Download for free: usefulcharts.com/blogs/charts/matrilineal-dynasties-of-europe Buy the poster: usefulcharts.com/products/matrilineal-dynasties-of-europe Matrilineal Dynasties Part 1: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sl4WtajjMks.html Matrilineal Dynasties Part 2: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qTF3KWwZHHk.html Matrilineal Dynasties Part 3: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7oS8HMftzbU.html
@@UsefulCharts I thought that Jadwiga, King of Poland's sister, Mary was also crowned King of Hungary, (later co-ruler with Sigismund). Wouldn't that be worth mentioning? If you excluded this info on purpose or didn't think important to mention please just ignore my comment. Nevertheless great video. Thanks for the work you put in them. :)
I love these videos. It's a complete perspective shift for how we usually look at royal dynasties. I also love how strict you are with defining who belongs to a matrilineal dynasty and who doesn't. It really highlights how arbitrary our system of patrilineal houses is.
So true. ANd these were remarkable women in their own right. You have to wonder how much influence these women had behind the throne. Things are very different with the following of salic law, but in other ways they are very much the same. I'm always a bit blown away at how interconnected all the royal houses are and have been. There is that picture taken right before the first word war with the King of Englan, King of Prussia and the Czar of Russia and they all look exactly alike. When you look at this poster and see a connection at some point with all the houses it just kind of blows your mind.
You say that as if tracking matrilineal lines isn't arbitrary. I'm not even blaming anyone. Much of civilization is built on pretending things make sense when they really don't. Our current system is built on acknowledging most people aren't qualified to run the government, necessitating representatives, who often themselves aren't actually experts and are chosen by those same people who aren't qualified to be in charge. Objectively, that does not make sense. But we somehow make it work. We go with it. I suspect that's what we've always done. Why track genealogy at all today? Because it's fun. I would love a big project 'Who Should Rule the World Today', essentially tracking the oldest dynasties possible to today and give them the maximum extent of 'their' Empires, older dynasties overruling the newer ones where they overlap, with a whole thing where either universal rules are decided or each Empire gets its own rules (women allowed for Egypt, but not Rome; Rome allowing for adoption). Not because I want those people in power; most of them would be thrust into politics completely unprepared, that would be terrible. Because I'm a hopeless nerd who thinks that might be fun.
yeah it's a shame that female lines tend to be neglected by historians. Male lines can be traced for centuries, even millennia (for example the japanese line of Tennos, the german house of Welf and the french house of Capet with its various branches), but female ancestry rarely gets any attention. So thanks to Matt they finally get a glimpse of the attention they deserve =)
I'm not sure about your heritage but you should definitely try to build your own family tree. I am not even descended from royalty but was able to trace my own family tree back to the 13th Century:)) including their names
@@l2516 most people can't trace back their lineages that far because millions of records were destroyed throughout the centuries or countless family members weren't recorded at all. I could trace back mine to the 16th century thanks to former nobility, but so many members are missing, no birth or death records in sight...
I love those matrilineal charts, because there is a biological correlate: the mitochondria are given to the next generation only though the mothers. So in effect a mother gives some of her Mitochondria to her children via her egg. And her daughter gives a copy of that inherited mitochondria to her children. And so on though the ages. So Madeleine has copies of mitochondria of Gesenda in her body
I already knew about that, but it is really interesting! The Y-Chromosome only passes from father to son and so on, and though the Mitochondrial DNA can pass from mother to son, a son can’t pass it on and only through matrilineal descent it passes on (from mother to daughter and so on).
This was literally the reason why they approached Prince Philip to identify the body of Czarina Alexandrina of Russia, because he was a known matrilineal relative.
Actually king Jadwiga wasn’t a mother of Casimir. He was a son of her husband and later king of Poland - Władysław Jagiello. He had another wife that gave him sons. Jadwiga died in her teens along her only child. Don’t take it as an assault, I just think its important to correct. Great video!
@@UsefulCharts also, she was a king, not a queen, consort or regnant. Her official title was "king" because she was the heir to the throne. She outranked Jagiello, he only became king when she died because of lack of better options, I think :D Look how progressive Poland was back in the 1300s! A woman on the throne? No problem! Take that, 16th c. England!
