Emperors & Empresses

Emperor is a title designating the sovereigns of the ancient Roman Empire and, by derivation, various later European rulers; it is also applied loosely to certain non-European monarchs.

Emperors & Empresses Encyclopedia Articles

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Napoleon I

Napoleon I was a French general, First Consul (1799–1804), emperor of France (1804–1814/15), and one of the most celebrated personages in the history of the West. He revolutionized military organization...

Charlemagne

Charlemagne was the king of the Franks (768–814), king of the Lombards (774–814), and first emperor (800–814) of the Romans and of what was later called the Holy Roman Empire. Around the time of the birth...

Justinian I

Justinian I was a Byzantine emperor (527–565), noted for his administrative reorganization of the imperial government and for his sponsorship of a codification of laws known as the Code of Justinian (Codex...

Tiberius

Tiberius was the second Roman emperor (14–37 ce), the adopted son of Augustus, whose imperial institutions and imperial boundaries he sought to preserve. In his last years he became a tyrannical recluse,...

Charles V

Charles V was the Holy Roman emperor (1519–56), king of Spain (as Charles I; 1516–56), and archduke of Austria (as Charles I; 1519–21), who inherited a Spanish and Habsburg empire extending across Europe...

emperor

Emperor, title designating the sovereign of an empire, conferred originally on rulers of the ancient Roman Empire and on various later European rulers, though the term is also applied descriptively to...

tsar

Tsar, title associated primarily with rulers of Russia. The term tsar, a form of the ancient Roman imperial title caesar, generated a series of derivatives in Russian: tsaritsa, a tsar’s wife, or tsarina;...

Constantine I

Constantine I was the first Roman emperor to profess Christianity. He not only initiated the evolution of the empire into a Christian state but also provided the impulse for a distinctively Christian culture...

Frederick II

Frederick II was the king of Sicily (1197–1250), duke of Swabia (as Frederick VI, 1228–35), German king (1212–50), and Holy Roman emperor (1220–50). A Hohenstaufen and grandson of Frederick I Barbarossa,...

Nicholas I

Nicholas I was a Russian emperor (1825–55), often considered the personification of classic autocracy. For his reactionary policies, he has been called the emperor who froze Russia for 30 years. Nicholas...

Napoleon III

Napoleon III was the nephew of Napoleon I, president of the Second Republic of France (1850–52), and then emperor of the French (1852–70). He gave his country two decades of prosperity under a stable,...

Hadrian

Hadrian was a Roman emperor (117–138 ce), the emperor Trajan’s cousin and successor, who was a cultivated admirer of Greek civilization and who unified and consolidated Rome’s vast empire. He was the third...

Victoria

Victoria was the queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1837–1901) and empress of India (1876–1901). She was the last of the house of Hanover and gave her name to an era, the Victorian...

Kublai Khan

Kublai Khan was a Mongolian general and statesman, who was the grandson and greatest successor of Genghis Khan. As the fifth emperor (reigned 1260–94) of the Yuan, or Mongol, dynasty (1206–1368), he completed...

Kangxi

Kangxi was the second emperor (reigned 1661–1722) of the Qing (Manchu) dynasty (1644–1911/12). To the Chinese empire he added areas north of the Amur River (Heilong Jiang) and portions of Outer Mongolia,...

Yongle

Yongle was the reign name (nianhao) of the third emperor (1402–24) of China’s Ming dynasty (1368–1644), which he raised to its greatest power. He moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, which was rebuilt...

Franz Joseph

Franz Joseph was the emperor of Austria (1848–1916) and king of Hungary (1867–1916), who divided his empire into the Dual Monarchy, in which Austria and Hungary coexisted as equal partners. In 1879 he...

Augustus

Augustus was the first Roman emperor, following the republic, which had been finally destroyed by the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, his great-uncle and adoptive father. His autocratic regime is known...

Oil painting of Peter the Great, emperor of Russia, shown from the waist up wearing armor and a sash, with one hand resting on a cane, against a dark background.

Peter I

Peter I was the tsar of Russia who reigned jointly with his half-brother Ivan V (1682–96) and alone thereafter (1696–1725) and who in 1721 was proclaimed emperor (imperator). He was one of his country’s...

False Dmitry

False Dmitry, any of three different pretenders to the Muscovite throne who, during the Time of Troubles (1598–1613), claimed to be Dmitry Ivanovich, the son of Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible (reigned 1533–84)...

Alexander I

Alexander I was the emperor of Russia (1801–25), who alternately fought and befriended Napoleon I during the Napoleonic Wars but who ultimately (1813–15) helped form the coalition that defeated the emperor...

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