Nobility

The nobility (Old High German adal or edili 'noble lineage, the noblest', Latin nobilitas) is a "socially exclusive group with social priority" that exercises rule and usually passes it on within families. There is, however, no clarity of the term, and in the individual European domains different criteria apply or applied as to who belongs to the nobility and who does not. This is even more true for non-European cultures. A member of the nobility is called a nobleman, noblewoman, noblewoman or nobleman.

The nobility's claim to rule was based, among other things, on achievement, education, and lineage, as well as imputed divine purpose. Leadership strata in the various cultures of the world and in different societies are interpreted as nobility. Nobility, despite sometimes very long periods of continuity, was always subject to change. It could collapse, as the late Roman nobility did, or reform. In many countries of the world the nobility no longer holds its formerly extensive and exclusive political power in its hands, and in some cases it has even ceased to exist (e.g. China), not even as an outwardly perceptible social group. At the same time, there are many states that are ruled or represented by noble houses and in which the nobility plays an important role - from Great Britain to Cambodia.

In Europe, archaeology knows the earliest evidence that is interpreted as such aristocratic life, especially grave finds and remains of former villas and castles. Ancient Greek, Roman, but also, for example, Etruscan ruling classes are understood as nobility. In the Middle Ages, the nobility developed from Roman and Germanic, ethnically speaking partly also from Slavic roots into a "multifunctional elite", which led politically and militarily, economically, socially, culturally and religiously, but cannot necessarily be interpreted as "nobility".

From about the 11th/12th century onwards, the European nobility generally organised itself in a system of estates. In such systems of estates, certain rights, privileges, duties and codes of conduct apply to the nobility. With the replacement of the estates by democratic, socialist or communist systems or constitutional monarchies, the nobility in Europe has largely lost its political significance.

The legal as well as the social situation of the nobility has historically varied greatly from region to region: from the retention in principle of the distinctions of rank (e.g. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) to the abolition of the prerogatives and duties of rank (e.g. Weimar Republic) and its abolition (e.g. Austria) to its extinction through persecution, expulsion, imprisonment or murder (e.g. France, Russia, SBZ/DDR).

In Europe today, the nobility nevertheless sometimes represents a relatively closed social class with its own ways of life, manners and a differentiated class ethos.

Word Origin

Whether the word nobility is related to the word odal (roughly: ancestral property of a family, see article) is the subject of a long scholarly controversy. Gustav Neckel wanted to present a complete identity of these terms. Friedrich Kauffmann concluded from the word similarity that odal was ancestral property of a noble family. This is countered by the fact that at the beginning of the tradition the word similarity had long since passed out of the minds of the authors. Furthermore, it cannot be deduced from such derivations that there was a primeval or common Germanic nobility at all. Otto Behaghel denied any connection between the words "odal" and "nobility". Werner Conze, however, maintained that the terms were related, as do the currently leading etymological dictionaries of German, Kluge/Seebold and Pfeifer.

The connection between "odal" and "nobility", "noble" was interpreted to mean that land ownership had played a decisive role in the emergence of the nobility. This corresponded to the state of historical research in the 19th and early 20th centuries. However, this connection between nobility and land ownership can no longer be maintained today. The nobility was not based on economic elements, but on participation in power in the sense of ruling over people.

From the occurrence of nōbĭlís or derivations from it in Latin texts, the existence of a nobility has often been inferred for the times and societies about which these texts provide information. This, however, is not obligatory. Authors of the late Middle Ages already knew that the words nōbĭlís and "nobility" were ambiguous. "They knew the distance between concept and conceptualized. The term nobility was ambiguous, Bartolus of Sassoferato (1314-1357) stated. [...] Humanists of the 15th century complained about the exceptionally wide scope of meaning of the term nobilitas, its latissimus ambitus (Giovanni Francesco Poggio Bracciolini: De nobilitate. Strasbourg 1513; Laurence Humphrey: Optimates sive de nobilitate. Basel 1559 p. 84)." There is strong evidence that there was not yet a general word for nobility in Middle Low German and Early New High German. It was only with the translation of Latin and early New High German texts into New High German that nobiles/nobilis seemingly became unambiguously noble/adlig, which is by no means unambiguous in the original texts. Martin Luther's translation of the Bible is far from somehow connecting the two places where a derivative of nōbĭlís occurs in the Vulgate (2 Maccabees 6.23; 1 Corinthians 1.26) with "nobility." "One is 'noble' in relation to the (all) 'common' people, stands out (Lat. no(ta)bilis) by notoriety and 'nobles' = distinguished, magnanimous behavior, and finally forms a community of the 'best' (Greek aristoi) in terms of outstanding human qualities - talents, virtues, prowess in various fields (Lat. virtus, Greek arete)." In Romance languages and English, the double meaning of Latin nōbĭlís in the sense of "noble" and "aristocratic" remains.

Nobility by country

The country names mentioned below are for geographical, political and cultural orientation, as imperial and national borders changed over time.

Europe

Belgium

During the Habsburg rule, the nobility (which was mostly nobility from the time of the Holy Roman Empire) had great political importance. During the union with the Netherlands (1814-1830), the country had a corporative constitution, according to which the nobility sat in a special chamber of the Diet (Eerste Kamer). This was abolished after the attainment of independence and the nobility lost all political importance, although the king retained to this day the right to confer titles of nobility, in principle no higher than count. Belgians who have recently been raised to the peerage include Dirk Frimout (Burgrave, 1986), Ilya Prigogine (Burgrave, 1989), Albert Frère (Baron, 1994), Eddy Merckx (Baron, 1996), Frank De Winne (Burgrave, 2002) and Jacques Rogge (Count, 2002). Foreign nobles who had become Belgian subjects are considered noble only if they are admitted to the nobility of the kingdom by a "reconnaissance de noblesse", usually on the proposal of the Raad van Adel/Conseil Héraldique. There is a personal and a hereditary nobility in Belgium: the hereditary one is either inherited by all descendants or passes from man to man according to the right of first birth. The ranks are: untitled nobility, Junker (Jonkheer or Ecuyer), Knight (Ridder or Chevalier), Baron (Baron or Baron), Burgrave (Burggraaf or Vicomte), Count (Graaf or Comte), Marquis (Markies or Marquis), Prince (Prins or Prince), and Duke (Hertog or Duc). There are no princes in Belgium.

