoming fragmented into smaller states, primarily absorbed by the Electorate of Bavaria, and the title of "Duke of Franconia" was later claimed by the bishops of Würzburg until the early 19th century when the region was fully incorporated into Bavaria following Napoleonic reforms; essentially, the duchy ceased to exist as a unified political entity due to internal divisions and political restructuring in the Holy Roman Empire. All I can find so far is that the Guelphs are connected to Bavaria which are Orsini, Farnese, Aldobrandini, Medici, Chigi, Breakspeare and Este.

The Dukes of Swabia & the Dukes of Bavaria are key to understanding the powers. Swabia was one of the five stem duchies of the medieval German kingdom, and its dukes were thus among the most powerful magnates of Germany. The most notable family to rule Swabia was the Hohenstaufen family, who held it, with a brief interruption, from 1079 until 1268. For much of that period, the Hohenstaufen were also Holy Roman Emperors.

I will not be able to find out who the Guelphs’ families are now unless I dig into the history of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. I do know the the Welfs were Prussia, Two Sicilies, Austria-Este, Modena, Saxony and Habsburg. They had a few marriages into Swabia but it fizzled out into Este.

Guelphs and Ghibellines were factions supporting respectively the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor in the Italian city-states of Central Italy and Northern Italy during the Middle Ages. During the 12th and 13th centuries, rivalry between these two parties dominated political life across medieval Italy. The struggle for power between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire arose with the Investiture Controversy, which began in 1075 and ended with the Concordat of Worms in 1122.

The names “Guelph” and “Ghibelline” were adopted by the two factions that kept Italy divided and devastated by civil war during the greater part of the later Middle Ages.

The doctrine of two powers to govern the world, one spiritual and the other temporal, each independent within its own limits, is as old as Christianity itself, and based upon the Divine command to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s”. The earlier popes, such as Gelasius I (494) and Symmachus (506), wrote emphatically on this theme, which received illustration in the Christian art of the eighth century in a mosaic of the Lateran palace that represented Christ delivering the keys to St. Silvester and the banner to the Emperor Constantine, and St. Peter giving the papal stole to Leo III and the banner to Charlemagne. The latter scene insists on the papal action in the restoration of the Western Empire, which Dante regarded as an act of usurpation on the part of Leo. For Dante, pope and emperor are as two suns to shed light upon man’s spiritual and temporal paths respectively. Thus, throughout the troubled period of the Middle Ages, men inevitably looked to the harmonious alliance of these two powers to renovate the face of the earth, or, when it seemed no longer possible for the two to work in unison, they appealed to one or the other to come forward as the saviour of society. We get the noblest form of these aspirations in the ideal imperialism of Dante’s “De Monarchia“, on the one hand; and, on the other, in the conception of the ideal pope, the papa angelico of St. Bernard’s “De Consideratione” and the “Letters” of St. Catherine of Sienna.

This great conception can vaguely be discerned at the back of the nobler phases of the Guelph and Ghibelline contests, but it was soon obscured by considerations and conditions absolutely non-idealistic and material. Two main factors produced and kept these struggles alive: the antagonism between the papacy and the empire, each endeavouring to extend its authority into the field of the other; the mutual hostility between a territorial feudal nobility, of military instincts, and of foreign descent, and a commercial and municipal democracy, clinging to the traditions of Roman law, and ever increasing in wealth and power. Since the coronation of Charlemagne (800), the relations of Church and State had been ill-defined, full of the seeds of future contentions, which afterwards bore fruit in the prolonged “War of Investitures”, begun by Pope Gregory VII and the Emperor Henry IV (1075), and brought to a close by Callistus II and Henry V (1122). Neither the Church nor the Empire was able to make itself politically supreme in Italy. Throughout the eleventh century, the free Italian communes had arisen, owing a nominal allegiance to the Empire as having succeeded to the power of ancient Rome and as being the sole source of law and right, but looking for support, politically as well as spiritually, to the papacy.

