How and why do tiny countries like Singapore and Monaco exist? Why aren’t they just a part of the larger country surrounding them?
In: 342
A lot of it goes back to the feudal system of landed titles.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial,_royal_and_noble_ranks
So back in 963 someones little brother becomes a Count and is granted a title to this land called “Lucilinburhuc” (Little Castle). And he passes this to his heirs. And one of those heirs becomes a King, and then actually becomes the Holy Roman Emperor.
And this little piece of land continued to pass down in history to 3 other Emperors. And with all the wealth in this family they kept building and improving the castle to become one of the strongest in Europe. Eventually the land title was upgraded to a “duchy” and so the holder became a Duke. Dukes are almost like mini-kings and have all kinds of rights and power in the feudal world.
Well this guy called Napoleon eventually showed up and wasn’t a big fan of the feudal system but he was totally a fan of military conquest. He took over this little territory for a while but all the Royal families of Europe really did not like Napoleon taking away their land and titles so they teamed up and took him down.
So the title and land went back to the original family after. But that family didn’t have an Empire anymore. So it was in this weird legal limbo. Some of the biggest Empires (Prussia/ England) that beat Napoleon tried to argue that this castle and land should now belong to them. But they worked out a compromise to let it be an independent ally.
Later Belgium became a country and tried to say “hey this is part of our place”. But the Duke of this castle was actually King of the Dutch. He 100% did not agree to give away his castle to Belgium. So it stayed his and never got added to Belgium. But keep in mind, this Castle belongs to the King personally. It doesn’t actually belong to the Dutch and it’s not a part of that “Kingdom” even though the Duke of the Castle and the King of the Dutch are the same guy.
There were more wars and disagreements, (the Hitler dude was especially bad news) but basically the owners of this land stayed powerful enough but also neutral enough that their castle and land was never permanently and legally absorbed into one of the bigger countries around them.
And so, today, we have the independent state of Luxembourg.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxembourg
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