Germany

The oldest accounts of nobility in the area of present-day Germany are found in Tacitus' Germania, published in Rome in 98 AD at the earliest. The Frankish abbot Nithard, a grandson of Charlemagne, describes in 842 in Book IV, cap. 2 of his history the three estates of the Saxons. In Frankish times the tribal duchies arose. Charlemagne, by conquering Saxony, spread the Frankish system of counts to what later became the whole of the Holy Roman Empire.

In the High Middle Ages, the original nobles and the ministerials merged through the feudal system to form the class of knights, whose families that still exist today are referred to as the Uradel. A feudal pyramid was formed, the steps of which are called "Heerschilde" (army shields). In the late Middle Ages and early modern times, the nobles of the third and fourth shields and the imperial ministerials gave rise to the sovereigns. When the Diet became a permanent institution of the imperial constitution in 1495, the holders of large imperial fiefs (electors, princes, dukes, counts as well as the imperial prelates) were given hereditary seats and thus became imperial estates.

The conferring of titles of nobility on commoners began in the German lands (Germany, German-speaking area) in the time of Emperor Charles IV, following the French model, through the elevation of civil servants (especially those with legal knowledge) to the noble class (Briefadel). In the Holy Roman Empire, nobilitization was a prerogative of the emperor or, during vacancies on the throne, of the imperial vicar. Since 1806, the princes of the Rhine Confederation states and, after 1815, all German sovereigns could raise their rank to the rank of count, and the kings to the rank of prince. This remained so after the formation of the German Empire on 18 January 1871 until 1918.

With the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, a large part of the imperial estates, which until then had been independent of the empire, came under the rule of member states of the German Confederation through mediatization; as lords of the estates, they retained only rudimentary special rights; even the lower nobility had hardly any special rights in most of the states of the German Empire. Until the early 20th century, however, large parts of public life, especially prominent positions in administration, diplomacy and the military, were by custom reserved for nobles; outstandingly qualified commoners were often nobilitized and formed an aristocracy of officers, civil servants and professors that was socially closer to the bourgeoisie and hardly ever settled in the country.

After the end of the monarchy, Article 109 of the Weimar Constitution (Constitution of the German Reich of 11 August 1919) stipulated: "Public-law privileges or disadvantages of birth or rank are to be abolished. Titles of nobility shall be considered only as part of the name and may no longer be conferred." The wording "The nobility is abolished" proposed by the factions of the USPD and SPD in the National Assembly was rejected after a lengthy discussion on July 15, 1919. Today, according to the Association of German Nobility Associations (VdDA), there are around 80,000 members of noble families living in Germany.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the "abolition" of the nobility in 2018, the feature writer Jens Jessen published an essayistic reflection on its survival, its peculiarities as well as remaining aspects of its difference from the bourgeoisie.

France

As in Germany, the French nobility originally arose from the feudal system of the Middle Ages. The older nobility was considerably weakened in the time of the Bourbon kings by numerous elevations in rank and the introduction of the service nobility (noblesse de robe), and was finally wiped out by the Revolution. Napoleon I created a new nobility, but at the same time absorbed some of the old nobility into his system. The short-lived 2nd Republic abolished the nobility, Napoleon III restored it, but the 3rd Republic finally abolished it in 1870. Since then, noble titles are only part of the name.

Holy See

The Holy See (as a particular subject of international law, not to be confused with the Vatican City State) can also confer nobility, but this has not been practiced since the pontificate of John XXIII, although the theoretical possibility still exists.

The Pope is a ruling European monarch (today in the Vatican, historically for the longest time in the Papal States), albeit in an elective monarchy (as once in the Kingdom of Poland) and therefore also in the I. section of the volume series Princely Houses of the "Gotha" has always been listed with its own article. In the Holy Roman Empire, on the other hand, the reigning ecclesiastical princes were called princes of the church, and furthermore, up to the present day, the cardinals, for whom the "Gotha" contains an explanation of the ecclesiastical princely state, but who are not listed there by name. The popes created their own papal nobility, from which they often emerged themselves.

Italy

The medieval feudal law in Italy and the Italian law of succession differed considerably from the Frankish; therefore the Italian nobility can only be compared to the French or German nobility to a limited extent. But the Italian landed aristocracy also developed from the feudal system; in contrast to other European states, Italy also had a strong class of city nobility, the Signoria. Characteristic for the development of the Italian nobility was that the medieval counties and baronies were quite small, so that the later marquises and counts often had only insignificant landholdings.

It is actually only in the Kingdom of Italy (1861-1946) that one can speak of "nobility" in the sense of traditional "nobility research". In the 19th century there were then also in Italy ranks similar to those in Germany, France, Great Britain, Spain: Prince (Principe), Duke (Duca), Margrave (Marchese), Count (Conte), Vice Count (Visconte), Baron (Barone), Knight (Cavaliere), Patrician (Patrizio) and Noble (Nobiluomo). Because of the large number of titled nobles in the old city and country nobility, a lesser nobility hardly developed. With the end of the monarchy, the titles of nobility were abolished in Italy in 1946.

Nobilhòmini

Not comparable to the traditional nobility are the so-called Venetian Nobili, who must be called precisely Nobilhòmo (Venetian: Nobilòmo or Nobiluomo): they were merchants, and from those families who were admitted to the Venetian Parliament, the Grand Council, its committees and government offices, and who elected the Doge and all other government officials from their ranks. These nobili were otherwise no different from the wealthy Venetian patrician families who, after the expansion of the Great Council in 1297 (usually misnamed serrata = closure), no longer had access to it. They therefore had an independence and self-confidence that must have been a thorn in the side of any monarch, since they were not feudatories of any ruler. Therefore Napoleon and the Habsburg emperors, during their rule over Venice, did their utmost to make vassals out of the Venetian nobilhòmini. After the repossession of Venice, Emperor Francis I of Austria had once again made the word Nobilòmo a punishable term, as it had been in 1798.