The names “Guelph” and “Ghibelline” appear to have originated in Germany, in the rivalry between the house of Welf (Dukes of Bavaria) and the house of Hohenstaufen (Dukes of Swabia), whose ancestral castle was Waiblingen in Franconia. Agnes, daughter of Henry IV and sister of Henry V, married Duke Frederick of Swabia. “Welf” and “Waiblingen” were first used as rallying cries at the battle of Weinsberg (1140), where Frederick’s son, Emperor Conrad III (1138-1152), defeated Welf, the brother of the rebellious Duke of Bavaria, Henry the Proud. Conrad’s nephew and successor, Frederick I “Barbarossa” (1152-1190), attempted to reassert the imperial authority over the Italian cities, and to exercise supremacy over the papacy itself. He recognized an antipope, Victor, in opposition to the legitimate sovereign pontiff, Alexander III (1159), and destroyed Milan (1162), but was thoroughly defeated by the forces of the Lombard League at the battle of Legnano (1176) and compelled to agree to the peace of Constance (1183), by which the liberties of the Italian communes were secured. The mutual jealousies of the Italian cities themselves, however, prevented the treaty from having permanent results for the independence and unity of the nation. After the death of Frederick’s son and successor, Henry VI (1197), a struggle ensued in Germany and in Italy between the rival claimants for the Empire, Henry’s brother, Philip of Swabia (d. 1208), and Otho of Bavaria. According to the more probable theory, it was then that the names of the factions were introduced into Italy. “Guelfo” and “Ghibellino” being the Italian forms of “Welf” and “Waiblingen“. The princes of the house of Hohenstaufen being the constant opponents of the papacy, “Guelph” and “Ghibelline” were taken to denote adherents of Church and Empire, respectively. The popes having favoured and fostered the growth of the communes, the Guelphs were in the main the republican, commercial, burgher party; the Ghibellines represented the old feudal aristocracy of Italy. For the most part the latter were descended from Teutonic families planted in the peninsula by the Germanic invasions of the past, and they naturally looked to the emperors as their protectors against the growing power and pretensions of the cities. It is, however, clear that these names were merely adopted to designate parties that, in one form or another, had existed from the end of the 11 C.

To understand the precise significance of these terms, one must consider the local politics and the special conditions of each individual state and town. Thus, in Florence, a family quarrel between the Buondelmonti and the Amidei, in 1215, led traditionally to the introduction of “Guelph” and “Ghibelline” to mark off the two parties that henceforth kept the city divided, but the factions themselves had existed virtually since the death of the great Countess Mathilda of Tuscany (1115), a hundred years before, had left the republic at liberty to work out its own destinies. The rivalry of city against city was also, in many cases, a more potent inducement for one to declare itself Guelph and another Ghibelline, than any specially papal or imperial proclivities on the part of its citizens. Pavia was Ghibelline, because Milan was Guelph. Florence being the head of the Guelph league in Tuscany, Lucca was Guelph because it needed Florentine protection; Sienna was Ghibelline, because it sought the support of the emperor against the Florentines and against the rebellious nobles of its own territory; Pisa was Ghibelline, partly from hostility to Florence, partly from the hope of rivalling with imperial aid the maritime glories of Genoa. In many cities a Guelph faction and a Ghibelline faction alternately got the upper hand, drove out its adversaries, destroyed their houses and confiscated their possessions. Venice, which had aided Alexander III against Frederick I, owed no allegiance to the Western empire, and naturally stood apart.