@@Mia3301 no, Jadwiga did not outrank Jagiello. She was Co-monarch of Poland with her husband who became Władysław II upon his conversion to Catholicism. The law at that time was that a man became the legal possessor of his wife's lands upon getting married. This is called jure uxoris, which means "by right of his wife." Think of it similarly to how modern property law works in most cases. If a man or woman dies, their spouse usually manages their house/estate for the rest of their lives, at which point the children of said couple inherit the estate. Unless they had no children to begin with, and then the spouse of said deceased person becomes the owner of the estate. This is the same in monarchies, as the eldest son of the deceased monarch usually inherits his father's/mother's crown/estate, but if their other parent is still living, on occasion said parent will continue to run the monarchy, especially if they are male and the eldest child is too young to rule/manage affairs (a Regent). Many women in Medieval Europe were legally ineligible to own property unless they were married, and this was the case with Jadwiga. Her husband became the legal possessor of her estate upon her death, and beings that they had no living children, he remained as sole monarch for another 30+ years after her death. Plus he was already a monarch anyway as Grand Duke of Lithuania, and under Casimir IV, Władysław II's son with his second wife, Lithuania and Poland were officially united into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. However, later monarchs of Poland were actually descended from the Piast dynasty through female lines, as Casimir IV married and had children with Elizabeth of Austria, who was a descendant of Casimir III of Poland through his daughter Elisabeth, Duchess of Pomerania. That marriage likely happened so the royal Piast blood would continue to be present in future Polish monarchs, similarly to the reason behind why Henry I of England married Matilda of Scotland (because she was descended from the Anglo-Saxon Kings to the lay person).
Might I suggest that you look into a woman called Beatrice of Savoy, she was a progenitor for several queen regnants like Mary Queen of Scots and Lady Jane Grey!!!
It’s so interesting reading your comment now, because for the past few months, I’ve actually been working on her matrilineal dynasty! It is so interesting and definitely worth looking into. I’m not even close to being finished but there are already more queens than in the Eleanor of Aquitaine matrilineal dynasty!
The roman empire is actually really interesting to look at from a matrilineal perspective, many of the empresses descend from Julia, Augustus's only child. There was also a series of emperors who only had daughters who were then married to the chosen heir
I love this. As a child I learned that Arab horse breeders kept track of the mares' pedigree. They found it more reliable. The English did not keep up the practice as they recorded their "thoroughbred" horses. I love this.
6:59 Mentioning that Charles became King of Sicily after saying how his siblings both became saints makes it sound like it was a consolation prize lol. Like "Sorry for not being a made a saint, here's Sicily."
You missed Marie of Brienne and her son Philip of Courtney as Latin Empress (consort) and Latin Emperor respectively, and Eleanor of Portugal (Junior Queen consort of Denmark) for the “House of Eleanor”. As for Euphrosyne, there is a lot: Joan of Taranto, Marie of Korikos and Theodora Syrgiannaina (Queens consorts of Armenia), Anna of Macsó (Empress consort of Bulgaria), Constance of Hungary and Yuri I of Galicia (Queen consort and King of Rus’), Maria of Bytom (Queen consort of Hungary and Croatia), Andrew of Hungary (King consort of Naples), possibly Anna von Schweidnitz (HRE, Germany, Bohemia, Italy) and her son Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia? (Bohemia, Germany), Anne of Bavaria (Queen consort of Germany and Bohemia), Christina of Saxony and her son Christian II of Denmark (Queen consort and King of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (yes that Prince Albert, Consort of the British monarch), Frederick VII of Denmark (King of Denmark), Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (Prince consort of the Netherlands), Marie of Prussia and her sons Ludwig II and Otto of Bavaria (Queen consort and Kings of Bavaria), Frederika of Hesse-Darmstadt and her son Frederick-William III of Prussia (Queen consort and King of Prussia) and her daughter Wilhelmine of Prussia and Wilhelmine’s