Luxembourg

Apart from the Grand Ducal family, there are no princely or ducal dynasties in Luxembourg. According to the Luxembourg Constitution, the Grand Duke has the right "de conférer des titres de Noblesse" (to confer titles of nobility). Even today, elevations to the rank of nobility are made by the Grand Duke. For the most part, however, these are nobilitations within the family circle. Thus the nephew of the Grand Duchess Charlotte, Gustaf Lennart Nicolaus Paul Bernadotte, was nobilized in 1951 to the "Comte de Wisborg" (see for example: Succession to the Swedish throne).

Netherlands

The origin of the nobility and the development and later loss of its privileges followed similar trajectories as in Belgium. Originally the nobility was divided into the landed gentry and the city patriciate and initially held power, but this was lost with the introduction of the republic in 1795. In 1807 the temporary king of Holland Louis Bonaparte tried to revive the nobility with its titles, predicates and privileges, but this met with vigorous opposition from his brother Napoleon Bonaparte. The Dutch constitution of 1848 finally abolished all nobility privileges and the royal prerogative of nobilitisation. Today's Dutch nobility consists mainly of landowners. Traditionally, the nobility has also held some functions at court. The Dutch nobility is not untitled. A name element van or de is usually not an indication of a noble name. The ranks from the lowest title are: Junker (Jonkheer) (Ex: Jonkheer van Amsberg is a noble name, Dhr. Van Vollenhoven is commoner), knight (ridder), baron (baron), burgrave (burggraaf), count (graaf), duke (hertog), prince (prins).

Austria

Until 1806, the nobility in the Habsburg hereditary lands, which belonged to the Holy Roman Empire, was constituted according to the regulations in force in the Empire. Thus, as Roman Emperors, the Habsburg rulers conferred imperial princely titles on outstanding noble houses of the Danube Monarchy. From 1806 onwards, the statutes laid down by the respective monarch applied to the Austrian Empire, which had been founded in 1804. In the Kingdom of Hungary, which was part of the Empire until 1867, the Hungarian rules of nobility also applied, and in the other crown lands the rules handed down there (Galicia: Polish rules; Croatian, Italian, Bohemian rules). After the end of the Habsburg Monarchy, the titles of nobility were abolished after 1918 in its successor states, German Austria and subsequently the Republic of Austria, and in Czechoslovakia. With the Austrian Nobility Abolition Act of 1919, the nobility was explicitly abolished and the use of noble titles was made a punishable offence.

Poland

The Polish nobility was originally a pure warrior caste and in the struggle with the royal power created something unique in all of Europe: the so-called noble republic. Until the beginning of the 16th century, the Polish nobility had no surnames, apart from a few very old clan names or descriptive epithets dating back to pagan times. One added to the baptismal name only the name of the property or estate with the preposition z, de, which meant the same as the German von (e.g. Jurand ze Spychowa, Jurand de Spychowo = Jurand from / of Spychowo). Only after 1500 the custom spread to change these into proper nouns ending in -ski, -cki or -icz. After the name, if present, the heraldic community was still mentioned: Longin Podbipięta herbu Zerwikaptur.

With the partitions of Poland, the nobility of the majority of the untitled nobility in the three partition areas was not recognized (however, these families never lost their Polish nobility), because they could not sufficiently prove their noble origin (this was also very expensive) or did not want to do so out of pride before the occupier. The high nobility, on the other hand, retained their privileges and had their princely titles confirmed by the partitioning powers. The so-called middle nobility received from them the longed-for titles of count and the permission to establish entail communes. In the reestablished Poland of 1918 the nobility was finally abolished in 1921 and the use of titles was forbidden. The 1935 constitution lifted the ban, but by 1945 the nobility was finally abolished by reintroducing the 1921 constitution, and the estates were nationalized and parceled out without compensation in an agrarian reform. Today, the former Polish noble families have reorganized and maintain their history and customs.

Portugal

In Portugal, hereditary nobility was not created until the 14th century under King John I, who also introduced the title of duke. King Alfonso V added the titles of marquis, viscount and baron. These houses constituted the high nobility, which was allowed to exercise jurisdiction. The lower nobility consisted of the fidalgos, the knights, and the jurists (doutores or letrados). The formation of the majorates (morgados) also began during the reign of this king.

In the 18th century, during the reign of Joseph I, the minister Pombal created a counterweight to the old nobility, the epistolary nobility, which consisted of landowners, merchants and scholars. The noble jurisdiction was abolished in 1790, and by the revolution of 1820 the nobility lost all prerogatives. After the introduction of the republic in 1910, the nobility was abolished.

Russia

The Russian nobility (Dworjanstwo) was a mixture: next to dynastic families, descendants of Ryurik, Gediminas and ancient Caucasian princely families stood sons of the lowest people, next to ethnic Russians an international society of members of the incorporated peoples and immigrants of various nationalities. In ancient times, the boyars were considered nobility in Russia. However, their titles were not hereditary, nor did they have a fixed estate. The status of the nobility was regulated by a ukase of Peter I of January 24, 1722, which created a table of ranks (rank table) of the classes of state servants. Peter also introduced the dignities of count and baron. From now on there were personal and hereditary nobility. In the course of the 18th century the rights and privileges of the nobility were considerably extended. At the same time, in 1785 under Catherine the Great, the nobility received total right of disposal over the peasants subject to it. This was changed only under Tsar Alexander II.

The October Revolution of 1917 abolished the nobility (Decree of 10 ^Jul. / 23 Nov. 1917greg^. ), many nobles were persecuted, imprisoned and shot. Only after 1991 nobility associations and organizations of noble traditions were allowed again. However, the Russian nobility no longer exists as a social class.

