Dynasty

A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family, usually in the context of a monarchical system, but sometimes also appearing in republics. A "house" is an imperial, royal or noble family, not always ruling.
Historians periodize the histories of many states and civilizations, such as the Roman Empire, Imperial Iran, Ancient Egypt, and Ancient and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties. As such, the term "dynasty" may be used to delimit the era during which a family reigned.
Before the 18th century, most dynasties throughout the world were traditionally reckoned patrilineally, such as those that followed the Frankish Salic law. In polities where it was permitted, succession through a daughter usually established a new dynasty in her husband's family name. This has changed in all of Europe's remaining monarchies, where succession law and conventions have maintained dynastic names de jure through a female.

Terminology

The word "dynasty" is sometimes used informally for people who are not rulers but are, for example, members of a family with influence and power in other areas, such as a series of successive owners of a major company, or any family with a legacy, such as a dynasty of poets or actors. It is also extended to unrelated people, such as major poets of the same school or various rosters of a single sports team.
The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a "noble house", which may be styled as "imperial", "royal", "princely", "ducal", "comital" or "baronial", depending upon the chief or present title borne by its members, but it is more often referred by adding the name afterwards, as in "House of Habsburg".

Dynast

A ruler from a dynasty is sometimes referred to as a "dynast", but this term is also used to describe any member of a reigning family who retains a right to succeed to a throne. For example, King Edward VIII ceased to be a dynast of the House of Windsor following his abdication.
In historical and monarchist references to formerly reigning families, a "dynast" is a family member who would have had succession rights, were the monarchy's rules still in force. For example, after the 1914 assassinations of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his morganatic wife, their son Maximilian, Duke of Hohenberg, was bypassed for the Austro-Hungarian throne because he was not a Habsburg dynast. Even after the abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Duke Maximilian and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position.
The term "dynast" is sometimes used only to refer to agnatic descendants of a realm's monarchs, and sometimes to include those who hold succession rights through cognatic royal descent. The term can therefore describe overlapping but distinct sets of people. For example, David Armstrong-Jones, 2nd Earl of Snowdon, a nephew of Queen Elizabeth II, is in the line of succession to the British crown, making him a British dynast. On the other hand, since he is not a patrilineal member of the British royal family, he is not a dynast of the House of Windsor.
Comparatively, the German aristocrat Prince Ernst August of Hanover, a male-line descendant of King George III, possesses no legal British name, titles or styles. He was born in the line of succession to the British throne and was bound by Britain's Royal Marriages Act 1772 until it was repealed when the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 took effect on 26 March 2015. Thus, he requested and obtained formal permission from Queen Elizabeth II to marry the Roman Catholic Princess Caroline of Monaco in 1999. Yet, a clause of the English Act of Settlement 1701 remained in effect at that time, stipulating that dynasts who marry Roman Catholics are considered "dead" for succession to the British throne. That exclusion, too, ceased to apply on 26 March 2015, with retroactive effect for those who had been dynasts before triggering it by marriage to a Roman Catholic.

Dynastic marriage

A "dynastic marriage" is one that complies with monarchical house law restrictions, so that the descendants are eligible to inherit the throne or other royal privileges. For example, the marriage of King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands to Máxima Zorreguieta in 2002 was dynastic, making their eldest child, Princess Catharina-Amalia, the heir apparent to the Crown of the Netherlands. The marriage of his younger brother, Prince Friso of Orange-Nassau, in 2003 lacked government support and parliamentary approval. Thus, Prince Friso forfeited his place in the order of succession to the Dutch throne, and consequently lost his title as a "Prince of the Netherlands", and left his children without dynastic rights.
The Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 was an edict issued by Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI on 19 April 1713 to ensure that the Habsburg monarchy could be inherited by his daughter undivided. In 1736, Francis Stephen of Lorraine married Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria, the sole heir of Emperor Charles VI. With the marriage of Maria Theresa, the only offspring of the House of Austria, she became together with her husband the founder of the new dynasty of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. Since 1740 he was her co-regent in the Habsburg hereditary lands and from 1745 he was Holy Roman Emperor as Francis I, but was hardly involved in government affairs. Francis was as Duke of Lorraine the last non-Habsburg monarch of the Holy Roman Empire. The couple were the founders of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty, which ruled until 1918. Empress Maria Theresa of the Habsburg dynasty had her children married into various European dynasties. Habsburg marriage policy amongst European dynasties led to the Pax Austriaca.