One of the last acts of Frederick I had been to secure the marriage of his son Henry with Constance, aunt and heiress of William the Good, the last of the Norman kings of Naples and Sicily. The son of this marriage, Frederick II (b. 1194), thus inherited this South Italian kingdom, hitherto a bulwark against the imperial Germanic power in Italy, and was defended in his possession of it against the Emperor Otho by Pope Innocent III, to whose charge he had been left as a ward by his mother. On the death of Otho (1218), Frederick became emperor, and was crowned in Rome by Honorius III (1220). The danger, to the papacy and to Italy alike, of the union of Naples and Sicily (a vassal kingdom of the Holy See) with the empire, was obvious; and Frederick, when elected King of the Romans, had sworn not to unite the southern kingdom with the German crown. His neglect of this pledge, together with the misunderstandings concerning his crusade, speedily brought about a fresh conflict between the Empire and the Church. The prolonged struggle carried on by the successors of Honorius, from Gregory IX to Clement IV, against the last Swabian princes, mingled with the worst excesses of the Italian factions on either side, is the central and most typical phase of the Guelph and Ghibelline story. From 1227, when first excommunicated by Gregory IX, to the end of his life, Frederick had to battle incessantly with the popes, the second Lombard League, and the Guelph party in general throughout Italy. The Genoese fleet, conveying the French cardinals and prelates to a council summoned at Rome, was destroyed by the Pisans at the battle of Meloria (1241); and Gregory’s successor, Innocent IV, was compelled to take refuge in France (1245). The atrocious tyrant, Ezzelino da Romano, raised up a bloody despotism in Verona and Padua; the Guelph nobles were temporarily expelled from Florence; but Frederick’s favourite son, King Enzio of Sardinia, was defeated and captured by the Bolognese (1249), and the strenuous opposition of the Italians proved too much for the imperial power. After the death of Frederick (1250), it seemed as if his illegitimate son, Manfred, King of Naples and Sicily (1254-1266), himself practically an Italian, was about to unite all Italy into a Ghibelline, anti-papal monarchy. Although in the north the Ghibelline supremacy was checked by the victory of the Marquis Azzo d’Este over Ezzelino at Cassano on the Adda (1259), in Tuscany even Florence was lost to the Guelph cause by the bloody battle of Montaperti (4 Sept., 1260), celebrated in Dante’s poem. Urban IV then offered Manfred’s crown to Charles of Anjou, the brother of St. Louis of France. Charles came to Italy, and by the great victory of Benevento (26 Feb., 1266), at which Manfred was killed, established a French dynasty on the throne of Naples and Sicily. The defeat of Frederick’s grandson, Conradin, at the battle of Tagliacozzo (1268) followed by his judicial murder at Naples by the command of Charles, marks the end of the struggle and the overthrow of the German imperial power in Italy for two and a half centuries.

Thus the struggle ended in the complete triumph of the Guelphs. Florence, once more free and democratic, had established a special organisation within the republic, known as the Parte Guelfa, to maintain Guelph principles and chastise supposed Ghibellines. Sienna, hitherto the stronghold of Ghibellinism in Tuscany, became Guelph after the battle of Colle di Valdelsa (1269). The pontificate of the saintly and pacific Gregory X (1271-1276) tended to dissociate the Church from the Guelph party, which now began to look more to the royal house of France. Although they lost Sicily by the “Vespers of Palermo” (1282), the Angevin kings of Naples remained the chief power in Italy, and the natural leaders of the Guelphs, with whose aid they had won their crown. Adherence to Ghibelline principles was still maintained by the republics of Pisa and Arezzo, the Della Scala family at Verona, and a few petty despots here and there in Romagna and elsewhere. No great ideals of any kind were by this time at stake. As Dante declares in the “Paradiso” (canto VI), one party opposed to the imperial eagle the golden lilies, and the other appropriated the eagle to a faction, “so that it is hard to see which sinneth most”. The intervention of Boniface VIII in the politics of Tuscany, when the predominant Guelphs of Florence split into two new factions, “White” and “Black”, was the cause of Dante’s exile (1301), and drove him for a while into the ranks of the Ghibellines. The next pope, Benedict XI (1303-1304), made earnest attempts to reconcile all parties; but the “Babylonian Captivity” of his successors at Avignon augmented the divisions of Italy. From the death of Frederick II (1250) to the election of Henry VII (1308), the imperial throne was regarded by the Italians as vacant. Henry himself was a chivalrous and high minded idealist, who hated the very names of Guelph and Ghibelline; his expedition to Italy (1310-1313) roused much temporary enthusiasm (reflected in the poetry of Dante and Cino da Pistoia), but he was successfully resisted by King Robert of Naples and the Florentines. After his death, imperial vicars made themselves masters of various cities. Uguccione della Faggiuola (d. 1320), for a brief while lord of Pisa “in marvellous glory”, defeated the allied forces of Naples and Florence at the battle of Montecatini (29 Aug., 1315), a famous Guelph overthrow that has left its traces in the popular poetry of the 14 C. Can Grande della Scala (d. 1339), Dante’s friend and patron, upheld the Ghibelline cause with magnanimity in eastern Lombardy, while Matteo Visconti (d. 1322) established a permanent dynasty in Milan, which became a sort of Ghibelline counterbalance to the power of the Angevin Neapolitans in the south. Castruccio Interminelli (d. 1328), a soldier of fortune who became Duke of Lucca, attempted the like in central Italy; but his signory perished with him. Something of the old Guelph and Ghibelline spirit revived during the struggle between Ludwig of Bavaria and Pope John XXII. Ludwig set up an antipope, and was crowned in Rome by a representative of the Roman people, but his conduct disgusted his own partisans. In the poetry of Fazio degli Uberti (d. after 1368), a new Ghibellinism makes itself heard: Rome declares that Italy can only enjoy peace when united beneath the scepter of one Italian king.

