Maximilian

Maximilian, Maximillian, or Maximiliaan (Maximilien in French) is a male given name. It was coined by Friedrich III for his son in 1459, explaining it as a combination of the names of two Roman generals, Maximus and Aemilianus. There was, however, an antecedent in Maximilianus, and several other prominent early Christians.

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Maximilian (martyr)

Saint Maximilian of Tebessa (Latin: Maximilianus) is a Christian saint and martyr, whose feast day is observed on 12 March. Born in the third century, A.D. 274, the son of Fabius Victor, a soldier in the Roman army, Maximilian was obliged to enlist at the age of 21. On 12 March, A.D. 295, at the City of Thavaste (now: Tébessa, Algeria), North Africa. he was brought before the proconsul of Numidia, Cassius Dion, to swear allegiance to the Emperor as a soldier. He refused, stating that, as a Christian, he could not serve in the military, leading to his immediate beheading by the sword. He is noted as the earliest recorded conscientious objector, although it is believed that there were some other Christians at that time who also refused military service and were executed.

The 1970s anti-Vietnam War clergy group Order of Maximilian took their name from him. Maximilian's name has been regularly read out, as a representative conscientious objector from the Roman Empire, at the annual ceremony marking International Conscientious Objectors' Day, 15 May, at the Conscientious Objectors Commemorative Stone, Tavistock Square, Bloomsbury, London.

Maximilian, Duke of Hohenberg

Maximilian, Duke of Hohenberg (29 September 1902 – 8 January 1962), was the eldest son of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary, and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg. Because his parents' marriage was morganatic, he was excluded from succession to the imperial throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to which his father was heir presumptive, and to inheritance of any of his father's dynastic titles, income and properties, although not from the archduke's personal estate nor from his mother's property.

Life

Maximilian was born with the lesser princely title and territorial designation ("von Hohenberg") accorded his mother at the time of her marriage and in 1905 shared, with his siblings, in her receipt of the style of Serene Highness. Although she had been raised from Princess (Fürstin) to Duchess in 1909 by Emperor Emperor Franz Joseph, because that title was accorded ad personam, Maximilian did not inherit it upon her death. On 31 August 1917, however, Emperor Charles I granted him the dukedom on an hereditary basis, simultaneously raising his treatment from "Serene Highness" (Durchlaucht) to "Highness" (Hoheit).