San Marino

The small Republic of San Marino was still awarding titles of nobility in the 1970s, not so much to nationals as to foreigners for "services to the state", but often rather for money. In 1980, the conferral of nobility was abolished.

Switzerland

In the High Middle Ages, the nobility developed from noblemen and ministerials, as in the rest of the empire. Many families exercised their own jurisdiction, some attained a high noble, dynastic position such as the Habsburgs, Kyburgs, Lenzburgs, Thiersteiners, Rapperswilers, Toggenburgs or Werdenbergers.

In the late Middle Ages, a confederate patriciate developed in the free imperial cities, which emancipated themselves from the 13th to the 15th century. This patriciate consisted of merchant families who had become wealthy, with or without a patent of nobility, of bourgeois notables and sometimes also of landed gentry who had settled in the city. These patricians often acquired country estates or manors with their own jurisdiction, built castles and led an aristocratic lifestyle. In the cities they formed the all-dominant council and ousted guilds and craftsmen from power. With this rapprochement of the bourgeois notables to the way of life of the nobility and the increasing isolation from upstarts, the patriciate formed in the cities of the early modern period, a term introduced in the Renaissance, comparable to the patriciate in the Italian Signoria, such as the Venetian Nobilhòmini. Like the latter - and in contrast to the other landed gentry in the Old Empire - the patricians, however, mostly remained economically active (predominantly in trade, but increasingly also in mercenary work), in contrast to the otherwise socially similarly structured English gentry, which lived mainly from rental income.

Since Switzerland was officially part of the Holy Roman Empire until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the Roman-German Emperor often conferred the imperial nobility on Swiss families, namely on many patricians who had become citizens of the country or on officers in imperial service. A few years after its separation from the Empire, Bern, for example, created its own social hierarchy that was not based on the nobility law of the Empire. In the city and republic of Bern, many noble landlords from the city's environs merged with the local patriciate to form an aristocracy that exercised power until 1798, the year of the French invasion. In addition, members of the Bernese patriciate acquired dominions in the territories administered by Bern, which were associated with the right to use a title of nobility. Even after 1648, foreign powers such as France, Prussia and the Holy See granted titles of nobility to Swiss citizens in their service. In Neuchâtel, which was ruled by Prussia in personal union until 1848, many patrician families were also admitted to the epistolary nobility until the 19th century. If members of Swiss noble families entered foreign military services (for example those of the Vatican or France and Prussia), they usually used their rank titles there. Of the members of the Swiss Guard killed by the Sansculottes during the Tuileries Storm in 1792, 90% were Swiss nobles. A special role was played by the nobility of the Free State of the Three Leagues, a kind of noble republic founded in 1367, which remained in the Holy Roman Empire until its end in 1798 and only then became part of Switzerland; these families (such as the von Salis and von Planta) often maintained connections with the Austrian Habsburgs, but also with Venice and France.

Formally, the "Gracious Lords" in the cities of Switzerland lost their power temporarily with the Helvetic Republic and definitively with the liberal revolutions in the 1830s and 1840s (Regeneration in 1831 and Sonderbundskrieg in 1847). However, the former patrician families continued to play an important economic and social role until the beginning of the 20th century.

Legally or socially, nobility and patriciate no longer have any significance in egalitarian Switzerland today. The use of predicates and titles is left entirely to personal discretion, but titles such as count or baron cannot be entered in official writings, only the predicate "von". In Switzerland, however, it is not easy to distinguish between old nobility (e.g. the Counts of Erlach, Counts of Hallwyl, Barons of Bonstetten, Lords of Salis, of Planta, etc.), modern patrician nobility (von Graffenried, von Wattenwyl) and the frequent non-aristocratic names of origin (von Gunten, von Siebenthal, etc.). As a synonym to "von", "de" is used in French-speaking Switzerland, such as de Reyff, de Watteville, etc.

For the individual dynasties: see Category:Swiss noble dynasty

Scandinavia

Denmark

The beginnings of the Danish-born nobility in the country go back to the formation of the royal guard, the Hauskerle, which was a nobility of warlike character. The first privileges of the nobility were conferred upon them by King Knut VI in the 12th century, who raised the nobility and the clergy to privileged estates over the burgher and the peasant, thus repressing Nordic freedom and equality. The privileges of the nobility increased still further after the Schleswig-Holstein nobility, who enjoyed important privileges, had immigrated in numbers to Denmark after the Oldenburgs came to the throne. This predominance of the nobility in the state lasted until 1660, in which year King Frederik III. (Frederik III.) was declared absolute ruler in the country by the estates clergy and citizenry: The old nobility kept only its social preference, but had to share it since 1671 with the newly created court nobility. King Christian V. carried out since that year very numerous nobilitations and elevations of commoners and naturalized foreigners, who formed the court nobility loyal to the king. The new constitution of 1849 then abolished the last remaining privileges of the nobility.

Today, there are still about 225 families in Denmark, of which one third are of naturalized, foreign origin. There are three ranks: untitled nobility, barons and counts. The head of state no longer performs any nobilizations or elevations in rank.

Finland

The majority of the Finnish nobility originates from the Swedish population group and has its origins in the period before 1809, when Finland was part of Sweden. Even in the subsequent Grand Duchy of Finland under the Russian Tsar, the nobility retained its position as one of the four estates of the Finnish Diet and the power to participate in legislation and taxation until 1906. The Tsar also elevated many deserving individuals to the peerage, most recently General August Langhoff, who was made a baron in 1912.

For the old and new nobility there is (as in Sweden) a knight's house, once a special chamber of parliament, today more of a tradition-maintaining association. Only a few nobles are landowners. Most sons of the Finnish nobility served in the Russian army during the Grand Duchy period (cf. Gustaf Mannerheim). The number of nobles today is about 200. There are three ranks: untitled nobility, barons and counts.