Before the return of the popes from Avignon, “Guelph” and “Ghibelline” had lost all real significance. Men called themselves Guelph or Ghibelline, and even fought furiously under those names, simply because their forbears had adhered to one or other of the factions. In a city which had been officially Guelph in the past, any minority opposed to the government of the day, or obnoxious to the party in power, would be branded as “Ghibelline”. Thus, in 1364, we find it enacted by the Republic of Florence that any one who appeals to the pope or his legate or the cardinals shall be declared a Ghibelline. “There are no more wicked nor more mad folk under the vault of heaven than the Guelphs and Ghibellines”, says St. Bernardino of Siena in 1427. He gives an appalling picture of the atrocities still perpetuated, even by women, under these names, albeit by that time the primitive significance of the terms had been lost, and declares that the mere professing to belong to either party is in itself a mortal sin. As party catch-words they survived, still attended with bloody consequences, until the coming to Italy of Charles V (1529) finally re-established the imperial power, and opened a new epoch in the relations of pope and emperor.

Guelphs And Ghibellines, the names given to two great mediaeval parties which acquired a pre- eminent celebrity especially in Germany- and Italy, inasmuch as their contests made Up a great portion of the history of those countries from the 11th to the 14th centuries, and which claim notice here because of the close connection of their party strifes with the ecclesiastical history of that period, and the use which the papacy made of them to increase its power and authority. According to the most reliable authorities, the word Guelph, or Guelf, is derived from" Welf," a baptismal name in several Italo, German families, which may be traced even up to the 9th century in a line of princes who migrated from Italy to Germany in the 11th century, when it appears there as the name of several chiefs of the ducal house of Saxony. Ghibelline is referred to "Waiblingen' (anciently Wibelingen), a town of Wurtemberg, and the patrimonial seat of the Hohen-stauffen family. The party conflicts originating in the rivalry of the ducal houses above mentioned, and probably also the party names, are of earlier date, but the first recorded use of these terms to designate the opposing parties occurred A.D. 1140, in the great battle of Weinsberg, in Suabia, fought between the partisans of Conrad of Hohenstauffen and those of Henry the Lion, of the house of Wolf, rival claimants of the imperial throne. In this battle the followers of Conrad rallied to the cry of "Hie Walblingen !" and those of Henry to the cry of" Hie Wolf!" These party cries, transferred to Italy, subsequently the chief theatre of these party contests, became Ghibellini and Guelphi or Guelfi, in the Italian language, the former designating the supporters, and the latter the opponents of the imperial authority, which generally vested in the Ho-henstauffen house. The opposition to this authority arose from two sources, viz. (1)from the cities and smaller principalities seeking to maintain their local rights and liberties, and (2) from the popes, who, jealous of the power of the German emperors, and irritated by their exercise of authority in ecclesiastical matters, especially in regard to investitures (q.v.), favored the party of the Guelphs, and, indeed, became the representative leaders thereof. Hence the term Guelph came to signify in general those who favored the Church's independence of the State, and the maintenance of municipal liberty as against the partisans of a supreme and centralized civil authority represented in the emperor. This statement; however, seems not to hold good always, since in the multiplied and complicated' conflicts of these parties an interchange of the distinctive principles and objects of each appears to have taken place in certain instances, and the interests of the hierarchy by no means always coincided with the aspirations for municipal and personal freedom, however freely it evoked them to advance its own ends. The contest of the papacy for supremacy over the civil power, organized and definitely directed to its object by Gregory vii (q.v.), culminated in the pontificate of Innocent III (q.v.), when, "under that young and ambitious priest, the successors of St. Peter attained the full meridian of their greatness" (Gibbon, 6:36, Harper's ed.), and "the imperial authority at Rome breathed its last sigh" (Muratori, Annal. Ital. anno 1198).

