Where do honorifics come from (e.g. Alfred the Great, Peter the Great)? How do they get attached to the regent’s name permanately? Is there a royal board set up for this or what?
AFAIK, there’s nothing any more “official” about such appellations as Ethelred The Unready or Charles the Bald than there is concerning Frank Sinatra’s “Ol’ Blue Eyes” or Ted Williams’s “The Splendid Splinter”. Someone thinks up a descriptive term, the chroniclers/public/whoever pick(s) up on it, it finds its way into newspaper accounts, then biographies, eventually standard reference works.
The word for the fig of speech that includes William the Conqueror, Suleyman the Magnificent, Charlie Hustle (Pete Rose) and the Great Communicator (Ronald Reagan) is “sobriquet”.
(“honorifics” are “Your Highness”, “Your Majesty”, “The Honourable”, “The Right Reverend” and the like).
They are granted by Public Opinion, either lifetime or posthumous and attached by use and custom through history. At times it relates to something that describes the person’s character, or public activity, e.g. Castille’s Alfonso the Learned [“the Wise” is really a mistranslation] or France’s Pippin the Brief [aka “the Short”], or some true though perhaps unflattering observation about their person (Edward Longshanks, Juana the Madwoman). If the monarch’s lucky, it’ll be his PR men who shape his common nickname. If not, it’ll be their critics.
However, there are cases like Ivan IV of Russia, who actually encouraged being called “the Terrible”. Quite a few of various "the Great"s were likely as well to have been coined or at least encouraged by the ruler him/herself at the time.
Ethelred the Unready is the modern way of referring to “Ethelraed Unraed”, which appears to have been a punning condemnation of his abilities.
“Ethelraed” meant “Noble counsel” in Anglo-Saxon: “Unraed” meant “without counsel” - so his nickname contradicted his name.
Most historians nowadays translate “Ethelred the Unready” as “Ethelred the Ill-Advised”; the name came because, though he was liked, it was felt his advisors gave him bad advice.
What exactly is unflattering about “longshanks”? Does it not just mean “long legs”? So Ed was tall? When has that ever been an insult?
G’day
These are nicnames rather than honorifics. And most are conferred in retrospect by historians trying to distinguish between people of the same name. Thus for example Alexander the Great was called ‘the Great’ to distinguish himself from his half-brother and successor of the same name. Similarly, Pompey the Great was so called to distinguish him from his grandson, who was a prominent historical figure a bit later. William the Conqueror was called that to distinguish him from his successor William Rufus.
It was only later that people started thinking that Alexander’s soubriquet indicating greater age was a title indicating greatness, and stated flattering with it.
Regards,
Agback
Ah, thank you all.
I said “true but perhaps unflattering” in the sense that it would be an observation but not exactly a term of praise. They could have called him “Edward Standtall”, after all.
(Juana, OTOH, really went insane after her husband Felipe died, so it was a cruel way of referring to her misfortune)
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Magnus being the Latin for “Great”) was known as such to his contemporaries, and his cognomen (basically Latin for “nickname”) of Magnus is found on contemporary coins, etc. And he certainly did intend it to mean “Great” and not “older.” In general, Latin would indicate older by Maior (or “major”) and Minor, as with the two Catos, or the two Senecas.
I also doubt that Alexander the Great’s “Great” was ever intended simply to indicate that he was older than his half-brother/successor, although I have no contemporary testimony to this effect at the moment.
My favorite royal sobriquet is that of Pepin le Bref’s wife, Berthe aux Grands Pieds (“Bertha Big-foot”). It really makes them into an interesting couple.
The honorifics of the hellenistic monarchs were mostly self-chosen. Thus while Antigonus Monopthalamus was probably a legitimate nickname, based on his one good eye, Antiochus III Magnus ( “the Great” ) wasn’t dubbed that by later historians or contemporaries - That’s how he referred to himself in a regnal capacity ( specifically on cast coins ). Similarly with most the rest - Antiochus IV Epiphanes ( actually Theos Epiphanes - “God Manifest” ) was apparently referred to by local wits among his subjects as Epimanes ( “Madman” ) as a play on words :p.
The Lagids, Seleucids, and I believe the Antigonids followed this custom.
- Tamerlane
I meant to ask this in the OP, but I forgot: why is there only one -the Great in English history? In fact there seem to be only a few English monarchs with nicknames. Ed the Longshanks, Alfred the Great, Ethelraed Unraed, Ed the Confessor, Elizabeth of Good Memory, John Lackland, and William the Conqueror are the only ones that spring to mind. Is this modesty or lack of creativity? I sure could have used some nicknames between all the Edwards and the Henrys (Henries?).
Well, you’re forgetting Cnut the Great :).
Also Edgar the Peaceful, St. Edward the Martyr, William II Rufus, Richard I Coeur-de-Lion, John Lackland, Edmund II Ironside.
But the tradition does seem to have dried up after awhile.
- Tamerlane
You may remember two sobriquets from among the Twelve Apostles: St. James the Greater and St. James the Less. You may have wondered: what made one greater and the other “less”? And what an odd thing to call someone… “less.”
These are translations of the original Semitic locutions, in which the word for ‘greater’ (like kabîr or akbar in Arabic) is used to mean ‘older’, while the word for ‘smaller’ (like saghîr or asghar in Arabic) is used to mean ‘younger’. Our use of size terms to reference age, like “big brother” and “little brother” is quite similar.
St. James the Greater was older than the other St. James, which is why he was tagged with “The Greater” to tell them apart. He did have a more illustrious career as a saint, what with Santiago de Compostela named for him and all. As for St. James the Less, he remains a very obscure character; the biographers haven’t been able to find anything to say about him, really.
Remembered another English one - Henry I Beauclerc.
- Tamerlane
When was Cnut ever “the Great”? I’ve often heard that Alfred (the well-known anti-Danish terrorist leader) was the only English king to be known as “the Great”.
(And I have a vague feeling that some English king was “Curtmantle” … Henry II?)
The confusion probably arises from some sources not considering Cnut an “English” king, but rather a foreign conquerer and king, instead, of the Danes. Then again, William I was a foreigner as well ( arguable more so, actually, as a representative of the Latin West, rather than the Germanic North ).
However Cnut made England the center of his North Sea Empire and seems to have largely been accepted by the English ( many of them, anyway ) as a legitimate monarch. Only a dynastic accident ( his and Hathacanute’s early deaths ) prevented his dynasty from setting down deeper roots ). Earl Godwin was his creature and of course it was Godwin’s son, Harold Godwinson, who stood as the last German king in England.
Far as I’ve ever seen most sources tend to refer to Cnut as “the Great”. My little handbook of world monarchs definitely lists him as such.
Ah, yes - correct, that’s another one 
- Henry II Curtmantle.
- Tamerlane
There are still others who do this, but only because it rhymes, thus committing themselves to an arrogant sounding screen name.
Thanks, Tamerlane. Evidently I had seriously Anglo-centric history teachers when I was a wee nipper.
(First person to say “when you were a wee nipper, Steve, this was current events, not history” wins a virtual poke in the eye.)
Interesting. Antiochus was a Greek-speaking ruler with Greek-speaking and Egyptian-speaking subjects. Any idea why he nicknamed himself using Latin?
Regards,
Agback