Norway

In Norway, a feudal nobility first developed from his immediate retinue, the Hirð. In the Middle Ages, jarle nominated by the king and feudatories appointed by him were at the head of individual counties. Some Danish noble families migrated to Norway during the personal union with Denmark (1397-1814). Larger noble landholdings are represented in Norway by only two estates, the county of Jarlsberg and the barony of Rosendal.

Section 108 of the Norwegian Basic Law of 1814 prohibited the establishment of new counties, baronies, tribal houses and entail commissions. In 1821, a law was passed stating that anyone who had not proven their noble title with legal documents by the next ordinary Storting would lose it. Since then, there are still a few noble families.

Sweden

The Swedish nobility arose in the period from the middle of the 11th to the middle of the 13th century during constant feuds between different royal families and developed from the free peasantry. In 1279 the nobility's exemption from taxation and their obligation to serve in the cavalry were established in the Statute of Alsnö. There was then no distinction of the nobility into high and low. It was not until Erich XIV, at his coronation in 1561, that the most powerful and wealthy noblemen were made counts and barons, thus creating a high and a low nobility. Christina I increased the lesser nobility by about 400 families. King Gustav II Adolf united the nobility in a knighthood. The last nobilitisation took place in 1902 by King Oskar II.

In 2004 there were still about 619 Swedish noble houses, of which 46 were earl houses, 124 baronial houses and 449 noble houses, with a total of about 28,000 people. Their meeting place is the Riddarhuset in Stockholm.

Spain

In Spain, the Constitution of 1837, in its Articles 4 to 6, abolished all privileges of nobility and placed the nobility and the bourgeoisie on an equal footing in law; Article 47, however, continued to allow the King to confer titles. Both still apply today under the 1978 Constitution of the Kingdom of Spain, the former under the principle of equality in Article 14, the latter as an outgrowth of the state form of parliamentary monarchy.

In the meantime, however, there were other jurisdictions: The First Spanish Republic of 1873 abolished titles and the House of Lords. King Alfonso XII restored the ranks of nobility in 1875. The Constitution of the Spanish Republic of 1931 abolished them again. Under Francisco Franco, the titles were reinstated in 1948.

The Grandes of Spain (Spanish Grandes de España)

Grandees are the holders of the title of grandee, which is conferred by the king. It is usually, but not necessarily, linked to a title of nobility and is conferred hereditarily by the monarch. The grand title gives its holders protocol precedence over other nobles and a few ceremonial rights.

The old nobility was considerably weakened under the kings Charles III and Charles IV by many nobilitations. King Joseph Bonaparte abolished the grand title; it was reinstated after the return of the Bourbons. In 1834 the grandees were granted seats in the Estamento de Próceres (Chamber of Pairs), but it existed only until 1836. The Spanish Constitution of 1837 abolished the prerogatives of the grandees, as of the nobility as a whole. A severe blow to the position of the grandees was the abolition of the majorates in 1855, decreed by the Cortes: For many families it led to ruin; others worked their way back up in the fields of commerce, trade, and the arts. At the beginning of the 20th century, about 200 grand families lived in precarious conditions and did not even have the right to use their old titles, because each time the title passed from father to son, high taxes had to be paid to the treasury, which was beyond the financial means of most families. During the old monarchy until 1931, there were 392 grandees listed in the Spanish state calendar, of whom only 35 had sufficient wealth status to take their seats in the Senate. In 1931, grandeur was abolished along with nobility altogether. Some grandees fell victim to the Spanish Civil War, of their descendants quite a few disappeared without trace in the population. In 1948 the grand dignity was revived, but without granting its bearers other than purely ceremonial rights.

Titled nobility (Spanish Titulados)

It consists of the following order of noble titles: Principe, Duque, Marqués, Conde, Vizconde and Barón. The title Don/Doña, originally reserved for the king and queen, is now used as a courtesy title for all status persons and is placed before the first name. As with the British noble predicate Sir, a title holder is addressed as Don and given name, for example Don Alfonso.

Nobilitations and elevations in rank are made by the King; for example, King Juan Carlos I elevated his first Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez to hereditary duke, the artist Salvador Dalí to Marqués de Púbol, and the composer Joaquín Rodrigo to Marqués de los Jardines de Aranjuez. In 1992, there were 4 titles for the Royal Family, 404 Grand Titles of Spain and 2,351 titles of nobility. Since some holders hold several titles, there are fewer people than titles (for example, the 18th Duquesa de Alba held a total of 50 titles). There are both hereditary titles of nobility and personal titles that expire upon the death of the bearer. Noble titles are under state control; the transfer of a hereditary title must be requested by the rightful heir. According to the most recent reform, titles of nobility are inherited by the eldest child in absolute primogeniture, irrespective of sex, unless they are ceded to descendants with the monarch's permission during his lifetime; in this way, long chains of titles can also be divided among several heirs.

Untitled nobility (Spanish Hidalgos)

The lower, untitled nobility consists of the ranks of the Hidalgos (Catalan Ciudadnos or Burgueses honrados) as well as the Caballeros and Escuderos, which are summarized under the designation Hidalgos. The blooded nobility or historical knighthood of the hidalgos - hidalgos de sangre - can only be acquired by noble birth and cannot be conferred by the king. The Hidalgos represent a regionally partly very numerous population group. However, since they do not hold titles and the privileges of nobility have been abolished since 1837, their nobility is a legally meaningless historical memory. Therefore, the hidalgos are not subject to direct state control. However, their descendants have joined together in the Royal Spanish Nobility Corporation, the Real Asociación de Hidalgos de España, which watches over the observance of historical nobility law. The members are personally listed in a nobility register. This nobility association is a member of the umbrella organisation of European nobility associations (C.I.L.A.N.E.).

Czech Republic

In the Kingdom of Bohemia, a distinction was traditionally made between the Bohemian gentry and the landowning knights. Around 1500, only 30 families belonged to the lordly estate, which led the fate of the country in the Bohemian Diet. They were subject to privileged jurisdiction, enjoyed personal tax exemption and other benefits. This small group of leading families had a status in terms of state law that far exceeded that of the nobility in other countries. Internal strife arose from the Hussite wars.

