Independence notice. GOTHA is an independent website about royal and noble families. It is not the Almanach de Gotha. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to the Almanach de Gotha, Justus Perthes, or any current owner of that title. "Almanach de Gotha" is used here only to describe the historical publication.

The Almanach de Gotha: A History of Europe's Most Famous Nobility Directory (1763 or 1764–Today)

People search for "Almanach de Gotha meaning" because the name has become shorthand for European high society. To be "in the Gotha" meant your family appeared in the reference book of royalty and high nobility. Here is where the book came from, how it worked, and what happened to it, based on the public sources listed at the end.

What Is the Almanach de Gotha?

The Almanach de Gotha (German: Gothaischer Hofkalender) is a directory of Europe's royalty and higher nobility. It also covers the major government, military and diplomatic corps, along with statistical data by country [1]. Over time it came to be treated as an authority on how monarchies and their courts, reigning and former dynasties, and princely and ducal families were classified [1].

1763 or 1764: Origins at the Court of Gotha

The Almanach de Gotha was first published in 1763 or 1764 (sources differ). The Justus Perthes publishing history says the French edition "was originally started in 1763 by Carl Wilhelm Ettinger" [11]. The University of Erfurt's Gotha Research Library, which holds the Perthes collection, says the Almanach de Gotha contenant diverses connoissances curieuses et utiles was first published in 1764 by Johann Christian Dieterich, as the edition for the year 1765, and that Ettinger took over the court calendar in 1776 [12]. It appeared in Gotha, at the ducal court of Frederick III, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg [1].

1785–1944: The Justus Perthes Era

From 1785 until 1944 the almanac came out every year from the Justus Perthes publishing house in Gotha [1][11]. In 1785 Ettinger entrusted "both the publishing and distribution" of the court calendar to Justus Perthes under a lease. Perthes's name first appears on the title page in 1816, the year of his death [12]. Over the 19th century the entertaining texts gave way to statistical, diplomatic and genealogical information [12]. At its largest it ran to more than 1,200 pages, and less than half of that covered monarchs and nobility [1]. It was known for the breadth and precision of its information on royalty and nobility compared with other almanacs [1].

The work had two main parts [1]:

• the Annuaire généalogique (genealogical yearbook), and
• the Annuaire diplomatique et statistique (diplomatic and statistical yearbook), with demographic and government information by country.

The Three Famous Sections

The genealogical part came to consist essentially of three sections [1]:

1. Reigning and formerly reigning houses, meaning emperors, kings, grand dukes, dukes, princes and others.
2. Mediatised houses, families that had been ruling princes or counts of the Holy Roman Empire and kept "equality of birth" for marriage purposes with reigning dynasties. That right was recognised after the 1815 Congress of Vienna and in Article 14 of the German Confederation's charter [1]. A section for mediatised comital houses was added in 1841. In 1877 these families were moved into section II [1].
3. Non-sovereign princely and ducal families, such as Rohan, Orsini, Norfolk, Czartoryski, Radziwill and Alba [1].

Inclusion or exclusion mattered, and it drew criticism. Genealogists including Jean-Engelbert, Duke d'Arenberg, William Addams Reitwiesner and Cyril Toumanoff objected to how certain families were classified. Toumanoff called the changes "pan-German triumphalism" [1].

Napoleon's Protest and the Two Editions

The most famous quarrel came from Napoleon. On 20 October 1807, writing from Fontainebleau, he told his foreign minister, Champagny, that "le dernier almanach de Gotha est mal fait" ("the latest Almanach de Gotha is badly done") [6][7][8]. He objected that it listed the exiled Comte de Lille, the future Louis XVIII, and German princes not retained under the statutes of the Confederation of the Rhine. He also demanded to see the article before it was printed [6][7]. The publishers humoured him by printing two editions: one for France and another that kept the dynasties deposed since the end of the Holy Roman Empire [1].

Expansion: Counts, Barons and Untitled Nobility

The German court calendar later grew to include separate series for comital houses (from 1825), baronial houses (from 1848), the untitled Uradel (from 1900) and the Briefadel (from 1907) [1]. In 1887 the first section began to include non-European dynasties, starting with one of the ruling families of India [1]. In 1939 the title changed to Gothaisches genealogisches Taschenbuch [1].

1944–1945: The End of the Original Almanach

The 181st edition, of 1944, was the last one Justus Perthes produced [1]. After Soviet troops entered Gotha in 1945, the city became part of Communist East Germany and the publisher ceased operations [1]. The Perthes publishing history says publication of all "Gotha" books had to cease after the war [11]. That is why "Almanach de Gotha 1944" is such a common search: it was the last edition of the original series.

Successors: GHdA and GGH

The format was widely copied, for example in Burke's Royal Families of the World, Le Petit Gotha and Ruvigny's Titled Nobility of Europe [1]. From 1951 to 2013, C.A. Starke of Limburg published the German-language Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels (GHdA), divided into princely, comital, baronial and noble houses [1]. Since 2015, the Gothaisches Genealogisches Handbuch (GGH), published by the Verlag des Deutschen Adelsarchivs, has continued the same content [1].

1992 and 1998: The Name Revived

In 1992 the Perthes family re-established its right to use the name Almanach de Gotha [1]. In 1998 a London-based publisher, John Kennedy, acquired the rights to the title from Justus Perthes Verlag Gotha GmbH [1]. The first new edition, numbered the 182nd, came out in 1998, after a gap of 54 years. It was written in English [1]. Perthes regards these volumes as new works and not a continuation of the 1785–1944 editions [1]. Its own history page states that "the genuine 'Gotha' has not been re-published or re-issued since 1944" [11]. The modern edition appears in two volumes. Volume I covers sovereign, formerly sovereign and mediatised houses plus a diplomatic and statistical directory. Volume II covers non-sovereign princely and ducal houses [1].

Is the Almanach de Gotha Online?

Many historical editions are in the public domain and have been digitised by libraries. A complete microfiche edition of the volumes Perthes lists as 1763–1944 was published in 1982 by K.G. Saur, Munich [11]. Internet Archive, for example, holds scanned volumes of the 1821 and 1891 editions [9][10], and Google Books holds more [4]. The modern volumes are commercial publications. GOTHA (this site) is not an online edition of the Almanach de Gotha. It is an independent directory that cites public sources.

Key Dates

Licence: contains material adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). This article is shared under the same licence.