The Matrilineal House of Lara

If you scroll down to my post on lines of succession, you will find the definition of enatic to be thus:

Enatic primogeniture is just the opposite of agnatic primogeniture; it only allows females, and bans males.

Just read the definition of agnatic primogeniture and switch genders. I'll elaborate only in saying that the throne passes to the daughter, if none a sister, if none an aunt, if none an aunt's daughter, if none a great-aunt, and so on. Not even a son's daughter would be eligible.

The Matrilineal House of Lara is group of people who are matrilineal descendants (children of daughters of daughters of daughters) of Juana Núñez de Lara, or in English Joan Noonyez of Lara. Practically every European royal is descended from her, and a bunch of II monarchs: Maximillian II and Ferdinand II of Austria, Henry II of France, Catherine II of Russia, and a few boring Is and IVs in Victoria of Britain and Phillip IV of Spain, are descended from her in the female line.

The female line starts with a Spanish noble woman Juana herself, 1286–1351, who was a member of the Paternal House of Lara. It died out with the death of her brother 1315, leaving the family's wealth to Juana's son with the exact same name but for "Juan" instead of "Juana".

But who cares about her son? After all, the matriline traces through the three daughters she had besides. They were,

• Blanca (1311–1347), who died before Juana did,
• Maria (1315–1379), whose only daughter became a nun,
• Marguerite (1319–1373), who became a nun herself.

Okay. A dynasty sprung from these three daughters? It doesn't look like a matriline comes from any of them, unless nuns have children.

As it turns out, Blanca had two children before she died. The younger was a daughter, named Juana Manuel, who lived 1339–1381.

Through those three generations, the MHL (that's what I'm going to call the matrilineal house of Lara) rose through the ranks. I'll show you how through this family tree:

Berengaria                      Castilian Monarch

)-------.                       Member of MHL

Urraca  Ferdinand III

|       )-----------.

Diego   Alfonso X   |

|       )---------  |  ------------.

Teresa  Ferdinand   |              Sancho IV

|       |           |              |

Juana = Ferdinand   Manuel         Ferdinand IV

      |             |              |

      Blanche   =   John Manuel    Alfonso XI

                |                  |

                Juana Manuel   =   Henry II

Juana was born a great-great non-male-line granddaughter of a queen - something you would expect from any old noble. But when she married a male-line grandson of a king, it made her daughter part of the ruling dynasty (albeit in a distant branch). The situation wasn't worsened when Blanche also married a king's male-line grandson, putting her daughter into a junior branch of the dynasty. The MHL was at it's peak when Juana married a member of the senior branch of a dynasty: in fact, the king's eldest son. Technically Henry wasn't part of the dynasty at all, as he was illegitimate, but that didn't stop him from usurping the throne and becoming Henry II of Castile.

(By the way, back then Spain wasn't one country; Castile and Aragon united to form Spain through the marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand, the investors in Columbus' expedition. Both were descended from Juana Núñez.)

Juana Manuel and Henry II had a son and daughter, Juan (John) and Leanor (Eleanor). John went on to become King of Castile. As usual for princesses, Eleanor (1363–1415) went on to marry some foreign guy; in this case, Charles III of Navarre (which was a little country stuck between modern Spain and France).

Eleanor and Charles had eight children, six of whom were daughters. Only four of their children survived to marriage, and only three ever had children. Those three were daughters. They were:

• Blanche (1387–1441), who married John II of Aragon (the other part of Spain)
• Beatrix (1392–1415), who married James II, Count of La Marche
• Isabella (1395–1435), who married John IV of Armagnac

From each of them sprung the Aragon, La Marche, and Armagnac branches of the MHL. I'll tell you their histories in 2-3-1 order.

The La Marche branch didn't last long. Beatrix and James had three daughters, and only one of them ever married. She, Eleanor, married in fact the brother of Isabella's husband, and among three children only one was a daughter. That daughter, Bonne, never married and didn't outlive her mother, who died 1464 along with the La Marche branch. Indeed, no person is alive today who can trace descent to Beatrix.