The Estates Revolt in Bohemia (1618) prompted King Ferdinand II to disempower the nobility, which led to the emigration and expropriation of numerous Protestant nobles (exiles), the reconversion of the remaining nobility by means of a sharp Counter-Reformation, and the introduction of absolutist kingship. With the renewed Land Code of 1627, a new pyramid of estates was created; to become a lord, it was now sufficient for the king of Bohemia to confer the title of baron, count or prince, or for the incolate to be conferred on a corresponding foreign family. The lordly estate now no longer supplemented itself, but the king decided on it. There was a division into the old lordly estate, the Bohemian baronial estate and the knightly estate. The right to have a say in politics was also severely restricted; all provincial offices were now at the disposal of the king, who could decide who received the incolate and thus also the right to participate in the Diet. Some families close to the king, partly Bohemian, partly Austrian, were able to acquire the lands of the exiles at a favourable price and accumulate large estates. The special position of the Bohemian gentry ended with the dissolution of the Estates Constitution of 1849, but its former members continued to see themselves as the guardians and protectors of the rights of Bohemia within the Habsburg hereditary lands until 1918.

Since the founding of Czechoslovakia in 1918, the nobility no longer exists in the Czech Republic. The use of the former titles is prohibited. In the 1920s, the noble families lost about 20% of their estates through land reform. In the Protectorate under German occupation, individual opposition nobles such as Prince Max Lobkowicz were expropriated, and some were used as forced laborers. In the Third Czechoslovak Republic between 1945 and 1948, the Sudeten German noble families already fled the country or were expropriated and expelled by the Beneš Decrees, while most of the families with Czechoslovak citizenship were still able to hold on to their property under increasingly precarious circumstances. Under the communist Czechoslovak Republic (1948-1960), however, they were expropriated and persecuted.

After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, those noble families who had held Czechoslovak citizenship in the interwar period had their property returned to them. Prominent examples are the Schwarzenberg, Lobkowicz or Sternberg houses. Some representatives of the former high nobility went into politics; for example, Karel Prince Schwarzenberg was the Czech Republic's foreign minister in 2007-2013 and Michal Prince Lobkowicz was briefly defense minister in 1998.

Hungary

The conditions in Hungary were similar to those in Poland. A feudal system, which is found everywhere else in medieval Europe, never existed there. Every member of the warlike Magyar tribe who was not dependent on anyone and could follow the king's banners counted himself among the nobility (nemesség). In this way the very numerous Hungarian nobility was formed, which, as in Poland, made up about 12-16% of the total population. The magnate families gradually emerged from the mass of the nobility. At the beginning of the 11th century King Stephen I (the Saint) gave the country a constitution by which the crown became hereditary in the Arpad family, and prelates were considered privileged estates together with the high nobility including the lower nobility.

In 1405, in the National Convention, the lower nobility united with the representatives of the towns to form the Estates Table, while the high ecclesiastical dignitaries and the higher nobility formed the Magnates Table, in which every bishop or magnate was personally represented. In the table of estates the lower nobility had the unconditional preponderance; in the county assemblies every landowning nobleman (even if he managed a smallest farm) had a seat and a vote. (Such minor nobles were popularly called hétszilvafás nemes - "nobles with seven plum trees"). The nobility was exempt from customs duties, taxes and quartering, and from military service: they only went into the field when a noble insurrection (nemesi felkelés) had been called for king and fatherland. A nobleman could only be judged by his peers and the more important offices were reserved for him. It was not until 1843 that non-nobles were admitted to the offices.

The Magyar nobility knew only two titles: count (gróf) and baron (báró). The rank and title of prince or duke (herceg) was given only to the king's sons. Other nobles had as an external sign of their rank mostly only the spelling of the ending of their family name on -y (instead of on -i) or the lower case noble title (e.g. nagybányai Horthy Miklós).

Five count dynasties received foreign princely titles: Batthyány (1764), Esterházy (1687), Erdődy (1654) and Odescalchi (1689) were elevated to Imperial Princes by the Holy Roman Emperor, Koháry (1815) and Pálffy (1816) were elevated to Princes of the Empire by the Emperor of Austria; these titles were recognized in Hungary. Later, ten foreign princely houses also acquired Hungarian indigency. In the period of the monarchy with one king - until 1918 - there were in Hungary, apart from these 14 princely houses, 98 count and 94 baronial dynasties, whose titles, however, did not reach back further than around 1550 and were Habsburg bestowals. This number grew after 1918, as the imperial administrator Admiral Miklós Horthy made large-scale elevations of status (for example, into a kind of "knighthood", see Vitézi Rend) in the kingless monarchy. These bestowals of orders during the period of the Kingdom of Hungary (1920-1945) are recognized hereditary nobility. In Germany, members of such families may use the name "von" or "Ritter von" if they had lost their Hungarian citizenship before January 1947. The orders founded after the war and their titles, on the other hand, have no legal quality in the sense of historical nobility law.

The abolition of the nobility and the parcelling of the estates after 1945 deprived the Hungarian nobility of their livelihood, but many nobles remained in the country and emigrated only during the Hungarian uprising in 1956 to eke out an often miserable existence in Germany or Austria. The only ones who were partially spared from confiscation were the Esterházy princes, because they had some of their estates in Burgenland, which had been Austrian since 1921; however, Prince Paul V. Esterházy spent almost ten years in prison until 1956. After 1991 many representatives of the nobility, including the high nobility, returned to Hungary (see also Isépy).

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom is one of the few countries in Europe where titles of nobility are still awarded today. The British nobility is divided into two classes, the Gentry, the lower nobility, and the Peerage or Nobility, the higher nobility. The highest dignity of the Peerage is that of Duke (Duke). After the Duke comes the Marquess (Margrave), then the Earl (Earl), the Viscount (Vice Earl), and the Baron (Baron). The noble dignities of the Gentry are the Baronet and the Knight.