son William II of the Netherlands (Queen consort and King of the Netherlands), Caroline of Baden (Queen consort of Bavaria) and her daughters Elisabeth of Bavaria (Prussia) and Amalie-Auguste of Bavaria and Maria-Anna of Bavaria (both Saxony), Albert and George of Saxony (both Kings there), Margherita of Savoy and her son Victor-Emmanuel III of Italy (Queen and King of Italy), Franz-Joseph Karl I of Austria (Emperor of Austria), his brother Maximilian I of Mexico (Emperor of Mexico), and his wife Empress Elisabeth "Sisi" of Austria, Maria-Sophie Amalie of Bavaria (Queen consort of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies), Augusta-Victoria of Hohenzollern (Queen consort of Portugal in exile), Louise (Elizabeth Alexeievna) of Baden (Empress of Russia), Frederica of Baden (Queen consort of Sweden), Alexandrine of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (Queen consort of Denmark and Iceland) and her son Frederick IX of Denmark (just Denmark this time), Marie (Maria Alexandrovna) of Hesse and her son Alexander III of Russia (Empress and Emperor of Russia), Marie of Edinburgh and her son Carol II of Romania (Queen and King of Romania), Elisabeth of Romania (Queen consort of the Hellenes), Maria of Romania and her son Peter II of Yugoslavia (Queen consort and King of Yugoslavia), Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen (Queen consort of the United Kingdom and Hanover), Sophie-Magdalene of Brandenburg-Kulmbach and her son Frederick V of Denmark (Queen consort and King of Denmark), Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and her sons George IV, William IV (all UK and Hanover), Ernest-Augustus (just Hanover) and daughter Charlotte (Queen consort of Württemberg). There’s also Caroline of Ansbach (Great Britain and Ireland), Amalia of Oldenburg (Queen consort of Greece), Maria-Theresa of Austria-Este (Queen consort of Bavaria), Maria-Christina of Austria and her son Alfonso XIII of Spain (Queen consort and King of Spain), Marie-Henriette of Austria (Queen consort of the Belgians), Marie of Saxe-Altenburg (Queen consort of Hanover), Olga of Russia and her son Constantine I of Greece (Queen consort and King of the Hellenes), Pauline-Therese of Württemberg and her son Charles I of Württemberg and grandson William II of Württemberg (Queen consort and Kings of Württemberg), Louise of Great Britain and her son Christian VII of Denmark (Denmark and Norway) and her daughter Sophia-Magdalena of Denmark and her son Gustav-Adolf IV of Sweden (Sweden), Marie of Hesse-Kassel (Queen consort of Denmark and Norway), and lastly, Christian IX of Denmark (King of Denmark). Basically what I’m saying is you forgot Beatrice of Sicily’s daughter Anna of the Palatinate’s matrilineal descendants… and yes they are still around.
@@UsefulCharts Wow! Sempai noticed me! Very lovely video btw, your Garsenda video got me super fascinated in matrilineal dynasties and so I started researching them on my own, and Euphrosyne was just one of like 5 names that I kept coming across! So again, thank you for inspiring me to research this topic! :)
I believe Eleanor's line continued for one more generation through Latin Empress Berengaria of Leon. Her and Latin Emperor John de Brienne's daughter Marie de Brienne also became a Latin Empress.
Always interesting to look at the royal family tree from the matrilineal perspective. It highlights just as many connections as the patrilineal. I wish our ancestors kept better records of the matrilineal sides of families and royal houses. I always enjoy the eye-opening videos!
I love this! Especially since Eleanor of Aquitaine is my 27th great grandmother through one branch and Garsenda is my 26th great grandmother through another.
Appreciate this so much. My grandmother is European royalty and the family trees go back 2000 years, all male lines. It's so frustrating. This is HUGE. Thank you SO MUCH.
No, he was crowned king so that when Henry II died there would be no succession crisis, just like the civil war (the Anarchy c. 1139-1148) that waged between his mother, former Empress Matilda, and her cross cousin, king Stephen of Blois. Also, he was not a co-ruler, or even had power, which is why his brothers and him (except young John) rebelled in 1173.
Thank you for another great tree! I LOVE family trees and their history and am fascinated by the effects they have had on history. I created some for my novels’ Royal and noble trees. They are simpler than real life trees (and only cover about 250 years) but more elaborate than a royal tree I created as a pre-teen.
