Talk:Royal intermarriage

Is there a need for this article?
There are subtopics within articles on inbreeding that mention royalty. All another article would really be good for is citing examples (which would be inexhaustive and include all royals). I have edited it, but I do not think it is necessary. Charles 17:09, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

It is only referenced in other articles and did form the basis for a great deal of international politics. It would be helpful if that could be built up. Yanksta x 12:23, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Modern example
That modern example is a huge blob of words I wonder if anyone can rewrite it so it is comprehensible Owlofcreamcheese 17:01, 28 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Perhaps a family tree would be usefull for illustrating the relationships. - cgilbert(talk 22:38, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I added a family tree which I hope helps to clarify. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.150.233.137 (talk) 22:29, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Byzantine Empire
I've tweeked the section a little, based on the input from Llywrch, added a few more links, and expanded it a little based on my own (very quick) research. What do you think of it? Sotakeit (talk) 10:47, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Lists of examples
I've tried to strip down some of the longer example lists to just give examples that illustrate the point. Overly long lists aren't useful to the article and they make it look a little messy. Sotakeit (talk) 08:18, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I've restored some of the European examples: those involving living royalty or members of still-reigning dynasties. There are only 10 monarchies left in Europe and only one realm's monarch, Elizabeth II, is currently "royally intermarried". There are extremely few living royals who are now married to other royals and their number continues to dwindle -- yet finding out who is in such a marriage is a substantial reason for readers to look up this topic. Given that there are only a handful of such couples left, there's no reason to prevent readers from accessing that information here merely to prevent the article from looking "a little messy" (for instance, the 1964 marriage of Princess Irene of the Netherlands to the Carlist pretender, Prince Carlos-Hugo de Borbón, Duke of Parma nearly provoked a constitutional crisis in Holland and affected politics in Franco's Spain. And Princess Barbara of Liechtenstein is married to a sometime Serbian pretender whose previous wife was a daughter of Umberto II of Italy, but because she's only a 2nd cousin of the reigning Prince of Liechtenstein, it's very difficult to find these facts out anywhere except in specialized literature -- or right here in this article). Citations substantiating "royal intermarriage couple" status were added but the couples were removed anyway (squandering the effort and time taken to source and then convert to the citation format newly imposed on this article despite CITEVAR). FactStraight (talk) 21:34, 26 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Point taken, and well explained. In regards to the reference style, when I first started editing the article, the references didn't have a consistent style. Since then, I've been the only major contributor so I thought the recent style change would be the covered by 'defer to the style used by the first major contributor'; I agree, perhaps I should have sought some consensus on such a major change though. Sotakeit (talk) 23:22, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Habsburg motto
Can we get a better translation of the Habsburg marriage motto, please? (Bella gerant alii; tu felix Austria nube.)

The one given is awful; the Latin just does not say 'Let wars be led by others' - there's no verb 'to lead' in there, and no passive. The literal translation would be "Let others wage war; you, fortunate/happy Austria, marry". If you don't need a source for translations, go ahead and use mine. I know a translation could be sourced to Wheatcroft's The Habsburgs: Embodying Empire, but I don't have my copy to hand right now. AlexTiefling (talk) 21:26, 30 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree. I'm not sure where this translation came from, or who added. Although I can't comment on the actual accuracy of the translation, your version seems the most idiomatic at least. I think it's just a case here of being bold and going for it. I'll change it now. Sotakeit (talk) 08:10, 1 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Now it's bugging me that 'bella' is plural and we have 'war' singular; but 'wage war' is more idiomatic in English. Thoughts? AlexTiefling (talk) 09:22, 1 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I think I'd go with 'war' over 'wars'. A quick Google search confirms that 'war' seems to be the most common translation, and only 1 of the first 10 Google book results for the latin phrase gives the translation 'wars' over 'war' . Sotakeit (talk) 09:29, 1 July 2014 (UTC)


