European Kingdoms Year by Year

today I'm going to show you how the total number of European kingdoms has changed over time nowadays there are only seven countries remaining in Europe that can be classified as kingdoms but that number has gone up and down considerably over the last two thousand years so we're going to go back in time all the way back to the days of the Roman Empire and then I'll be showing you how the map has changed step by step this topic was suggested by patron Michael Hudson and selected in a special vote by other supporters on my patreon site if you'd like to have a say in future topics you can sign up for patreon now by using the link on the screen or in the description [Music] so before we begin let me point out a few things first of all I'm only going to be looking at kingdoms and empires so any monarchy that was ruled by someone of a lower rank such as a Duke or Prince will not be included I'm also not going to count the really small kingdoms sometimes called petty kingdoms or kingdoms that were part of a larger Empire finally in some cases we get two or more independent kingdoms that share the same monarch these are called personal unions and I'll be counting them as one so let's start in the year one c/e at this point the Roman Empire had only existed for a few decades of course there were kings in Europe before this point but those kings tended to rule only a small area or even just one city it wasn't until Alexander the Great that we get someone in Europe who was comparable to what we tend to think of today as a true king or Emperor then of course the Roman Republic conquered Greece and most of southern Europe before it eventually evolved into the Roman Empire so that's why we're starting with Rome for many centuries the Roman Empire was the only major state that existed in Europe that changed in the third century when the political system started to break down for the first time we get two breakaway States but those were short-lived Rome realized that it had overextended itself and therefore came up with a new system of governance known as the Tetrarchy or rule of four basically there were now two Emperor's of equal rank each with the title of Augustus as well as two junior emperors each with the title of Caesar but even though there were now four monarchs there was still only one Empire then came an emperor named Constantine who defeated the other Emperor and thus Rome went back to having just won he also moved the capital east to Constantinople which set the stage for the rest of European history then late in the 4th century a group of people called the Huns arrived in Europe which resulted in another group of people the Goths being pushed into Roman territory this of course led to war note that the Goths can be divided into two main groups the Visigoths meaning West Goths and the Ostrogoths meaning East Goths eventually because of all the new threats the empire was divided yet again but this time the division would be permanent in 406 we get a major event the crossing of the Rhine River in which several so-called barbarian tribes crossed into the Western Roman Empire this marked the beginning of the end for the West those tribes eventually made their way to Spain and started to establish barbarian kingdoms there and other groups like the burgundians started to invade Roman territory as well but worst of all in the year 410 the Visigoths arrived in Rome and sacked the city this was something that hadn't happened for 800 years a few decades later Rome was sacked again this time by the Vandals and then finally in 476 the Western Roman Empire fell for good with Italy now being ruled by a barbarian king named odo a sir by this point the Visigoths had arrived in Spain the Vandals had settled in North Africa and the Ostrogoths were starting to move west around this same time a Germanic group known as the anglo-saxons arrived in Great Britain and started to build several small kingdoms there when the dust settled we end up with four major kingdoms in what was once the western roman empire the Ostrogoths ended up controlling Italy but there was also the kingdom of the Franks the kingdom of Burgundy and the kingdom of the Visigoths all of these kingdoms eventually evolved to adopt Christianity and hence lost their barbarian label they were the first medieval kingdoms in Europe in the East however things were different there the once mighty Roman Empire continued now centered at Constantinople to the people at the time they were simply Romans but nowadays historians tend to label the eastern Roman Empire the Byzantine Empire after Byzantium which was the original name of Constantinople if we zoom ahead to 600 CE II you'll notice that the Franks have defeated the burgundians and the Lombards have replaced the Ostrogoths and a new player has arrived on the scene the avars in Constantinople though it was pretty much business as usual but that would soon change with the birth of Islam if we move ahead to the Year 720 you'll notice that in Islamic dynasty has now conquered the visigothic kingdom of Spain and in fact they have taken over quite a bit of the Byzantine territory in Asia as well the Lombard still rule in Italy and the Franks are still growing in what is now France and Germany in the East Constantinople still stands but we don't have any sort of medieval kingdoms nearby as the Avars never did evolve into that kind of state and were eventually conquered by the Franks there was a short-lived Slavic Empire ruled by a guy named tsommo but that didn't really take hold which brings us to the Year 800 which is the year that Charlemagne king of the Franks was crowned Emperor earlier he had defeated the Lombards thus becoming the dominant king in Western Europe so once again get two Emperor's both claiming to be the legitimate heir of the original Roman Empire meanwhile in Spain we get the kingdom of Asturias the first of several Christian kingdoms that would eventually go on to reconquer Spain the next map we're