The Armagnac branch didn't have the same fate, as Henry IV of France descends from Isabella and John, and he has several descendants today. Isabella also had three daughters, but this time each of them had children. The eldest, Marie, had one daughter through her husband John II of Alençon, who married but had no children. The second, Eleanor, had one daughter as well, whose only daughter had no children, bringing the Armagnac branch to end in 1537. The third, Isabelle, produced three children, of whom only one was a daughter who grew up only to have a son. That son's only known descendants are those of Emmanuel of Crussol, 11th duke of Uzès.

Both the branches of La Marche and Armagnac have been dead for centuries. The Aragon branch, however, still exists today.

Blanche, the Aragon branch (also called main line) founder, became Queen of Navarre upon her father's death. (Cognatic primogeniture was used, she was the eldest daughter, and her brothers all died young. See my post on order of succession). She and John II of Aragon had three non-infant-dying children. They were:

• Charles (1421–1461)
• Blanche (1424–1464)
• Eleanor (1426–1479)

Upon Blanche Sr.'s death, Charles was made king, while his father John reigned de facto. Upon Charles' childless death, his sister Blanche Jr. got the title while John continued to exercise the power. Upon Blanche Jr.'s childless death, John became de jure king, and upon his death Eleanor became queen for only two weeks before her death.

Before she died, she had ten children through her husband Gaston IV, Count of Foix, those daughters who had children of their own listed here:

• Mary (1452–1467), married William VIII of Montferrat
• Margaret (1453–1486), married Francis II of Brittany
• Joan (1454–1476), married her mother's cousin John V of Armagnac
• Catherine (1455–1494), married her second cousin Gaston II of Foix-Candale

From them descend the Montferrat, Brittany, and Foix-Candale branches (Joan and John's only child died in infancy).

Giovanna of Montferrat
and a sister

Any member of the Montferrat branch hasn't been mentioned since 1522, so we can assume it's dead. It was formed by the marriage of Mary and William, which produced several daughters. Only one of them is known to have married, this being Giovanna to Ludovico II of Saluzzo. He and Giovanna had two daughters themselves, only one of them living past two: Margherita, who married twice but through neither husband had children. Her will is dated 1522, and with her death the main line of the MHL died out.

The Brittany branch didn't do so bad. Brittany was a powerful duchy, so Margaret and Francis' only daughter to marry, Anne (1477–1514), was Charles VIII of France's best choice for a bride. The two had no children, so the throne passed to Charles' father's second cousin, Louis XII, who also married Anne. The couple had two infancy-surviving children, Claude and Renée, both girls.

Claude (1499–1524) also married a king of France, Francis I, so we shall call her branch the Franco-Brittany branch. Claude and Francis had three children to survive until marriage: Henry, Madeleine, and Margaret. Madeleine never had children, and Margaret's only child was a son. Her death in 1574 made the Franco-Brittany branch extinct, though through her son we have the female-preference primogeniture heirs.

Anna was the ancestor
of the dukes of Savoy

The younger daughter of Anne of Brittany, Renée (1510–1575), did not marry a king like her mother and sister. Instead, she married the Duke of Ferrera, Ercole II, and had three daughters by him. Only one, Anna, ever married, and her two daughters died young, knocking the Este-Brittany branch and the Brittany branch as a whole extinct in 1607.

The Montferrat Branch, extinct 1522. The Brittany Branch, extinct 1607. When is the Foix-Candale branch extinct, 1692? As it turns out, members of it still live today, so I'm going to save all that new exciting stuff for the next post. While you wait, you can always look it this lovely little outline of what's been covered so far:

• The Trunk: Juana Núñez → Blanche de la Cerda → Juana Manuel → Eleanore of Castile
• Aragon Branch: Blanche I of Navarre → Eleanor of Navarre
• Montferrat Branch: Mary of Navarre → Giovanna of Montferrat → Margherita of Saluzzo, extinct after1522
• Brittany Branch: Margaret of Navarre → Anne of Brittany
• Franco-Brittany Branch: Claude of France → Margaret of France, extinct 1574
• Este-Brittany Branch: Renée of France → Anna of Este, extinct 1607
• Foix Candale Branch: I can't tell you yet!
• La Marche Branch: Beatrix → Eleanore → Bonne, extinct 1464
• Armagnac Branch: Isabella → Eleanor → Joan → Francoise, extinct 1537

How to Speak Emnonian, Part 1

One of the many things I do is make languages. Here's the first part of a tutorial for you.