Fascinating lineage research. You mention Isabel Barcelona.She’s my direct ancestor more than twice via her descendant Dinis 6th Count Lemos whose grandson Hernando Fernandez Castro my direct ancestor settled in Monterrey Nuevo León ( Mexico) in the 1550 era
@@UsefulCharts hooray!! I just saw the end of the video and was so happy to hear that it was indeed going to be a poster. My office is covered in your posters and with all the video conferencing I do for work, I am always asked about them. I always point them to your site.
R. I. P. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh he is one of the last of the greatest generation who served in the Second World War. When he married Princess Elizabeth, now Queen Elizabeth II he was told the history of Windsor Castle he had to cut the courtier short as his own Mother was born a Great Grand Daughter of Queen Victoria in Windsor Castle xx.
Jadwiga of Poland (daughter of Louis I) didn't have any sons only one daughter. Kasimir IV was a son of Wladislaw Jagielo, the husband of Jadwiga, who was allowed to continue to rule Poland after her death in 1399. But Kasimir's wife is a decendant of Kasimir III by his eldest daughter, who, along with her children, where skipt over in favour of Louis I.
Hey Matt,i actually found a new matrilinial dynasty. It is the dynasty of Elizabeth the cunman and oh boy it produced a lot of queens and empresses,i think you should check it out too,in just 4 generations it had 12 consorts,i say consorts because I included empresses too.
I just found a matrilineal dynasty that includes Francis III Stephen, The Great Elector, a few Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel, an Elector Palatine, one wife of William the Silent, the second wife of Philippe I of Orleans, and a Governor of the Austrian Netherlands, I call it the House of Jacqueline
This topic made me re-realize that, iirc, you're Jewish. It might be more obvious for you to follow this line because, isfaik, in Jewish tradition, 'ethnic Jewishness' is inherited via the female line because only there you can be absolutely sure who the mother is, the father...not always. These matrilineal dynasty lines are the way it 'ought' to be.
Great video! I also did some research after your first video and stumbled upon Euphrosyne, and I think her line can be traced to our day. I should search my file again
Actually the matrilineal line of Euphrosyne produced 3 more direct line queens and King Frederick IX of Denmark through Beatrice of Sicily. I think this is the second oldest matrilineal dynasty.
You found it! I was looking at all this. Thank you for verifying this. Eudocia Ingerina was my Great Grandmother. I also found Irene also found some more Hidden Ancestry Through Eleanor William X to Gisella of Fruili and back to Leo VII and Anastasia Porphyrogenita. Anna of Kiev is my Grandmother through Vladimir the Great but more from the Byzantine Empire as well. Eleanor of England or Jr. is also my Great Grandmother. Blanche of Castille wife of Louie 8th Adela of Champagne Louie IX are my Great Grandparents. There is so much hidden and to discover and my ancestry has a very entailed view. It endless. Thank You
I'm a bit confused about that Duchess-Regnant thing. If she was the duchess-regnant and was married to a king, whose court did she live in? If she lived in the King's court, who was in charge of the Aquitanian court? If she lived in her own court, how did she bear children to her husband?
Notwithstanding you’re talking about matrilineal dynasties, I think it’s interesting to note that Eleanor’s direct descendants include two sons who became Kings of England (Richard I and John), as well as all subsequent English (and ultimately British) monarchs to this day.
Wonderful, Eleanor was the one I started my European monarchy tree with to sort out her many children now this tree has some 25.000 people in it... And I just saw, that I need to add some links, I missed - thank you. - I thought Urraca of Portugal had a daughter Eleonor that was Queen of Denmark by her marriage with Waldemar III ere she died in childbirth. 2 years are only a short glory but still...
Matt, you should totally make a video on the descendants of Barbara of Cilli’s matrilineal descendants! It’s quite extensive. Edit: Wait! I see Barbara peeping out at the bottom. You’re one step ahead of me. I hadn’t finished this video when I made this comment 😜
Hey Matt,i found a new matrilinial dynasty of countess Caroline of Nassau-Saarbrücken ,her descendants contain interesting members such as empress Elisabeth 'sisi' of Austria.
