Quote Originally Posted by Sarmatian
Yes, I know that Czar means Emperor. But when they talk on history channel about russian imperial family, for example, mostly they say "russian czar" (or tsar, tzar), not "russian emperor" . I was just wondering is there a rule how that word should be spelled. Or maybe there is no particular rule since it is not an english word...
I think that Tsar is a pheonetic english spelling. Czar is more similar to the word in other slavic langauges. Car (croatian), Clsar (Czech), and Caesarz (Polish).

Czar became another word for emperor when Peter the Great proclaimed himself Emperor of all Russia (or the Russia's).


Quote Originally Posted by ajaxfetish
If I understand it correctly, a marquis (or marcher lord) was usually given authority over turbulent borderlands, a march or mark, usually with a hostile enemy on the other side. They tended to be given even more authority than usual within their own domain, still subject to the king, but able to enforce a sort of martial law due to the unstable nature of their lands.
Marquis (which is a French title BTW) is from the German Markgraft. Graft is the German form of Count, mark can mean march or border. You'll find several flavors of Count in Germany. Burg graft (castle count), Land graft (land or forrest count), and Pfalz graft (count palatine).


Quote Originally Posted by Randarkmaan
Concerning the title of Emperor, you could include the Ottomans as they had the Persian title "Padisha" (Great King/Sultan, I think) and many also took the title Keyser-i-rum (Emperor of Rome).
Padishah=Great King. It came to be accepted in Europe that the Islamic form of emperor was Padishah. Another aside is that the Iranian Shahanshah (king of kings) is an odd but royal (rather than imperial) title.