Gediminas - Titles

Titles

Gediminas' normal Latin style is as follows:

  • Gedeminne Dei gratia Letwinorum et multorum Ruthenorum rex

Which translates as:

  • "Gediminas, by the grace of God, of the Lithuanians and many Rus'ians, king"

In his letters to the papacy in 1322 and 1323, he adds Princeps et Duke Semigallie (Prince and Duke of Semigallia). In contemporary Low German he is styled simply Koningh van Lettowen, mirroring the Latin Rex Lethowye(both "King of Lithuania"). Gediminas' right to use Latin rex, which the papacy had been claiming the right to grant from the 13th century, was controversial in some Catholic sources. So for instance he was called rex sive dux ("King or Duke") by one source; Pope John XXII, in a letter to the King of France, refers to Gediminas as "the one who calls himself rex". However, the pope did call Gediminas rex when addressing him (regem sive ducem, "king or duke").

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