The problem with naming the house after the earliest known female (because there is no matrilineal surname) is if new information becomes available, extending the genealogy, the house name is rather incorrect - unless you start with the first woman to really 'found' the dynasty - but that's not how the Garsenda line is shown, as it's another 5-6 generations before it really takes off. With that precedent, Wikipedia (which Matt mentioned using in the first video) can extend some of these lines back even further. Euphrosyne is really the progenitor of her line as her mother is listed as an unknown Kantakouzene. It seems Barbara's line can only be extended one generation, to her mother Anna of Schaumberg. The Maria Louise line can go one more generation back, as well, to Katharine Polyxena of Solms-Rödelheim und Assenheim Interestingly, Beatrice's "House" doesn't change because it goes back through her mother, Margaret of Geneva, to her grandmother, Beatrice de Faucigny The Garsenda line can go back three more generations and should actually be the House of Saura, as Garsenda's great-grandmother was Saura de Carcassonne. The Eleanor line should be the Gerberge line, for Eleanor's great-grandmother Gerberge de Blaison. The House of Isabella should be the House of Branca, as Isabella's 2x great grandmother was Branca Pires Coelho. Maria Theresa's 2x great grandmother was Anna Katharina of Salm-Kyrburg, who may actually have quite a few additional notable descendants thru lines other than the one that leads to Maria Theresa
On this Line Elinor is my 25th great grandma, through 2 of her kids John and Elinor jr, and her daughter Berengaria, the other lady. Unfortunately on Wikitree Euphrosne has not been done yet.
I love knowing about the illegitimate children of Royals. The Duke of Beaufort, Duke of St Albans, Duke of Lennox etc are from the illegitimate lines of Royalty xx.
I am related to one of the Isabella's - the She Wolf. thru her I am connected to the Byzantian Empire thru the female bloodline. Irene Angelina, daughter of Euphrosyne, is as far back as I could find. Now I found the matriarch thanks to you. I am related to a great many of the royal houses. it was surprising to find. I do have the name of the Bulgarian Empress a bit different - I have it Irene Herina, or Herina Irene. Which could easily be Maria. and thank you for clearing up she was empress twice!! that messed me up for a little while. and the different names for the same people in other countries. that was helpful - but that was a different video.
I would love to get a poster of matrilineal royal lines in the future! There is 1 mistake in this chart and video though. Casimir IV of Poland wasn't the son of Jadwiga, King of Poland. He was born 28 years after her death. He was the son of Jadwiga's husband Wladyslaw Jagiello, but not by her (Władysław's 1st wife), but by Władyslaw's 4th wife - Sofia of Halshany. Jadwiga didn't have any children surviving infancy.
I would love to see who would be King/Queen of England today if there had been no male primogeniture. That would be going back to William the Conqueror and assuming that the queens regnant married the same men.
What I find interesting (since she's supposedly an ancestor of mine) is tracing *back* from Eleanor of Aquitaine, through her mother and *her* mother and so on. The trail seems to go cold somewhere in central Germany sometime in the 8th or 7th century, at least according to what I've found through the wonders of Google and Wikipedia.
Hey after seeing this video I found another Matrilinial Family with: 21 Queens Consort 5 Queens Regnant 3 Empress Consort 2 Empress Regnant In just beetween beetween the 13th and 15th century I've already made the "tree" in a file and I really think you would be interested, how can I send it to you?
Hi Matt, was wondering what size do you use for your charts? I’m trying to make a Malaysian monarch chart but the breadth of the chart superceded my initial expectations in the A4 size. When I try to rescale the text doesn’t follow the size changes. If there’s any assistance you can give that’ll be great
I enjoy these charts and videos very much. Still, let me point out some inaccuracies re the House of Euphrozyne. Towards the end of the video you mention Jadwiga, the King of Poland, daughter of Louis I of Hungary. Well, she died following a childbirth, of a daughter, Elisabeth Bonifacia, who also died. Her widower Vladislav Jagiello married three more times, and it is through his last wife, Sophia of Holshany, that he fathered Casimir IV, husband to Elisabeth of the House of Barbara
I am dying to show you my family tree. I’m glad someone has shown the matrilineal dynasties bc every bit of research I have covers mainly patrilineal. The funny thing is there are huge names and they intermarry within the same big names.
Today by accident I found out that Elenor of Aquitaine was the great great niece of William of the conquerer, as her great great great grandmother was Herleva of Falaise, Williams Mother. I know it has to common knowledge to some people but I didn’t find too many sources talking about that connection.