going to look at is 843 that's the year that the Frankish Empire was divided into three parts west Frankia middle Frankia and east Frankia middle Frankia retained the title of Emperor but it would soon be defeated and the territory split up between the west and east with the title of Emperor eventually settling on East Frankia farther to the east the Bulgarians had emerged as a major power as well and also there was a Slavic Kingdom known as great Moravia finally in the north we get the kingdom of Scotland starting to coalesce from several smaller kingdoms and we also get the Vikings who were still pagan at the time now at this point I'll remind you that making a map like this is not an exact science I've been listing the number of kingdoms and empires but keep in mind that this number in this case 9 is just an approximation at any given point especially during the Dark Ages there were several other smaller rulers and we could argue over who should and should not have been included on the map reliable records for this time period are scarce and often different areas to use different titles so like I said at the beginning I've opted to focus only on the major players so for example I've included Scotland here but not Wessex or any of the Irish kingdoms this is not because I like the Scots better it's just that Scotland started to coalesce as a single Kingdom just a little bit before England did and in fact the Irish never did coalesce into a single independent Kingdom at all so with that said let's move on if we jump to the Year 936 you'll see that east Frankia has now become the holy roman empire also England now exists as a unified Kingdom Moravia is now gone and instead we have the first South Slavic Kingdom the kingdom of Croatia finally the Magyars have now entered the Pannonian plain and the ruse have come over from Sweden if we jump to 1025 you'll see that the Magyars have now established the kingdom of Hungary and the ruse have established a Christian state in Kiev now I said I wasn't going to include princes but I'm going to make an exception for the Grand Prince of Kiev they never actually held the title of King but we're definitely considered to be of the same rank at this time also around this time Poland became a kingdom in the West we get several changes as well the Vikings have conquered England and have established the short-lived North Sea Empire West Frankia is now known as France and the former kingdom of Burgundy has been reborn as the kingdom of Arles over in Spain the Caliphate of Cordoba has disintegrated and has been replaced with a bunch of smaller kingdoms called taifas instead ok let's move ahead to the next century England is now independent again and the three Scandinavian kingdoms of Denmark Norway and Sweden have emerged as distinct entities in 1139 the kingdom of Portugal was established and by this time castile and aragon have become the two main christian kingdoms in spain southern spain however is still under Islamic rule being controlled by the almoravid dynasty elsewhere the Normans have established the kingdom of Sicily Hungary has absorbed Croatia and the Holy Roman Empire has inherited burgundy both Poland and Kevin ruse however have descended into civil war jumping ahead one more century most of the changes are in the East the Bulgarians are strong again and the kingdom of Serbia has been established Poland is still fragmented but we get short-lived kingdoms in nearby Lithuania and Athena oh and two more really important things the Crusaders from the West have taken over Constantinople temporarily and the Mongols have been wreaking havoc all over the place in 1251 we have pretty much reached peak medieval royalty never again would Europe have so many kingdoms spread out so evenly from here you're gonna see the number of kingdoms start to decrease as major powers start to form so let's look at 1389 that's the year that the kalmar union was formed combining the crowns of denmark norway and sweden the short-lived kingdoms of Lithuania and Ruthenia are now gone and instead Poland has reunited and formed a personal union with Lithuania to become the main power in Eastern Europe the byzantine empire has been restored and the kingdom of Sicily has been divided into the island of Sicily itself has now become part of the crown of Aragon and the mainland portion is now the kingdom of Naples you'll also notice that Serbia and Bulgaria are gone having been conquered by the Ottoman Turks which brings us to the Year 1453 which is one of the most important years in European history if not the most important of all that year marked the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire and thus for some historians 1453 is seen as the year in which the Roman Empire started by Augustus Caesar truly came to an end the only other things to note on this map is that Sweden has broken away from the Kalmar Union for a brief period and that Naples has been said soon by the crown of Aragon let's now go to 1519 that's the year that Charles the fifth from the House of Habsburg was crowned Holy Roman Emperor just three years before that he became the first King to rule both Castile and Aragon in Spain by that point the Spanish Reconquista was finished the last Islamic holdout in Granada having been defeated so during his reign Charles v controlled more of Europe than any other monarch since Charlemagne however when Charles the fifth died he split his realms between his son and his brother and thus when we come to the Year 1603 Spain is now separate in fact the king of Spain inherited the crown of Portugal thus uniting the Iberian Peninsula under a single crown for the first time 1603 is also the year that Queen Elizabeth the first of England died she named James the sixth of Scotland as her air and thus England and Scotland become united under a single monarch for the first time Sweden by this point has become independent and at the moment was any personal union with Poland and Lithuania that however would not last long