Hi!
I'm always confused by the use of the word Dynasty for the official (or historiographical) name for a state or realm.
Is this purely a Historian's Convention and used because we have the benefit of hindsight to see Dynastic Unions or Personal Unions?
The most egregious example would be the historical China, where we use the word dynasty not only to refer to the ruling family, but also the period, and the state which the family governed (and I guess the subsequent culture). Does this mean that the one dynasty's state was that vastly different politically and socio-organisationally that we have to use the word 'Dynasty' to refer to the different state and society that emerged under each ruling family?
One of the most obvious examples I can take from European history is the Hapsburg Dynasty. Would you honestly consider the various realms (united under the head of the dynasty) a single state? And if so, is "Hapsburg Dynasty" truly the best name we can use to call the state itself (although some sources 'Hapsburg Monarchy' or 'Hapsburg Empire' or 'Danubian Monarchy') as well?
Anyone who can shed some light or give a good primer on this? When do we use the word 'Dynasty' to refer to a state, and when do we use any of the other words (such as Empire, Monarchy, Kingdom, etc.) Basically, I'm confused by the nomenclature we use for various states/realms as a whole.
I'm not claiming to be an expert in the field of state theory, but I'll give it a try until a better answer is given.
Our modern concept of state doesn't really grasp the political system in former ages. The modern state, at least for Europe, really starts after the Peace of Westphalia 1648.
Before that there aren't any political structures which had anything like a constitution or a complete territorial sovereignity. This is a society which is based upon bonds between persons. This is often known as the feudal society, or, in german, Personenverbandsstaat or konsensuale Herrschaft, at least for the middle ages. Therefore it is less messy to follow the fate of a certain family instead of bending the past around a state which in reality emerged much later.