Reader Question Day #83 – the nobility of FROSTBORN

BAU writes to ask:

I liked FROSTBORN: THE GRAY KNIGHT, but one issue I had with the book was all the noble titles. I don’t know if you made up the titles of the nobles or if they’re archaic words, but they are confusing. 

I think BAU is referring to the titles “Dux” and “Comes”, which various nobles in FROSTBORN hold.

They’re real titles. Or they were a long time ago. The premise of FROSTBORN is that the survivors of King Arthur’s realm go through a magical gate to a new world with elves and orcs and magic and dangerous creatures, and found their own civilization. If a historical King Arthur did exist, he would have been part of what’s called “sub-Roman Britain“, the stretch of time after the decaying Roman Empire abandoned Britain in the early 400s ADs to the time when the Saxons overwhelmed the Romano-British culture sometime in the mid-500s. So I took the titles of the nobility of FROSTBORN from the names of various offices in the late Roman Empire.

“Dux” is one of those titles, Latin for “leader”. In the late Roman Empire, it was an actual military rank. The rank outlasted the Empire, and the word “dux” became the root word for the titles of Duke and Doge and Duc and so forth.

“Comes” is another one of those titles, the Latin word for “companion.” Originally, this meant a companion of the Emperor, and the concept predated the Roman Empire. Alexander the Great had his Companions, his elite cavalrymen and bodyguards. In the Late Roman Empire, “comes” became another formal government office. And like dux, “comes” outlasted the Empire, and became the root word for “count”.

So that is where I got the noble titles in FROSTBORN. In Andomhaim, the Duxi are the high noblemen, the most powerful and from the oldest families, some of whom can trace their lineage back to Old Earth. The Comites are the mid-ranking noblemen, like barons or counts.

-JM