finally the tsardom of russia has now been established and is starting to become a major power in the north east meanwhile the entirety of the southeast is under Ottoman rule with Hungary now being held by the Habsburg Emperor's if we look at the 1707 map there's actually only a few changes even though more than 100 years have passed England and Scotland have officially merged to become Great Britain and Portugal has become an independent Kingdom again but most important there is a new player on the scene the German Kingdom of Prussia the Holy Roman Empire is still controlled by the Habsburgs who are from Austria so we eventually get what's called old German dualism meaning that there were two equally strong powers in Germany Prussia and Austria this was certainly the case by the time we get to 1795 that's the year that the kingdom of Poland ceased to exist and its lands were divided between Prussia Austria and Russia Russia is now an empire and of course around this time you also get a major Kingdom disappear from the map for the first time just a few years prior to 1795 the French Revolution occurred and the French King famously lost his head so France became the first major Kingdom to adopt a Republican style of government instead of maintaining its monarchy well that's not quite the full story if we move ahead just a few years to 1810 we see that France wasn't quite ready to become a republic a certain French fellow by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte rose up and conquered most of Europe declaring himself to be an emperor this brought an end to the Holy Roman Empire which according to one measure had lasted over 1,000 years instead we get the Austrian Empire and Prussia as the main German power in the north now during the reign of Napoleon he appointed all sorts of kings in various European countries but these were pretty much puppet King so I haven't shown them the Portuguese crown during these years notably took off to Brazil in order to survive the Napoleonic years finally I'll note that on this map that Great Britain is now officially the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland previous to this Ireland was actually a separate Kingdom in personal union with England and then Great Britain eventually of course most of Ireland ends up becoming independent and therefore the United Kingdom becomes the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland which is what it is today but I'm getting ahead of my Napoleon's rise and then dramatic fall really change the map of Europe if we go just a few more years forward to 1816 we see all sorts of new independent kingdoms are formed in Germany we get the kingdoms of Saxony Bavaria and vert and Berg in Italy we get Sardinia now independently ruled by the Savoy's and the kingdom of the two sicilies independently ruled by a branch of the Spanish Boardman's Spain and Portugal are of course back and the old French monarchy is restored as well Norway has moved from Danish control to Swedish control and for the first time we get the kingdom of the Netherlands previous to this the Netherlands had been a republic although it did basically have a hereditary ruler known as the Prince of Orange okay we're going to move ahead to 1852 this is the year that France became an empire again under Napoleon the third we also now get a kingdom in Greece Kingdom in Belgium and an independent kingdom of Hanover and over having previously been in personal union with the UK so we get 18 crowns in total that's the highest number we're going to get previously during what I called peak medieval royalty we had 17 but those seventeen were spread out a little more evenly than they are on this map but if we jump ahead a few decades to 1882 we'll see that the map starts to clear out France is finally a republic for good and the German kingdoms have united to form the German Empire under the reign of the King of Prussia Italy has also United and become a single Kingdom this is the first time that all of Italy has been united since the fall of the Western Roman Empire also with the Ottoman power starting to decline we get some new kingdoms in Southeast Europe the kingdom of Serbia and the kingdom of Romania we have now arrived at the 20th century and the start of World War one by this point Portugal has become a republic Norway now has an independent monarchy and new kingdoms have been established in Montenegro and Bulgaria so when World War one began there were four empires in Europe these three plus the Ottoman Empire however when world war ii ended there were zero so basically all the kingdoms except Montenegro survived but the empires did not so for the first time in nineteen hundred and thirty five years Europe was finally without an emperor okay so let's quickly move toward the present by 1931 the kingdoms of Greece and Spain have disappeared due to revolutions in those countries then after World War two you'll see that Greece has a monarchy again but the monarchy of Serbia which was now Yugoslavia is gone as well as the monarchies of Italy Romania and Bulgaria then in the 1970s the Greek Kingdom was abolished but the Spanish Kingdom was restored which brings us to the seven kingdoms that still remain in the year 2019 so that was a quick look at how the Crown's of Europe have changed over the centuries before I end though let me wind the clock back to the year one for you and let the animation run at a faster pace see you next time [Music] [Music] [Music] if you find history genealogy and monarchies interesting be sure to subscribe to the channel if you check the playlists you'll find that I have videos covering the family trees of famous dynasties from all over the world and to see what else I'm up to follow me on Twitter or Instagram thanks for watching

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Views: 252,054

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Id: NsZpiiRhmdY

Length: 23min 41sec (1421 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 20 2019