In the contests of the Ghibelline and Guelph parties historians note" five great crises "viz. (1) in 1055, under Henry IV; (2) in 1127, under Henry the Proud; (3) in 1140, under Henry the Lion; (4) in 1159, under Frederick Barbarossa; and (5) the pontificate of Innocent III. After the decline of the imperial authority in Italy, in the conflicts between opposing parties among the nobility and in the cities, Ghibelline was used to designate the aristocratic party, and Guelph those professedly favoring popular government. But the party name, as thus defined, did not always represent the real principles and objects of the party. In the course of time the contest "degenerated into a mere struggle of rival factions, availing themselves of the prestige of ancient names and traditional or hereditary prejudices" (Chambers), so that in 1273 pope Gregory X used the following language: "Guelphus nut Gibcllinus, nora-inn ne illis quidem, qui illa proferunt, nota; inane nomen, quod significat, nemo intelligit" (Muratori, Scriptt. return ltalicarum, 11:178); and in 1334 pope Benedict XII forbade the further use of the terms, and "we read little more of Guelphs and Ghibellines as actually existing parties." The conflict of principles in ecclesiastical as well as civil polity which these terms once served to represent may be traced through every subsequent age, and has not, even in this 10th century, ceased to exist.

There are several ways to become a duke, including:

In the British peerage

A prince in the royal line is usually made a duke when he comes of age or marries. For example, Prince William became the Duke of Cambridge when he married in 2011. The title of duke comes from the Latin word dux, which means "leader". Dukes and duchesses are addressed as "His Grace" and "Her Grace", respectively.

In Spain

Spanish infantes and infantas are often given a royal dukedom when they marry. However, these titles are not hereditary and instead carry a grandeeship of Spain.

In Sealand

The independent micro-nation of Sealand issues legal titles, including the title of Duke or Duchess of Sealand. Claiming the title includes an Official Title Pack and official documents.

Duke is the highest rank in the peerage system, which is a system of titles in the British nobility. The ranks in descending order are: duke, marquess, earl, viscount, and baron.

The title "duke" comes from the Latin word dux, which means "leader". It originally signified sovereign status, as when William the Conqueror was the Duke of Normandy. As a ruler, a duke ranks below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As a member of royalty or nobility, a duke ranks below princes and grand dukes.
Duke may also refer to Duke University, a private university in Durham, North Carolina. In 2024, Duke University was ranked sixth in the United States by U.S. News & World Report. Duke is one of the wealthiest private universities in the country and is considered very competitive.

The rank higher than a duke in the British peerage is king or queen: The rank that is higher than a king is emperor or empress. Emperors are generally considered to be the highest monarchic rank and honor. 

The five ranks of British nobility, in descending order, are:

Duke: The highest rank of the peerage

The title of duke became part of the British peerage in 1337 when Edward III made his son the Duke of Cornwall

The highest and most important nobility rank in all four peerages of the British Isles is Duke, the name of which comes from the Latin dux, meaning leader. The female equivalent is Duchess, a title bestowed on a woman who holds the title in her own right, as well as one who is the wife of a Duke. If the woman is the title holder, her husband would not receive any title.

In total there have been less than 300 dukes since its inception in the 14th century. The correct way to formally address a duke or duchess is ‘Your Grace’. The eldest son of a duke will use one of the duke’s subsidiary titles, whilst other children will use the honorary title ‘Lord’ or ‘Lady’ in front of their Christian names.

Marquess: One step below a duke

The next title of nobility in order of precedence is Marquess, which comes from the French marquis, meaning march. This is a reference to the Marches (borders) between Wales, England and Scotland. An English or British marquess is formally styled “The Most Honourable The Marquess of [X]”, and less formally styled as as ‘Lord So-and-So’. The wife of a marquess is a marchioness (known as ‘Lady So-and-So’), and the children’s titles are the same as those of a duke’s children.

The first marquess in the British Isles was created in 1385, which was a relatively late introduction to the British peerage. There are currently 34 marquessates.

The theoretical distinction between a marquess and other titles has, since the Middle Ages, faded into obscurity. In times past, the distinction between a count and a marquess was that the land of a marquess, called a march, was on the border of the country, while a count’s land, called a county, often was not. As a result of this, a marquess was trusted to defend and fortify against potentially hostile neighbours and was thus more important and ranked higher than a count.