For a technical overview of Emnonian, check this out. This is for people who don't know about linguistics.

Chapter 1: Pronunciation
This chart shows how to pronounce the letters, using two systems: Emnonian and Jos-Emnonian. Emnonian was actually used by the Emnonians (duh), all-caps. Jos-Emnonian is a much easier lower-case version. We shall use both in further lessons.

Emnonian  Jos-Emnonian  Pronounciation
A         a             a in father
Æ         â             a in cat
B         b             b in boy
C         c             sh in shout
CH        ch            z in azure
D         d             d in dog
Đ         dh            th in the
E         e             ay in hay. In English, slowly it's pronounced hay-ee. Not in Emnonian.
θ         ê             e in pet
F         f             f in fat
G         g             g in goat
H         h             h in hat
I         i             e in me
          j             y in yacht
K         k             k in kid
L         l             l in love. Not l in cool
M         m             m in movie
N         n             n in none
O         o             o in go. In English, slowly it's pronounced go-uu. Not in Emnonian.
P         p             p in pig
R         r             er in her.
S         s             s in sit
T         t             t in tin
Ŧ         th            th in thin
U         û             u in pun or oo in book
V*        u             oo in maroon
          v             v in very
VU        w             w in wonder
X         x             ch in loch or Bach
Y         y             i in in :)
Z         z             z in maze
*How tell apart u and v? Usually, it's v unless it's between two consonants. Exceptions can be found by looking at Jos-Emnonian equivalents.


Stress is on the second-to-last syllable, unless there is no consonant between it and the last.

Here's a secret: this is the hardest part. Looking at further stuff, you'd have to spend half the time on just how to pronounce this, and once you get it down you'd be already half way done.

Exercises

1. What are the Jos-Emnonian equivalents of LVFVS, CHANTIS, and VUθL?
2. What are the Emnonian equivalents of skulada, hêus, and ywa?

Answers on next post.

An Overview of my Genealogy

I've been interested in genealogy ever since my grandmother told me about it. She, from whom I obviously inherit the interest, did a lot of research that eventually traced her back to the 1700s. I just got an www.ancestry.com account, and using it made contact with Ed Hockersmith, who himself had made contact with Günter W. Hackenschmidt, a German guy who had gone from my grandmother's ancestors back to 1590, all the way to:

Hans Hackenshimdt, father of:
|
Ulrich Georg Hackensmidt, 1590-?, father of:
|
Georg Nicomed Hackenshmidt, 1658-1702, father of:
|
Johann Georg Hackensmidt, 1683-?, father of:
|
Konrad Hackensmidt, 1718-1795, came to America, farthest back my grandmother went, father of:
|
Jacob Hockersmith, 1746-1818, father of:
|
Peter Hockersmith, ?-1834, father of:
|
John Hockensmith, 1805-1892, father of:
|
Harriet Hockensmith, 1854-1937, mother of:
|
Chloe Mills, 1892-1977, mother of:
|
My Grandmother, mother of:
|
My Mother, mother of:
|
Me. Duh!

My Wiki

I haven't posted a thing since April.

So here's a post.

My wiki has been around since September 2009, so I aught to share it now that it has more-than-enough pages.

It's made with Wikkii, which you can read all about in a lower post, and I will only summarize in saying that it uses MediaWiki, the same software used with Wikipedia.

When you first go to the address below, it will say you must log in to view pages. Well, click on the link, create an account (don't worry, it's free), and then you will be able to do it. I just do this so that only human beings can see it, and I can delete accounts if they are evil.

When you first come to the main page, you will find a Welcome banner and something like Worlds nil nil nil nil. Under that you will see Today's Featured Article. Skip that and you will see the Hello paragraph. Read it, and you will know all you need to know.

So get out there, click on this link, read all that cool stuff I invented, and correct my spelling!

Order of Succession

"His oldest son."


