The Zhou Dynasty is the longest-lasting dynasty in China's history, and it is also the dynasty that has the most profound influence on future generations in China. For example, giving a deceased monarch or a nobleman a nickname is derived from the Zhou Dynasty. Confucius, the founder of Confucian culture, who occupies the most important position in China's traditional culture, also admired Zhou Li so much that he even spent his life trying to restore it.
However, the Zhou Dynasty is different from the dynasties since the Qin Dynasty, it is not a centralized system, but a real "feudal system". Although Zhou Tianzi is the co-lord of the world, he does not have the title of emperor, and he cannot directly govern the affairs within the princely states, each princely state is an independent political entity, and their leaders (that is, the princes) only nominally claim to be subjects to Zhou Tianzi, and internally they are monarchs.
The princes were all subordinates of Zhou Tianzi, but there was a hierarchy between them
Although each princely state is an independent political entity, there is also a hierarchical division between them, that is, the familiar "prince and uncle", which is often referred to as the "fifth rank knighthood". For example, the State of Song is the Duke, while the States of Qilu and other countries are the Marquis, and the States of Qin Zheng and other countries are the Counts. As for the monarch of the Chu state, although he was called king several times, he was actually a viscount. There were also some princes with lower status, such as the Xu State, which had been destroyed by the State of Zheng, whose monarch was the Baron.
Presumably, this problem has made many people wonder, when you look at European literary and artistic works, there will often be a certain duke, a certain baron and the like, which is easy to remind everyone of the ancient Chinese fifth-class title, what is the connection between them?
European titles and ancient Chinese titles were developed independently and were not related to each other
In fact, the "fifth-class titles" of Europe and China were developed independently, and there was no connection between the two at all. European titles originated from ancient Rome, while Chinese titles originated from the Zhou Dynasty, and the two were systematic, and the hierarchical division between the nobles, the relationship between the nobles and the monarchs, and their power and social status were completely different.
For example, there is a famous English proverb: The vassal of a vassal is not my vassal. This sentence illustrates a distinctive feature of the European aristocratic hierarchy, that is, the subordinate relationship of the first level, and each level is only subordinate to his superior, and the superior is not.
In contrast, in China, there is no such statement, no matter what level of princes, there is no subordinate relationship between them, all of them are direct subordinates of the co-lord (king or emperor) of the world, so the Chinese "princes and princes" these nobles do not have the right to divide the power, and there is no such thing as which marquis is subordinate to which duke.
The "reciprocity" of Chinese and European titles is actually an illusion caused by translation
Since the two developed independently, why are they so coincidentally reciprocated? In fact, this is not a coincidence, but an artificial, an illusion created by translation.
China's contact with Europe has become more frequent since at least the Yuan Dynasty, but before the middle of the Qing Dynasty, there was never a statement in various literature that equated European titles with Chinese titles. Some scholars even deliberately avoid using one's title to mechanically translate the title of the other, believing that this would mislead the reader.
However, in the late Qing Dynasty, the exchange between China and the West became more and more prosperous, and more and more documents were translated from each other, and many scholars mechanically applied the European titles with the fifth-class titles of ancient China in order to be clever, and similar problems were also Chinese the translation of documents into the West.
It is precisely for this reason that today there is a phenomenon in which the titles of China and Europe are equal to each other, which seem to be of the same origin. In reality, however, as we said above, there is no connection between the two at all, and it is purely a problem caused by translation.
Resources:
"Five-Body Qing Wen jian" and so on