Talk:Suzerainty

message: No mention is made of the Indian Princely States which were under the Suzerainty of the British Indian Empire until 1947
Lakshadweep was never a suzerain state of India.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.199.177.246 (talk) 08:01, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: India

message: Is there a reason why the listings at the bottom of the page are reversed for the United States?  For all of the other dependancy relationships, the larger power is listed first, but this is reversed for the United States. - Fasrad 16:22, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: United States

message: Monaco, while it is under French protection, it is not, however under French suzerainty. Monaco is a fully independent
state, & French law has no force there. - (Aidan Work 05:03, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Monaco.

message: Is there any truth in suggesting that recent devloution in the U.K. has created a Suzerainty ? Frelke 08:48, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

message: Any word like this needs to have its pronunciation made clear at the outset. Please include its pronunciation at the beginning of the article.
:It is not a difficult word to pronounce, and there are dictionaries for that purpose, like Wiktionary. Please sign your comments. Elfred (talk) 20:42, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation, please... 

message: Is there any reason why the ottoman empire is not included in the list of suzerainty's?  It is such an excellent example and was organized so well, it seems to be to the detriment of the article that the ottoman's aren't included. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.181.78.204 (talk) 13:00, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ottomans 

message: some one seems to have a political agenda concerning china and the qing...i have included references to the ethnic distinction between manchurian qing and the chinese as well as to the notion of their empire to further the discussion of problems of modern suzerainty and sovereignty in light of history. my contributions are accurate and lend themselves to completing a broader picture of the opinions of the various non-chinese parties involved in the debate over modern china's territorial claims. yet, my contributions are repeatedly changed to a version which aligns itself with a reading of history more amenable to the the peoples republic of china. whoever it is who insists on concealing the facts, could you maybe just cut it out? i see people contributing to hundreds and hundreds of entries. i, instead, contribute only to those discussion about which i have some expertise. if you dispute something i am saying, comment on it, but if you just revert over and over to your old saved version, i can only imagine that you have an agenda but no expertise. this being the case, go mess around in one of your 500 or so entries, mr. expert.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Timmyandy (talk • contribs) 02:30, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have deleted "This is important because it establishes a history of rule over Tibet as well as providing a legal theory of Chinese rule of Tibet under international law, albeit one which is disputed by supporters of Tibetan independence." in the Tibet part. This quote is by no way proven by international law that suzerainety induce any rights such as invasion of a country. Tibet was independent indeed (since 1911) when it was invaded. --Rédacteur Tibet (talk) 21:09, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: While it might be proper to use the term "invade" since the same term was use to descript the union invasion of the confederacy during the US civil war, it does not however mean Tibet was an independent state between the period of ROC, lhasa has never made such a proclamation(declaration of independence) to the ROC government, there is no need for "rights to invade" when you are part of the civil war. it is well documented that chinese forces were in tibet prior to the founding of PRC due to infighting among the tibetan factions, the idea that Tibet was free and under lhasa's control during this period is questionable and it attempts to deny the fact that the tibetan did not all heed to lhasa's domination neither. Akinkhoo (talk) 18:56, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  China 

message: When searching for 'suzerainty' I came into this page, obviously an 'alternative' Wiki page with lots of errors. What does this mean? And why does it say 'microhermit' in the adress?
http://microhermit.com/index.php/Suzerainty  Antipoeten (talk) 16:28, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Microhermit? 

message: That was my introduction -- some may find it interesting to look up the section in which the term is found.--Jrm2007 (talk) 13:21, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian discusses term 

message: The governance of city-states in Mesopotamia is not mentioned here, however "suzerain" appears throughout C. Leonard Woolley's description of Sumerian/Akkadian power struggles. Suzerainty was a common system in Mesopotamia as different cultural groups dominated other groups and city-states, but apparently allowed conquered peoples a great deal of autonomy. Some tributary city-states even had governors that measured time according their own reigns, as opposed to the reigns of the suzerain. This article focuses on more modern examples of suzerainty, perhaps because of the lack of material evidence of the system in the Ancient Near East. I would encourage anyone with the requisite expertise (perhaps me in a few months, should I get that grad school offer!) to add this to the article, should it be valid.128.42.158.152 (talk) 19:46, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mesopotamia 