 * And if it makes you feel any better, I think in the phrase 'Let others wage war', 'war' would be considered a mass noun. Sotakeit (talk) 09:30, 1 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I added the quote and quite agree that AlexTiefling's translation is both better and more usual -- although translations need not be literal and I don't consider this one distortionate. The reason I included it is because I also couldn't lay hands immediately on a source which provides the better translation and felt that I should not include the cite while altering its version of the quote. I'll look for a source with the preferred translation. FactStraight (talk) 00:30, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Western Europe bias
"Medieval and Early Modern Europe" section is biased towards Western Europe, from which virtually all examples are taken. Russia (Romanovs) are mentioned once, Poland. Bohemia/Czech, Hungary and other Slavic lands are not mentioned at all. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 12:14, 1 July 2014 (UTC)


 * There doesn't seem to be any bias. Both the Romanovs (much of Poland, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania etc.) and Habsburgs (Hungary) ruled over several parts of the area you've mentioned. Though, perhaps an example or two from independent Slavic/Eastern European states would be useful. Any suggestions? Maybe a marriage of a ruler and a non-royal (like the Edward the Confessor and Edith of Wessex example) or perhaps a counter example to religious policies (marrying outside of the nation's religion - Catholic/Protestant match? Maybe even a Christian/non-Christian with a Mongol match?). Sotakeit (talk) 12:51, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Elizabeth the Cuman was probably baptised in infancy but was born to a father who was until then a practising Tengrist/pagan; she married the Hungarian crown prince and eventually became Queen Regent. Does that fit the bill? AlexTiefling (talk) 13:16, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Maybe not quite right. The section discusses matches having to be between people f the same religion, and the examples are of people who have had to specifically converted for marriage. Perhaps an example of a king marrying a non-royal noble would be that of Władysław II Jagiełło and Elizabeth Granowska, her being the daughter of a voivode of Sandomierz and the daughter of a Polish Noble? Sotakeit (talk) 13:54, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't see how that meets the definition of "royal intermarriage"? In modern Europe, nobles are not royalty, and in the medieval world where the distinction is more vague, the point of this article would be to include inter-dynastic marriages -- not inter-class marriages. FactStraight (talk) 00:54, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Apologies. The example was to compliment/replace the example of Edward the Confessor and his noble-born wife Edith of Wessex in this paragraph: Marriages among ruling dynasties and their subjects have at times been common, with marriages such as that of Edward the Confessor, King of England and Edith of Wessex being far from unheard of in medieval Europe. However, as dynasties approached absolutism and sought to preserve loyalty among competing members of the nobility, most eventually distanced themselves from kinship ties to local nobles by marrying abroad.. Sotakeit (talk) 08:06, 2 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you for looking into this. Here are few suggestions. In Polish history, the marriage of Jagiełło (Lithuania) and Anna Jagiellonka (Poland) is probably the most famous, followed by Bona Sforza (Italy) and Sigismund I the Old (Poland). The first one is also interesting from the perspective of two dynasties merging (Jagiellinka being the last of the Piast dynasty and Jagiełło to first of the Jagiellonian dynasty, creating the Polish-Lithuanian union, and the fact that Jagiełło converted from paganism to Christianity for that marriage. Regarding conversions, the first Polish royal intermarriage, in which Mieszko I, first king of Poland, converted from paganism to Christianity due to his wife Dobrawa of Poland, may be worth mentioning, too (Dobrawa's bio has an entire section on the importance of her marriage). Adding this would add a mention of pre-Habsburgs Bohemia to this article. Finally, I wonder if the case of marriages from the era of elective monarchy in Poland may be of some interest. In my GA on Władysław IV Waza I wrote an entire section about his marriages, IIRC. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 10:30, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria and Duchess Marie Gabrielle in Bavaria
There is currently a disagreement regarding the inclusion of the marriage of Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria and Duchess Marie Gabrielle in Bavaria. What should be done? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.71.249.229 (talk) 17:56, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Princess Zaida
Why is the marriage of princess Zaisa of Seville not mentioned here? 2409:4073:2112:A340:D276:BE02:D3F3:EDEE (talk) 16:35, 8 February 2022 (UTC)