History

Historians periodize the histories of many states and civilizations, such as Ancient Iran, Ancient Egypt and Ancient and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties. As such, the term "dynasty" may be used to delimit the era during which a family reigned, and also to describe events, trends and artefacts of that period. Until the 19th century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty: that is, to expand the wealth and power of his family members.
Before the 18th century, most dynasties throughout the world had traditionally been reckoned patrilineally, such as those that followed the Frankish Salic law. In polities where it was permitted, succession through a daughter usually established a new dynasty in her husband's family name. This has changed in all of Europe's remaining monarchies, where succession law and conventions have maintained dynastic names de jure through a female. For instance, the House of Windsor is maintained through the children of Queen Elizabeth II, as it did with the monarchy of the Netherlands, whose dynasty remained the House of Orange-Nassau through three successive queens regnant. The earliest such example among major European monarchies was in the Russian Empire in the 18th century, where the name of the House of Romanov was maintained through Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna. This also happened in the case of Queen Maria II of Portugal, who married Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry, but whose descendants remained members of the House of Braganza, per Portuguese law;, since the 1800s, the only female monarch in Europe who had children belonging to a different house was Queen Victoria and that was due to disagreements over how to choose a non German house. In Limpopo Province of South Africa, Balobedu determined descent matrilineally, while rulers have at other times adopted the name of their mother's dynasty when coming into her inheritance. Less frequently, a monarchy has alternated or been rotated, in a multi-dynastic system—that is, the most senior living members of parallel dynasties, at any point in time, constitute the line of succession.

Longevity

Dynasties lasting at least 200 years include the following. Legendary lineages that cannot be historically confirmed are not included.