message: [Suzerainty] differs from sovereignty in that the tributary has some (limited) self-rule.
I'm fairly certain that this is not the difference between suzerainty and sovereignty.  The autonomous regions of Spain have limited self-rule.  So does Scotland.  But no one disputes that Spain has sovereignty over Andalusia, or that the UK has sovereignty over Scotland.  So obviously this is not the difference between sovereignty and suzerainty.  For that matter, the various states of the United States are themselves sovereign entities, but no one disputes that the United States of America exercises sovereignty over them.
Beyond that, to describe suzerainty as pertaining to only "limited" self-rule seems very weak.  The classic examples of suzerainty in the Ottoman Empire were instances where there were governments that had virtually complete self-rule, and only very limited bonds attaching them to the Sublime Porte - usually some sort of annual tribute and an acknowledgement of suzerainty.  Egypt under the Khedives, or Bulgaria after the Congress of Berlin, were certainly under Ottoman suzerainty, but said suzerainty had only very limited application.
I would add, why don't we have a section talking about states over which the Ottoman Empire had suzerainty?  We say that the term derived from that (which is not, I think, actually true - 1911 Britannica describes it as a term from feudal law, which is my understanding as well), but we don't actually describe that situation.
At any rate, I think we ought to go back to older sources that were written at a time when situations of suzerainty were more common.
The aforementioned 1911 Britannica gives a couple of definitions historically used:
*from Martens' Treatise on International Law (I have translated this from the original French, which Britannica gives without translating): "Suzerainty is the limited sovereignty exercised by the supreme power of a state over a mi-souverain (roughtly "dependent") government.  [Britannica notes that this definition would include a protectorate as well as true instances of suzerainty]
*from Lord Kimberley, British Colonial Secretary, who was using it in reference to the South African Republic: Superiority over a state possessing independent rights of government subject to reservations with reference to certain specified matters'.'
There's much more.  At any rate, in general, the Britannica 1911 account is far, far superior to this one, which is always disappointing. john k (talk) 16:05, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The existing definition doesn't seem adequate: "a situation in which a region or people is a tributary to a more powerful entity which controls its foreign affairs while allowing the tributary some limited domestic autonomy." This would make any federal state a sovereignty/suzerainty relationship, which doesn't seem right. The word "tributary" is also odd - countries gave up paying tribute long ago. Among the examples given, Bhutan is a sovereign nation - it has a seat in the UN - but Sikkim is not. Not just India either - Nauru also has a seat in the UN, but Norfolk Island is iundependent enough that citizens of Australia need special documents to go there. Sorry that all I can do is point out problems, I really don't have any solution. PiCo (talk) 01:48, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, this article is confused, I fear. It starts off with a dictionary definition, and attempts to assign a number of modern countries to the definition without references to indicate that the term is in fact used in international law to describe those countries. Some points to note:
* 'Suzerainty' is first a concept in the feudal system of the Middle Ages. And it concerned persons, not countries. A suzerain lord was the lord who had first rights of fealty over a subject. For example, suppose a duke in France owed fealty to both the King of France and the King of England (it frequently happened that a person might be a vassal of two or more lords with opposing interests). If England and France went to war, to whom  is that duke first bound? To solve the problem, one of the feudal superiors was designated the 'suzerain', or the lord to whom obedience was first due. The article makes no reference to this first meaning of suzerainty.
* If one wishes to transpose suzerainty to modern nations (dubious-no references to indicate that the term is in fact used) then suzerain would refer to the dominant state, not the subject state, according to the explanation just given.
* The article seems to be talking about protectorates or client states, in which case it would be more helpful to refer to them as such.
I suggest that the term be properly referenced. A dictionary definition will not do. The article needs to explain the feudal concept. Then it needs to demonstrate how, if at all, any modern countries fit the definition, and how, if at all, the concept is used in international law.Gazzster (talk) 23:36, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition 

message: The page should include a list of current suzerains, such as Greenland, Andorra, Gibraltar, and possibly Scotland and Wales. Bufinidas (talk) 16:51, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suzerainty in Modern Politics 

message: Is there a reason this explanation of who has studied the subject belongs in this section, or anywhere in this article?:
:"While the structure of ancient Hittite treaties was recorded by Victor Korošec,[7] the first application of the Suzerainty structure to Israel was presented by George E. Mendenhall in 1955.[8]"
I suggest it be deleted from the article.  It could be retained on this Talk page and/or repurposed as a reference (where needed).
Zulu Kane (talk) 18:31, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ancient Near East 

message: I am a student at Miami University studying the Hebrew bible and we are discussing covenants. I feel there should be a more indepth description of the sections founds within the treaty. 
In a suzerain treaty, the second section of the written agreement was called the historical prologue. This section would outline the relationship the two groups had up until that point with historical detail and facts that are very beneficial to scholars today, such as scholar George Mendenhall who focuses on this type of covenant as it pertained to the Israelite traditions. Mendenhall, George E. "Covenant Forms in Israelite Tradition". The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Sep., 1954), pp. 49-76. The suzerain would document previous events in which they did a favor that benefitted the vassal. The purpose of this would show that the more powerful group was merciful and giving, therefore, the vassal should obey the stipulations that are presented in the treaty.It discusses the relationship between them as a personal relationship instead of a solely political one. TWloveandhonor (talk) 17:39, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea to improve this article. Add the course banner, pls. And Mendenhall was a scholar, not a theologian :)  Thanks! ProfGray (talk) 17:43, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Ancient Near East

message: The introductional description of suzerainity is generalizing too much and is wrong for many feudal contracts. In many situations the overlord gave the (leading) rules for the governing. The definition makes it look like there does / did exist a kind of global law for all contracts that didn't change over ages. What exactly the rules in a certain relationship were, did differ very much, over the ages, depending on the region, on local (feudal) law / customs or the de facto powerpositions of overlord and vassal etc. It is a must to mention that the relationship in the middle ages mostly was based on an individual contract. Maybe give a few examples that differ much in time, place and content. 2001:9E8:4431:8B01:42E:47BB:A8AA:A1FF (talk) 14:05, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: You cannot just focus on the medieal meaning, to the exclusion of the present day meaning. Please feel free to add a section on the medieval usage, and we can think later about how to summarise it in the lead. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:07, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Generalising