The Universe of Discourse

Genealogy of the House of Reuss

A couple of years ago I lamented the difficulty I had in verifying what appeared to be a simple statement of fact:

[Abdullah bin Abdul-Rahman] was the seventh son of the Emir of the Second Saudi State, Abdul Rahman bin Faisal.

The essential problem is that Saudi princes have at least ten or twenty sons each, and they all reuse the same ten or twenty names.

Until today, I was not aware of any European tradition even remotely so confusing. Today I learned of the House of Reuss.

I have other things to do today, so just a couple of highlights, starting with this summary:

Since the end of the 12th century, all male members of the House of Reuss are named Heinrich.

No, don't panic, there must be some way to distinguish them, and of course there is:

For the purpose of differentiation, they are given order numbers according to certain systems (see below, section Numbering of the Heinrichs)

Yes, they are numbered. Since the 12th century. So you might think they would be up to Heinrich MCMXVII by now. No no no, that would be silly.

In the elder line the numbering covers all male children of the elder House, and the numbers increase until 100 is reached and then start again at 1.

In the younger line the system is similar but the numbers increase until the end of the century before starting again at 1.

The Wikipedia article later embarks on a list of rulers of the House of Reuss that includes 151 Henrys with numbers as high as LXXVII. I wonder at this, since if they have really exercised that numbering scheme you would expect to see mention of at least one Henry with a number in the LXXX–XCIX range, but there are none.

A few of the 151 Henrys have distinctive nicknames like Henry II the Bohemian, Henry VII the Red, or Henry VI the Peppersack. But they seem to have run out of new epithets in the 14th century, and lapsed into a habit of using and reusing "the Elder", "the Middle", and "the Younger" over and over. Around the mid-1600s they tired even of this and abandoned the epithets entirely.

Just by way of example, I searched the page for “Henry XIX” and found three rulers by that name and number:

1. One born 1 March 1790, Heinrich XIX, Prince Reuss of Greiz

2. Another born 16 October 1720, Count of Selbitz. The English Wikipedia page is a redlink, but the German article on the Houses of Reuss has a bit to say.

3. And a third, born around 1440, where these is a whole article about him, in Bulgarian For some reason he is known as Хайнрих XXI фон Вайда, Henry XXI (not XIX) of Vaida.

Toward the end of the article, we learn this:

On 7 December 2022, German police conducted an operation which resulted in the arrest of 25 alleged members of the far-right group Reichsbürger, including a member of the Köstritz branch of the House of Reuss, identified as Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss. The suspects arrested in the operation were allegedly planning to overturn the existing German government, and instate Heinrich XIII as the new German de facto leader.

All I can think now is, I think of myself as someone who is good at sniffing out Wikipedia bullshit, but this entire article could be completely made up and I would never be the wiser.

By the way, the link from “Henry VI the Peppersack” is to an article in Bulgarian Wikipedia that does not appear to mention the "Peppersack" epithet, a search on the Internet Archive for books mentioning "Henry Peppersack" turns up nothing, and while the section on the plot to bring Heinrich XIII to power cites a source, the page it purports to link to is gone.

Addendum 20250215

Here's a funny coincidence. The highest-numbered Henry I could find was Henry LXXVII. Lord Sepulchrave is stated at the beginning of Titus Groan to be the 76th Earl of Groan, which makes Titus Groan the 77th.

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