Stem duchies (from the German Stammesherzogtum, from Stamm, literally "tribe") were essentially the domains of the old German tribes of the area, associated with the Frankish Kingdom, especially the East, in the Early Middle Ages. These tribes were originally the Franks, the Saxons, the Alamanni, the Burgundians, the Thuringii, and the Rugii.[1] In contrast to later duchies, these entities were not defined by strict administrative boundaries but by the area of settlement of major Germanic tribes. Their dukes were neither royal administrators nor territorial lords.
The Saxon, Bavarian, Thuringians, Frankish and Alamannian territories became Saxony, Bavaria, Thuringia, Franconia and Swabia respectively.
Contents |
The older stem duchies were regions inhabited by Germanic tribes that were associated with the Frankish Kingdom. The duchies were more or less independent entities ruled by native rulers who had acquired the Roman title of dux. All of them came to an end during the rule of the early Carolingians. These older stem duchies were:
Some tribes, such as the Frisians, never formed a stem duchy with cultural allegiance to any single duke.
After the demise of the stem duchies, the Carolingians administered these regions through counts and prefects or sometimes distributed the rule to a member of the dynasty, e.g. Louis the German in Bavaria. After the division of the Kingdom in the Treaties of Verdun (843), Meerssen (870) and Ribemont (880), Bavaria, Alemannia and Saxony together with Eastern parts of the Frankish territory formed the Eastern Frankish Kingdom. The kingdom was divided among the sons of Louis the German largely along the lines of the tribes. After 899, under the rule of Louis the Child, royal power quickly disintegrated, which allowed local magnates to revive the duchies as autonomous entities, ruling their tribes under the supreme authority of the King. After end of the eastern branch of the Carolingians (911), the dukes competed for the crown with first the Franconian Conradines (911) and eventually the Saxon Liudolfings (919) winning out. Though their and their successors' strong government often reduced the dukes to royal lieutenants again, the stem duchies largely remained intact until the reign of the Hohenstaufen dynasty.
The younger stem duchies were:
German historians have commonly restricted the term stem duchy to the Eastern kingdom with its variety of Germanic tribes in contrast to the romanized and more unified Western kingdom, whose duchies were considered regional units of administration withhout ethnic cohesion. J. Flach[2] and W. Kienast[3] however argued that the duchies of France (Brittany, Normandy, Gascony, Aquitaine, and Burgundy) also had an ethnic basis before the French kings began creating dukes in the fourteenth century. The nature and role of Germanic stem duchies are now often characterized by contrasting them with the oldest duchies of Francia.[3]
The twelve paladins of Charlemagne are said to have inspired the creation of twelve ancient pairies, six temporal geographical units (Normandy, Burgundy, Aquitaine, Flanders, Toulouse, Champagne) and six ecclesiastic geographical units (Noyon, Rheims, Laon, Langres, Beauvais, Châlons).[4] This system was imported to the Crusader states, as the custom was known and prevalent among the Franks.