Earl: The third highest rank

Next in order of precedence for titles of nobility is Earl, which comes from the Old English or Anglo-Saxon eorl, which means military leader, or man of noble birth or rank. The correct form of address is ‘Lord So-and-So’. A feminine form of Earl has never developed, therefore the wife of an earl is know as countess and the eldest son will use one of the earl’s subsidiary titles. All other sons are ‘Honourable’. Daughters take the honorary title ‘Lady’ in front of their Christian name.

Earls originally functioned essentially as royal governors, in charge of collecting taxes and with authority over their own regions or shires, often grouped together into earldoms. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, William the Conqueror modified the traditional system to his own liking and earldoms disappeared. The power and regional jurisdiction of Earls was limited to that of the Norman counts. Earls no longer aided in tax collection or made decisions in country courts, and their numbers were small.

The English kings had found it dangerous to give additional power to an already powerful aristocracy, so gradually sheriffs assumed the governing role. By the 13th century earls had a social rank just below the king and princes, but were not necessarily more powerful or wealthier than other noblemen. The only way to become an earl was to inherit the title or to marry into one. The connection between an earl and a shire disappeared, so that in the present day a number of earldoms take their names from towns, mountains, or simply surnames

Viscount: The fourth rank

What is a viscount? A viscount is the fourth rank in the British peerage system, standing directly below an earl and above a baron. There are approximately 111 viscountcies currently extant in the peerages of the British Isles, though most are secondary titles. The word Viscount comes from the Latin vicecomes, and the wife of a viscount is a viscountess. A viscount or viscountess is addressed as ‘Lord So-and-So’ or ‘Lady So-and-So’. Again, the eldest son will use one of the viscount’s subsidiary titles (if any) whilst all other children are ‘Honorables’.

As a rank in British peerage, it was first recorded in 1440, when John Beaumont was created Viscount Beaumont by King Henry VI. The word viscount corresponds in the UK to the Anglo-Saxon shire reeve (root of the non-nobiliary, royal-appointed office of sheriff). Thus early viscounts were originally normally given their titles by the monarch, not hereditarily; but soon they too tended to establish hereditary principalities in the wider sense.

Baron: The lowest rank

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 knight, but lower than a viscount or count

The term Baron comes from the Old Germanic baro, meaning ‘freeman’. The rank was created in 1066. In the Peerage of Scotland alone, a holder of the fifth rank is not called a ‘Baron’ but rather a ‘Lord of Parliament’. Barons in Scotland were traditionally holders of feudal dignities, not peers, but they are considered minor barons and are recognised by the crown as noble.

The title of Baron is the only possible rank of a life peerage, a life peerage being a considerably lesser honour than a hereditary peerage. This concept was introduced in Britain in the 20th century. Life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to the traditional hereditary peers. Always referred to and addressed as ‘Lord’; Baron is rarely used. The wife of a baron is a baroness and all children are ‘Honorables’.

After the Norman Conquest in 1066, the term of nobility “baron” was introduced, although initially not as a title or rank, but the “barons of the King” were the men of the king. They were bound to perform a stipulated annual military service, and obliged to attend his council. Later on, the king started to create new baronies via a writ of summons, which directed his chosen man to attend Parliament. This meant that baronies no longer related directly to land-holding, and thus no more feudal baronies needed to be created.

Landed Gentry

Members of the gentry are those descendants in the male line of peers as well as the children of women who are peeresses in their own right. This also includes baronets, knights, dames and certain other persons who bear no peerage titles. They are deemed members of the non-peerage nobility below whom they rank. The largest portion of the British aristocracy has historically been the landed gentry, made up of baronets and the non-titled landowners whose families hailed from the medieval feudal class. most commonly now simply referred to as gentlemen.

Here are some other monarchic titles, in descending order: grand duke or grand duchess, prince or princess, and duke or duchess.

These ranks exist today.

Can you buy a title of nobility?
The technically correct answer would be no, but the well publicised ‘cash for honours’ scandal might suggest otherwise.
Hereditary titles and “titles of nobility” are either inherited or bestowed upon an individual by the monarch and come with legal privileges that money can’t unfortunately just can’t buy. Some people use a deed poll service to change their name, making it appear as though they have a genuine title.

Can you buy a lordship?
Yes, but these are extremely rare and you should only ever consider spending thousands of pounds after consulting a solicitor.
Alternatively, you could purchase a plot of land from Highland Titles and adopt your chosen courtesy title.

