Stem duchy
Categories: European history stubs | Middle Ages
During the Early Middle Ages, the stem duchies formed the major divisions of the eastern Carolingian kingdom (roughly the region of modern Germany). Most of them corresponded to the main Germanic tribes or confederations later called "stems" in the sense of the trunk of a genealogical tree (German: Stamm). They were the Franks, Saxons and Thuringians, and the confederations called Swabians—heirs of the Suebi, who were called "Alemanni" by their neighbors—and the Bavarians—heirs of the Rugii who were dispersed by Odoacer in 487. Thuringia was annexed to the Frankish royal domain in 908, and although reinstated as a duchy in 1031, it was downgraded to a mere landgraviate in 1130. Lotharingia—as Upper Lorraine and Lower Lorraine—is accounted a stem duchy to replace Thuringia, though Lotharingia's short-lived territories, 955-970, corresponded to no ethnic or cultural unity.
Each tribe or confederacy accepted as leader a warrior chieftain acclaimed from the worthiest men of fighting age in a ruling family. The military leaders had acquired the Roman title of dux under Carolingian rule, part of the conscious revival of Romanized customs and formulas that characterize Charlemagne's court. The stem dukes loosely controlled a group of great nobles, and expected to appoint bishops and abbots of their own choosing within their territories.
When the last of the Carolingian line died in 911, the stem dukes asserting their Germanic rights to elect a king from among their number, acclaimed Conrad I, duke of Franconia King of the Germans. At his death in 918, they met again to ratify his successor, Henry the Fowler.
From the stem duchies evolved the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire.
- Duchy of Saxony
- Duchy of Franconia
- Duchy of Bavaria
- Duchy of Swabia
- Duchy of Lorraine (replacing Duchy of Thuringia)