In the High Middle Ages, the dukes and princes of the empire gained power at the expense of the emperors.

Lithuania was ruled during the early 13th century by a number of dukes and princes presiding over various fiefdoms and tribes.

And also whatsoever emperors, kings, or princes, dukes, earls or barons ... presume to take possession of things anywhere deposited in holy buildings ... should incur sentence of excommunication.

Former kings and queens become counts and countesses ( dukes and duchesses if they have reigned more than once ), and former princes and princesses of Principalities become viscounts and viscountesses.

The most powerful of these local rulers came to be called princes rather than dukes.

Reigning bearers of forms of Highness included grand princes, grand dukes, sovereign princes, reigning dukes and princely counts, their families and the agnatic descendants of emperors and kings.

* Mediatized dukes and reigning and mediatized princes ( Fürsten ) bear the style of Serene Highness (), as do other members of princely families.

* War of the Eight Princes: After the death of Emperor Sima Yan ( Jin Wudi ) a civil war breaks out among the princes and dukes of the Jin Dynasty.

This is attested in some surviving styles for e. g., British earls, marquesses, and dukes are still addressed by the Crown on ceremonial occasions as high and noble princes ( cf.

Cadets of France's princes étrangers began to affect similar usage but when, for example, the House of La Tour d ' Auvergne's ruling dukes of Bouillon, attempted to use the same style, it was initially resisted by historians such as Père Anselme – who, however, willingly recognized use of territorial titles, i. e. he accepts that the ducal heir apparent is known as prince de Bouillon, but would record in 1728 only that the heir's cousin, the comte d ' Oliergues was " known as the Prince Frederick " (" dit le prince Frédéric ").

European dynasties usually awarded apanages to princes of the blood, typically attached to a feudal noble title, such as Britain's royal dukes, the Dauphin in France, the Count of Flanders in Belgium, and the Count of Syracuse in Sicily.

Piast Kołodziej ( Piast the Wheelwright ), the legendary founder of the Piast dynasty, is first mentioned in the Cronicae et gesta ducum sive principum Polonorum ( Chronicles and deeds of the dukes or princes of the Poles ) of Gallus Anonymus, written c. 1113.

The principality of Carantania is particularly notable for the ancient ritual of installing Carantanian dukes ( or princes, both an approximate translation of Fürst ), a practice that continued after Carantania was incorporated into the later Duchy of Carinthia.

Thus, he stripped the princes, dukes, and lesser aristocrats of important defences that could have been used against the King's armies during rebellions.

Since 1772 Swedish royal princes have been nominated dukes of provinces without political significance.

Though Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo and his vassal territories like the Grand Duchy of Berg were erased from the European map, the representatives assembled at the Congress of Vienna consented to yet more uses of the title by restored dukes and princes, especially for several of those in the lands that had constituted the Holy Roman Empire.

However, in the German language ( which has separate words for royal prince, " Prinz ", and for sovereign prince, " Fürst "), the grand dukes of Lithuania and historic Russian states, as well as other Eastern European princes and later Russian dynasts, were referred to with the title " Großfürst ", a direct translation, rather than using the version " Großherzog ".

With the rise of the territories, the ability to designate market towns was passed to the princes and dukes, as the basis of German town law.

Twenty-four German dukes and princes invaded Frisia with their armies.

With the creation of permanent Slavic states in Kievan Rus ', in Bohemia and Poland, the highest authority was passed to dukes and princes.

In 1378 Celle became the Residenz of the dukes of Saxe-Wittenberg and, in 1433, the princes of Lüneburg took up residence in the castle ( Schloss ).

Their letters suggest that both Mozart and his father, being Austrians who resented the special place that Italian composers had in the courts of the Austrian princes, blamed the Italians in general and Salieri in particular for all of Mozart's difficulties in establishing himself in Vienna.

Arnulf spent his childhood on the Mosaburch or Mosapurc, which is widely believed to be Moosburg in Carinthia, only a few miles away from one of the Imperial residences, the Carolingian Kaiserpfalz at Karnburg, which before as Krnski grad had been the residence of the Carantanian princes.

Pope Paul III ( 1534 – 49 ), seeing that the Protestant Reformation was no longer confined to a few preachers, but had won over various princes, particularly in Germany, to its ideas, desired a council.

Louis XIV had hoped that a show of force would lead to a quick resolution to his dynastic and territorial disputes with the princes of the Empire along his eastern border, but his intimidatory moves only strengthened German resolve, and in May 1689 Leopold I and the Dutch signed an offensive compact aimed at repelling French aggression.

Thus it was significant which quarters had preferential opportunities in providing chief wives to imperial princes, i. e. supplying future empresses.

By 1569, relations with the Habsburgs had deteriorated, and Elizabeth considered marriage to two French Valois princes in turn, first Henry, Duke of Anjou, and later, from 1572 to 1581, his brother Francis, Duke of Anjou, formerly Duke of Alençon.

Until the marriage of the Crown Prince Hirohito ( Emperor Shōwa ) to Princess Nagako of Kuni ( posthumously Empress Kōjun ) in January 1924, the principal consorts of emperors and crown princes had always been recruited from one of the Sekke Fujiwara.

Meanwhile, the German princes had elected another king, Rudolf of Swabia.

Both the Pope and the German princes had surfaced as major players in the political system of the Empire.

In Germany, the Emperor had repeatedly protected Henry the Lion against complaints by rival princes or cities ( especially in the cases of Munich and Lübeck ).

Although many of these privileges had existed earlier, they were now granted globally, and once and for all, to allow the German princes to maintain order north of the Alps while Frederick wanted to concentrate on Italy.

The Capetians, as they were descended from the Robertians, were formerly powerful princes themselves who had successfully unseated the weak and unfortunate Carolingian kings.

Thus they were involved in the struggle for power within France as princes but they also had a religious authority over Roman Catholicism in France as King.

Electors were among the princes of the Empire, but they had exclusive privileges in addition to their electoral ones which were not shared with the other princes.

A letter of Pope Urban IV suggests that by " immemorial custom ", seven princes had the right to elect the King and future Emperor.

The princes of southern and eastern Russia had to pay tribute to the Mongols of the Golden Horde, commonly called Tatars ; but in return they received charters authorizing them to act as deputies to the khans.

Hengist continues that they were driven from their native country because " the laws of the kingdom require it " and details that Saxony had become overpopulated ; the tradition of their people dictates that when their lands are overstocked with people, the princes of all their provinces meet, and they order that all of the youth of the kingdom assemble before them.

Krishna Menon ( to whom Nehru had delegated the task of integrating the princely states into India ) negotiate with hundreds of princes.

Also various princes of Silesia were of Piast descent, but they had been largely pushed aside since the exile of Vladislas II, Duke of Kraków.

On the far southern edge of his great realm, Louis had to control the Lombard princes of Benevento whom Charlemagne had never subjugated.

To prevent further murmurings and settle the matter permanently, Moses had each of the chief princes of the non-Levitic tribes write his name on his staff and had them lay them in the sanctuary.