A Lord (Laird) is a member of the gentry in Scotland and ranks below a Baron and above an Esquire. The designation of Laird is based on an inheritable property that has an explicit tie to the physical land. The title cannot be bought and sold without selling the physical land. The title also does not entitle the owner to sit in the House of Lords and is the Scottish equivalent to an English squire in that it is not a noble title, more a courtesy title meaning landowner with no other rights assigned to it.

As above, it is important to emphasize that this is a courtesy title. You will not be a lord or lady in the hereditary sense but you can legally change your name and we provide the certificate and the deed. We cannot sell you a title, but we are simply acknowledging your right to use the title of Laird, Lord or Lady of the Glen, which is trademarked by Highland Titles. Find out more HERE.

What is the daughter of a lord called?
It would depend on the rank of nobility of the lord. The children of a knight, baron, or viscount have no titles at all other than Master and Mistress, but all of an earl’s daughters are styled lady, as are the daughters of a duke or marquess.

What is the wife of an Earl called?
A wife of an Earl is styled Countess.

What is the daughter of a Duke called?
The daughters of a duke, marquess or earl have the courtesy title of “Lady” before their forename and surname.

Is a noble higher than a Lord?
Being a noble is not separate to being a Lord. Lord is used as a generic term to denote members of the peerage. Dukes and duchesses are addressed with their actual title, but all other ranks of nobility have the appellation Lord or Lady.

What was the role of the nobility in medieval times?
The nobles’ place in society was essentially to function as middle-men between the peasants and the royal family. Nobles provided work, land, and protection to the peasants while providing funding, supplies, and military service to the king.

What are the ranks of British nobility?
The five ranks that exist today, in descending order, are Duke, Marquess, Earl, Viscount and Baron.

How do nobles address each other?
Someone with a noble status would still be expecting to use the correct address when speaking to a noble of higher ranking than themselves. However if you are a noble of equal or higher status, then you reserve the right to address nobles of equal or lesser ranks as “My Lord/Lady”.

Swabia is one of the seven administrative regions of Bavaria, Germany. When did Swabia become part of Bavaria? Today's region of Bavarian Swabia has its roots in the 1837 administrative reform in the Kingdom of Bavaria under Ludwig I. The district now stretches from Ries in the north to the Bavarian Allgäu in the south. Locals in the northern part of Swabia prefer to be called Oberschwaben or Upper Swabians.

Swabia vs Bavaria – two regions in Germany that are often compared and contrasted. But which one is the proper word to use? The answer is both, as they are two distinct regions with their own unique characteristics.

Swabia, also known as Schwaben in German, is a region in southwestern Germany. It is known for its picturesque landscapes, rich culture, and delicious cuisine. Swabia is also home to several famous cities such as Stuttgart, Ulm, and Augsburg. The region is often associated with the Swabian dialect, which is a distinct form of German spoken in the area.

My research so far has uncovered that most of the families were in alignment with each other except for The Dukes of Swabia. Swabia appears to be a breakaway from the families. This is Somaglia who were the hardest information to track down. This is, in my opinion, the real bad guys. The Ghibellines. The House of Somaglia (Hohenstaufen, Barbiano di Belgioioso, Visconti di Modrone, Del Vecchio, Berlusconi). As I mentioned in my report about the Somaglia house, Someone went to great lengths to remove the Hohenstaufen Ghibellines from the Somaglia family line. The Schwab family comes from this. Hohenstaufen is a mountain in the Swabian Jura, Germany, and the name of a noble family that ruled the Holy Roman Empire and Germany during the Middle Ages. They were the lord of Bologna. They ruled Brandenburg and Prussia from 1415 to 1918.

The Guelphs and Ghibellines are Swabia and Bavaria. Swabia is a county in Bavaria which is a state. Swabia has less power than Bavaria, but I do believe these two entities had something to do with Hitler. If I were to guess, the Swabian Ghibellines decided to fight the bankers of the Guelphs Bavaria during World War 1 as the majority of Germany wealth was ok with the arrangement between the Central banks of England and France which Germany owed a lot of money to. Or, it was the other way around. Ghibellines’ Swabia was the ones who aligned with the central banks and took the country to war. Regardless, Swabia lost as their information is hard to come by.

source

https://www.bella-toscana.com/guelphs-and-ghibellines-in-tuscany/
https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/G/guelphs-and-ghibellines.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bavarian_monarchs