Dynasty	Years Ruled	Corrected Length of Rule	Notes
Imperial House of Japan	c. 500 CE – present	~1,500+ years	Continuous, mostly ceremonial since 12th century; pre-500 CE emperors semi-legendary, exact start uncertain.
Wessex/England/Britain	c. 520 CE – present	~1,500 years	Non-continuous; was deposed in 1066 but survived through marriages and cadet branches.
Chera	c. 200 BCE – 1100 CE	~1,300 years	Estimation; fragmented early records, gaps likely.
Pandya	c. 300 BCE – 900 CE	~1,200 years	Estimation; intermittent rule after 900 CE, gaps in continuity.
Tonga	c. 950 CE – present	~1,075 years	Estimation; title changed in 1865, constitutional now.
Capetian	987 CE – present	1,038 years	Continuous through cadet branches ; active in Spain.
Bagrationi	780 CE – 1801 CE	~1,021 years	Georgian royal house; ended with Russian annexation.
Guhila / Sisodia	566 CE – 1537 CE	~971 years	Mewar rajputs; ceremonial after 1537.
Silla	57 BCE – 935 CE	992 years	Korean kingdom; estimation for early start.
Adaside	c. 1700 BCE – 722 BCE	978 years	Neo-Assyrian period; estimation.
Eastern Ganga	498 CE – 1434 CE	~936 years	Odisha rulers; diminished after 1434.
Baduspanids	665 CE – 1598 CE	933 years	Tabaristan rulers.
Chola	c. 300 BCE – 200 CE, 848–1279 CE	~929 years	Non-continuous; interregnum ~200–848 CE; early period semi-legendary.
Zhou	1046 BCE – 256 BCE	790 years	Nominal rule in later Warring States period; traditional dates.
Abbasid	750–1258 CE, 1261–1517 CE	764 years	Non-continuous; caliphal rule, ceremonial after 1258.
Rurikid	862 CE – 1598 CE	736 years	Kievan Rus to Tsardom of Russia.
Sayfawa	c. 1085 CE – 1846 CE	~761 years	Kanem–Bornu Empire; estimation.
Goguryeo	37 BCE – 668 CE	705 years	Korean kingdom; well-documented.
Solomon	1270 CE – 1975 CE	705 years	Ethiopian emperors; restored in 1270.
Bavand dynasty	651 CE – 1349 CE	698 years	Tabaristan rulers.
Kachhwaha	1128 CE – 1818 CE	690 years	Jaipur rajputs; effective rule ended with British control.
Bolkiah	c. 1360 CE – present	~665 years	Brunei sultans; estimation for early start.
Ottoman	1299 CE – 1922 CE	623 years	Sultans of Ottoman Empire.
Vijaya	543 BCE – 66 CE	609 years	Sri Lankan kings; traditional dates.
Ahom	1228 CE – 1826 CE	598 years	Assam kingdom.
Oldenburg	1448 CE – present	577 years	Danish/Norwegian royals; active in Denmark.
Rathore	1243 CE – 1818 CE	575 years	Marwar/Jodhpur rajputs; ended with British control.
Bohkti	c. 1330 CE – 1855 CE	~525 years	Kurdish principality; adjusted start date.
Joseon and Korean Empire	1392 CE – 1910 CE	518 years	Korean rulers.
Habsburg	1278 CE – 1780 CE	502 years	Line Agnatic: All are extinct.
Goryeo	918 CE – 1392 CE	474 years	Korean kingdom.
Arsacid	247 BCE – 224 CE	471 years	Parthian Empire.
Nabhani	1154 CE – 1624 CE	470 years	Oman imams.
Han and Shu Han	202 BCE – 9 CE, 25–220 CE	448 years	Non-continuous; Chinese emperors.
Árpád	858 CE – 1301 CE	443 years	Hungarian kings.
Mataram	1586 CE – present	~439 years	Indonesian sultans; estimation for continuity.
Sassanian	224 CE – 651 CE	427 years	Persian Empire.
Davidic	c. 1010 BCE – 586 BCE	~424 years	Kingdom of Judah; traditional dates.
Jafnid	220 CE – 638 CE	418 years	Arab kingdom.
Piast	960 CE – 1370 CE	410 years	Polish dukes/kings.
Argead	c. 700 BCE – 309 BCE	~391 years	Macedonian kings; adjusted start.
Copán	426 CE – 810 CE	384 years	Maya city-state.
Siri Sanga Bo	1220 CE – 1597 CE	377 years	Kandy kingdom, Sri Lanka.
Umayyad	661–750 CE, 756–1031 CE	364 years	Non-continuous; caliphs.
Yuan and Northern Yuan	1271 CE – 1635 CE	364 years	Mongol China.
Komnenos	1057–1059 CE, 1081–1185 CE, 1204–1461 CE	363 years	Byzantine emperors; non-continuous.
Later Lê	1428–1527 CE, 1533–1789 CE	355 years	Vietnamese emperors; non-continuous.
Estridsen	1047–1375 CE, 1387–1412 CE	353 years	Danish kings; non-continuous.
Aryacakravarti	1277 CE – 1619 CE	342 years	Jaffna kingdom.
Lakhmid	c. 268 CE – 602 CE	~334 years	Arab kingdom.
Stuart	1371–1651, 1660–1714	334 years	Scottish/British royals; non-continuous.
Plantagenet	1154 CE – 1485 CE	331 years	English kings.
Jiménez	905 CE – 1234 CE	329 years	Navarre/Aragon.
Bendahara	1699 CE – present	~326 years	Pahang/Malaysia sultans; estimation.
Song	960 CE – 1279 CE	319 years	Chinese emperors.
Romanov	1613 CE – 1917 CE	304 years	Russian tsars.
Liao and Western Liao	916 CE – 1218 CE	302 years	Khitan rulers.
Later Jin and Qing	1616 CE – 1912 CE	296 years	Manchu China.
Ming and Southern Ming	1368 CE – 1662 CE	294 years	Chinese emperors.
Babenberg	962 CE – 1246 CE	284 years	Austrian dukes.
Ptolemaic	305 BCE – 30 BCE	275 years	Hellenistic Egypt.
Tang	618–690 CE, 705–907 CE	274 years	Chinese emperors; non-continuous.
Fatimid	909 CE – 1171 CE	262 years	Caliphs.
Nasrid	1230 CE – 1492 CE	262 years	Granada emirate.
Rajasa	1222 CE -1478 CE	256 years	Javanese rulers
Thutmosid	c. 1550 BCE – c. 1295 BCE	~255 years	Egyptian pharaohs.
Dunkeld	1034 CE – 1286 CE	252 years	Scottish kings.
Bubastite	c. 945 BCE – c. 715 BCE	~230 years	Egyptian pharaohs.
Achaemenid	550 BCE – 330 BCE	220 years	Persian Empire; adjusted start.
Timurid	1370 CE – 1507 CE	137 years	Central Asian rulers; Mughal branch excluded.