That's usually the answer when I ask people "when there were kings, if a king died, who would succeed him?"


As it turns out, "his oldest son" isn't as simple as that. There are several different systems, each with it's ups and downs. Primogeniture is fair to the senior grandson but unfair to the junior son; while seniority is fair and unfair vice versa.


Primogeniture

Primogeniture, a system used in all current European monarchies, favors the eldest son over the younger son. This might be expected, but there's a catch; even if the eldest son is dead, he is still favored. But since he is dead, of course, it means it has to go to his eldest son. Let's form an example.


Let's say King John has two children: Richard and William. Both of them have children. Then, John and Richard are both killed in battle. This does not mean that William is king, rather, Richard's eldest son. This is a graphical representation, the numbers being line of succession:

John

.-----------^-----------.

1. Richard               3. William

|                           |

2. son                 4. son

Note that if the family tree looks strange, it is probably because you are not using Times New Roman. This applies to all family trees.

This might be unfair to William, but if law said the eldest living son, this situation might arise:

Doldus had two sons: Drus and Hugard. Drus had a son Dinus. Dinus had always expected when his grandpa died his father would be king, and when his father died he would be king. But when Drus died before Doldus, Dinus was no longer likely to ever be king; the throne would pass to his uncle Hugard and his children.

Thus, primogeniture favors the grandson. But what about granddaughter? Does gender have anything to do with this?

There are different types of primogeniture: agnatic, cognatic, absolute, enatic, and uterine. 

Agnatic primogeniture only allows the male line; this dosen't only ban females, but their sons too. If we assumed John in the early example had a daughter, neither she nor her son would have a claim. Only people for whom the progenitor (usually first member of a new dynasty) was father's father's father's father, not father's mother's father's father, had a claim to the throne.

Cognatic primogeniture does allow females and their heirs, but only if their brothers and their heirs are died out. For example, if John had a daughter Mary, she would only be queen if her brothers and their descendants were died out. This would be unlikely, but if Mary had no brothers in the first place, she would be heir to the throne. This system is used in the United Kingdom; HM The Queen Elizabeth II only became the queen because she had no brothers; if she'd had, she would just be princess and her brother would be king.

Absolute or Equal primogeniture dosen't care a thing about gender; the eldest child, not son, is the heir.

Note that often countries using agnatic primogeniture change to cognatic primogeniture, and then to absolute primogeniture.

Enatic primogeniture is just the opposite of agnatic primogeniture; it only allows females, and bans males.

Uterine primogeniture is probably the most intresting type of primogeniture. It only allows males the rule, but through the female line. If this were a list of members:


Mary, the progeniture, had:

1. Samuel, who had:
1. Samuel
2. Isabel
2. Joseph, who had:
1. Joseph
2. Anna
3. Anna, who had:
1. Mary II
2. Marius
3. John
4. Peter, who had:
1. Stephen
2. Petrus

The throne would go from Samuel, to Joseph, to Marius, to John, to Peter


One of the problems is that Mary II might have a son during Marius' reign. That would make the son more senior by primogeniture then Marius. Thus, as soon as the son was born, he would depose Marius as a baby. I've come up with a law to avoid this:


The Archeiress is Mary. In the absence of a king, the archeiress' brother becomes the new king. In the event the archeiress has no brother, the archeiress' son becomes the new king. In the event that the archeiress has no alive brother or son, the next senior female descendant of the Archeiress by enatic primogeniture's brother becomes the new king. In the event that next senior heiress has no brother, the next senior heiress' son becomes the new king. This goes on and on.


Thus, the throne would go from Samuel, to Joseph, to Peter, to Marius, to John, to Mary II's son.


Seniority
The principle of seniority favors the brother and cousin over the son, and only goes to the son when all of the early generation is dead.

In other words, the throne in the early example would go from John, to Richard, to William, to Richard's sons, to William's sons, and so on.

There are other variants besides gender. Sometimes one can only inherit the throne if their father was king; if this was true, and William died before Richard, William's descendants would be excluded. Often, a king would have several sons, the eldest succeeding him. But about half of them would die before their brother, so the successor would be a younger son. This would lead to a variant of Ultimogeniture, which is just like primogeniture but favors the younger instead of oldest son.