Asia

China and Indochina

Until the abolition of the emperorship in 1912, China had a high nobility consisting first of the members of the ruling Manchu dynasty (in Europe they were called "princes") and secondly of the narrow circle of ten houses that had received hereditary nobility from previous emperors, including the head of the descendants of Confucius, the Kong family, and that of the scions of the 17th-century warlord of Formosa, the Koxinga.

In the other conferrals of nobility, each succeeding generation inherited only the nobility one level lower (there were five levels), so that the noble dignity disappeared again after five generations.

Belonging to the nobility gave only privileges in the occupation of court offices. In the civil service and in the army, the literary and military examinations were decisive without regard to social origin.

In the bourgeois and later the communist republic, the nobility disappeared without a trace. Many emigrated to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Southeast Asia or the USA. Even the former imperial family, until 1924 still provided by the state with apanage, now practice a profession.

The latest development since about 2003 seems to bring a renewal of the old traditions. The heads of the descendants of Confucius (in 1937: 650,000 persons (women not counted)) have again the right of residence in the old family palace in Qufu. A revival for the last imperial clan is not to be expected, for the members of the Qing dynasty were regarded as foreign, non-Chinese intruders.

India

Hindu rulers in India generally used the title Raja or Maharaja, whereas Islamic rulers used the titles Shah, Sultan, or in the Mughal Empire, Padishah. The word raja means "royal ruler"; prince regents were also called raja.

The Mughal Empire (1526-1757) defined "nobles" (umarā) as "public servants with a rank (manṣab) of over 1000"; the highest ranks, except for princes, were 7000. Theoretically, anyone could be hired by the emperor with high rank and thus become noble, and in the case of not a few poets and clergy who immigrated to India, this happened. This nobility was purely warrior and civil servant nobility, with no fundamental distinction between army and administration. Nobles were not landlords in the European sense, but received a salary from the tax revenue of a fixed territory (jāgīr). From this salary they had to maintain a fixed number of cavalry and provide them in case of war. Nobles were transferred frequently, on average every three years. From 1597 the number of horsemen (savār) was fixed in a separate rank, and the original rank was called zāt ("personal"). The rank of a noble has since been given as, for example, 3000 zāt, 1000 savār.

With the recruitment the nobleman received a title (khitāb), which among Muslims usually consisted of the designation of a virtue plus Khān (= approximately English Sir), e.g. Mahābat Khān = the Lord Dignity. He was henceforth addressed by this title. Hindus were given the title Rāja instead of Khān. Theoretically, neither offices nor titles were hereditary. The latter were reassigned after the death of a noble, sometimes before, if the noble had earned a higher title and the old one had become vacant. However, the sons of nobles were usually recruited to minor offices by the recommendation of their relatives and then went on to make careers. From about Shah Jahan (1628-1658), the "home-born" (khāna-zād) sons of nobles, brought up in the traditions of the nobility, were given preference for recruitment, and their ethics became the ideal.

An exception to this were the long-established Hindu nobles, who generally received the tax revenue of their home territory (vaṭan jāgīr), and whose lands were hereditary, usually with primogeniture. This was true of the great rajas of Rajasthan, but also of many small landed nobles (zamīndār) throughout India, who since Akbar (1561-1605) became the link between the state apparatus and the peasantry. The state, however, reserved the right to remove recalcitrant Hindu nobles just like public servants.

With the disintegration of the Mughal Empire from 1720 onwards, provincial governors or generals could establish hereditary principalities in the areas they controlled. The British provided military aid to these, thus making them dependent on them (also financially) and generally strengthening the position of these princes as long as they remained loyal.

At the time of British rule over India (1757-1947), there were about 600 so-called princely states, territories to which the British had granted limited autonomy under local princes. On partition into the independent states of India and Pakistan in 1947, the princely states had to choose one of these two countries. The hesitation of the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir and the interest of both states in this area led to the Kashmir conflict.

After India's independence, the princely states or federations of them initially became Indian states and the princes became their chief ministers. In 1956, the States Reorganisation Act dissolved all the princely states and annexed them to Indian states, and also completely reorganised South India into linguistic areas. Indira Gandhi limited the land holdings of the nobles and abolished their appanages, so that they have lost most of their importance today. What remained for some was their role in religious festivals, such as the duty of the former king of Orissa to sweep the chariots of the gods at the chariot festival.

In Pakistan, the nobility still plays a major role in politics.

Japan

Until the 5th century AD, the nobility in Japan was only a loose association of soil-dominating clans. In the 6th century, the central imperial power of the Tennō granted hereditary titles of status to some of the clan chiefs. The actual authority of the clan chiefs was thus delegated and legitimized by the state.

In the 7th century, with the establishment of the heavily Chinese-influenced Ritsuryō system, the nobility criterion of birth was replaced by administrative ability. By provincial law in 701, the nobility of birth was replaced by a merit nobility of civil officials (kuge). Under the leadership of this merit nobility, which was increasingly concentrated in the capital Heian-kyō (now Kyōto), associations of landed warriors and estate administrators from the provinces increasingly displaced the civil nobility from power until about 1200. It was then the so-called sword nobility (Buke, specifically samurai, Daimyō, Shōgun) that ruled Japan until 1868, leaving the Tennō with only high priestly, culture-preserving, and legitimizing duties. In 1884 in the Meiji Restoration by (or at least on behalf of) the imperial power, civil nobility and sword nobility were combined into a unitary nobility (Kazoku), and the samurai rank as such was abolished. By the law of July 7, 1884, the nobility was graduated into five classes according to the British peerage system, but Chinese titles were used for them. Unlike the rule in force in China, it was hereditary indefinitely on the principle of first-born, so that the younger sons of a titled noble were without a title of nobility throughout their lives and the heir during the lifetime of their father. After World War II, the nobility as an institution was eliminated by the 1946 Constitution. Only the imperial family itself remained.

