Thursday, August 23
Juan Carlos I, King of Spain and Emperor of New Rome?
I recently ran across a one-line reference, I can't recall where, to the claim that the last Byzantine emperor passed his rights of succession in his will to the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castille. Anyone know about this? Am I imagining things again?
The source--and once again, I'm wracking my brain as to where it was--also mentioned Charles V as a consequence refused to recognize the Grand Turk's use of a title equivalent to "Emperor of Rome" as one of his many subsidiary courtly styles. While it seems the rulers of Spain sadly let this exotic claim lapse, the Sublime Porte hung onto his until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the Great War.
(Incidentally, this reminds me of my Holy Land Peace Plan, which is to get myself declared King of Jerusalem in virtue of my descent from the illustrious Fulk the Fifth of Anjou--though probably most of western Europe is descended from him at this point, too. But a) I can prove it and b) all the Hapsburgs, Lusignans and Savoyards ahead of me in line are too busy hanging out at Eurotrash discos or the European Parliament to have time for another hobby. Unfortunately, I have a feeling I'm not going to be getting any calls from Tel Aviv anytime soon. And failing spontaneous acclamation, I imagine the 10th Crusade would be very hard to manage since step one would be getting my chain-mail long-johns past the metal detectors at the El-Al terminal.)
The source--and once again, I'm wracking my brain as to where it was--also mentioned Charles V as a consequence refused to recognize the Grand Turk's use of a title equivalent to "Emperor of Rome" as one of his many subsidiary courtly styles. While it seems the rulers of Spain sadly let this exotic claim lapse, the Sublime Porte hung onto his until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the Great War.
(Incidentally, this reminds me of my Holy Land Peace Plan, which is to get myself declared King of Jerusalem in virtue of my descent from the illustrious Fulk the Fifth of Anjou--though probably most of western Europe is descended from him at this point, too. But a) I can prove it and b) all the Hapsburgs, Lusignans and Savoyards ahead of me in line are too busy hanging out at Eurotrash discos or the European Parliament to have time for another hobby. Unfortunately, I have a feeling I'm not going to be getting any calls from Tel Aviv anytime soon. And failing spontaneous acclamation, I imagine the 10th Crusade would be very hard to manage since step one would be getting my chain-mail long-johns past the metal detectors at the El-Al terminal.)
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