Another variant is where it depends on the oldest man of the generation, not the oldest son of the oldest son of the oldest son of the progenitor.

Yet another variant is where only the main line can produce kings. This family tree shows the kings:

John I
)------------.-----------.
John II        Peter I       Richard I
)------------.-----------.
John III       Peter II     Richard II
)-----------.-------------.
John IV     Peter III       Richard III

The sons of the Peters and Richards wouldn't have claim to the throne unless the descendants of all the Johns died out.

Just like primogeniture, there are variants based on gender; there is agnatic, cognatic, absolute, enatic, and uterine seniority.

Proximity of Blood
While this system favors the son over the brother like primogeniture, it favors the brother over the grandson or nephew like seniority. What matters is not descent from a progenitor, but relation to the previous monarch. This is the standard order:

1. Son (or daughter)
2. Brother (or sister)
3. Grandson (or granddaughter)
4. Nephew (or niece)
5. 1st Cousin
6. 2nd Cousin
7. So on...

If the throne was absolute or cognatic, it could easily pass from John to Peter to William in such a way that John didn't share an ancestor with William. This family tree shows how:

      .-------------------.            .---------------.

Richard                 Samuel = Mary               Marius

    |                                     |                              |

  John                              Peter                    William

A simple amendment to the succession law like only those descended from the progenitor are eligible for the succession could easily fix this.

Like those mentioned before, there are variants on gender.

Other Systems

These are some other systems:

Ultimogeniture is just like primogeniture, but it favors the younger over the older.

Elective monarchy is when the king is voted for; sometimes it could be anyone and it has nothing to do with family, or it could be a vote between all descendants of the progenitor. This could be all agnatic, absolute, enatic, or uterine descendants.

Partition splits the kingdom between all the sons, or children, or daughters. It is probably the most fair of all systems, but when used in a kingdom it can turn an empire into a set of city-states. It's happened before.

--

So there you have it. All sorts of different systems; primogeniture, seniority, proximity, and the little uncommon stuff. In our modern world of democracy, the elective presidency or prime ministry is most common among government, while partition is commonly written on wills.

If you were a monarch, what would you choose?

If you like your senior grandchild, use primogeniture.

If you like your sibling, use seniority.

If you like your children equally but don't want to split the kingdom, use proximity of blood.

If you like your junior grandchild, use ultimogeniture.

If you feel democratic, use elective monarchy.

If you like your children equally and don't care if the kingdom is torn apart by war after you die, use partition.

Think about it.

No Longer Just Software!

That's right. This blog is no longer just going to give out reviews of software. It will have posts on basically anything the author is interested in; this often includes useless-slash-interesting information on subjects like genealogy, languages, and other subjects time to time.

We're keeping the address, but we're the title and layout.

The changes will appear whenever the author gets around to it.

MediaWiki and Wikkii

Though there are others out there, MediaWiki is the best wiki-creation software there is. Not familiar with it? Just go to Wikipedia or Wikia, and you're seeing MediaWiki in action. For site owners, it has nearly limitless options for customization. But then comes the First Law of Computer Software: more customization, less simplicity. If you want to install MediaWiki, you have to do all this advanced installation stuff that an average person doesn't know how to do. Even if you go to the MediaWiki website, most of the terms they use in their installation guide wouldn't be familiar to you. So what should you do when you want to start a wiki?
When most people want to start wikis, they go to popular wiki-hosting sites like PBWorks, Wikidot, and Wikispaces. But there's a catch: none of these hosting services use MediaWiki; they all develop their own wiki software. This means that you have to learn a totally different syntax (simple language used for formatting) than the one used on MediaWiki wikis like Wikipedia.
That's where Wikkii comes in. Just go to their website, register, and create as many MediaWiki wikis as you wish. Since Wikkii gets all of it's money from ads (which aren't even that annoying), most of it's features are unlimited, and all of it's features are free. Probably the only problem with Wikkii is that they have an older version of MediaWiki and don't upgrade. So get out their, create a wiki, and make it as large as Wikipedia.

And a happy Thanksgiving, too!