Persia

Since seven co-conspirators had helped the Achaemenids Darius I the Great to royal power, and thus became the progenitors of the powerful seven Persian tribes, whose descendants had been endowed with various privileges in return, over the centuries powerful noble families were to participate indirectly or directly in the rule alongside the Shah.

Thus, the Middle Persian royal inscriptions of the Sassanids already distinguish four precisely defined groups of aristocrats: the šahrdārān (regional dynasts and royal sons entrusted with the rule over important parts of the empire), the wāspuhragān (members of the Sassanid clan without direct descent from the ruler), the wuzurgān (heads of the most important noble families as well as other members of the high nobility, and the āzādān (other noble Iranians)). The rank of a nobleman was for a long time independent of the king's favor, owed itself, together with the external signs of his dignity (tiara with coat of arms-like symbols, belt, earrings), above all to name and descent, and was thus a sign of his special political and economic position.

The Persian tribal aristocracy also consisted of seven Persian and Parthian clans (Sassan, Aspahbad, Karin, Suren, Spandiyadh, Mihran, Guiw) at the time of the Sassanid dynasty, and in the same way the late medieval Turkmen military and administrative elite of the Safavid dynasty was formed of seven tribes of the so-called Qizilbāš (Turk: Kızılbaş) or "redheads" (Ustāğlu, Rumlu, Šāmlu, Zhulqadir, Qāğār, Afšār, Tekkelu).

Finally, the imperial house of the Kajaran, which ruled from 1785 to 1925, was descended from one of these Qizilbāš tribes and initially corresponded in its self-image, organization, and structure entirely to the Safavid tradition of tribal ruling structures.

Engelbert Kaempfer, for example, reports from the court of the Persian Great King during the Safavid era (1501-1722) on the ruling structures in Persia: "... the empire (was) divided into five districts and main provinces. Over this imperial territory the Shahs set 25 grand liege (beyglarbeygi), to whom all other governors, khans, and provincial officials were subordinate, with the exception of the crown stewards (wāzir) alone, who were directly and privately subordinate to the Shah. The governors, in turn, commanded over sub-state governors (soltān) who were accountable to their masters. These "imperial lords" (beyg) built their courts as faithfully as possible to the model of the imperial court, gathered a splendid retinue around them, and competed with the shah in the display of splendor. In their sphere of office, the aristocrats were also the bearers of judicial sovereignty. The income of his territory, which a Beyg or Khān disposed of as if it were his own property, was largely spent on the remuneration of his servants and his troops, with which he had to protect the imperial borders. Likewise, he had to feed imperial troop contingents on his soil and pay certain annual tributes to the court. However, he was constantly dependent on the favour of the Shah. The dignity of a Beyglarbeyg stood so high that its bearer had a seat in the Imperial Council. Among these grandbeygs, in turn, some princes of the empire stood out by reputation and age with the title of a wāli ("governor"). As descendants of those rulers to whom the individual territories had already been subject before the Safavids, these had been of princely blood; their appointment was indeed made by the Shah, but the latter could appoint only one member of the once ruling house as wāli."

Oceania

In Polynesia, several island kingdoms existed in pre-colonial times, but these declined (e.g. on Rapanui) or were abolished by the colonial powers. The nobility still plays an important role in Tonga and Samoa.

Tonga

Only Tonga still has a royal dynasty that is over 900 years old. The influence of the nobility on politics and society remains strong. King Taufaʻahau Tupou secured supremacy in 1845 after battles between rival noble houses. Opposition from the remaining Tongan leaders led to a reformulation of the laws in 1850, creating a consultative assembly - fakataha - in which traditional leaders would advise the king. Then in 1862 there was another change in the laws: in the Edict of Emancipation, ordinary Tongans were freed from dependence on traditional Tongan leaders. When the Tuʻi Tonga died without an heir on 9 December 1865, there was no longer an equal rival for power, and so the Tongan constitution was enacted on 16 September 1875 by King George Tupou I on the British model. King Taufaʻahau Tupou IV, a direct descendant of the first king, lived in relative wealth with his family, some influential nobles, and the growing non-noble elite until his death on September 10, 2006. Only after reforms following unrest in 2006 could 17 of the 26 parliamentarians be elected by the people, with 9 seats still reserved for the nobility.

The term 'Eiki motuʻa describes a noble whose privileges predate the constitution, 'Eiki nopele someone who attained nobility later. A tu'i was a tribal leader, the name of the tribe being suffixed.

Africa

Ancient Egypt

At first glance, the exaggeration of the Egyptian ruler gives the impression of a central state led by royal officials. The actual power relations, however, are quite similar to the formation of elites in other cultures. At first, Egypt was regionally divided into districts whose princes had to be brought into line. Even after the first unification of the empire, they were anxious to inherit their privileges or were eyeing the throne. Changes of dynasty were common; only in particularly uncertain times could a general "from the people" penetrate these circles. The famous officials with the flowery titles, corresponding to ministerials, also strove for dynastic permanence and could become a danger to the ruler. The state religion, intended as stabilization, led in time in the temple economy to a priestly caste - comparable with prince-bishops - with a tendency to insubordination.

West Africa

The Ouattara dynasty ruled in the west of present-day Burkina Faso. Tiéba Ouattara was king of the Kong kingdom there during the conquest phase.

The Fulbe have a caste system characteristic of West African ethnic groups. As an example, consider the Futa-Jallon in Guinea: The state is headed by families who are descendants of warlike Muslim jihadists from the 18th century. After the establishment of the Futa-Jallon theocracy, the territory was divided among different, fighting clans and remained in the possession of these families until today. Thus, it can be assumed that all members of the Diallo, Bah (or Baldé) and Barry clans are of this descent.

Today's African nation states, however, have by no means grown historically, but are a product of colonialism. Therefore, it is difficult to limit clans of individual ethnic groups to a specific territory.

Minamoto no Yoritomo, the first shogun of the Kamakura Shōgunate.


Wilhelm II, last German emperor


Italian nobleman of the 15th century hunting with falcon and hounds. Engraving by Andrea Mantegna, circa 1465.