Nobility is a government-privileged title which may be either hereditary (see hereditary titles) or for a lifetime. Titles of nobility exist today in many countries although it is
usually associated with present or former monarchies. The term originally referred to those who were "known" or "notable" and was
applied to the highest social class in pre-modern
societies. In the feudal system (in Europe and elsewhere), the nobility were generally
those who held a fief, often land and/or office, under vassalage, i.e. in exchange for allegiance and various, mainly military, services to the Monarch and at lower
levels to another nobleman. It rapidly came to be seen as a hereditary caste, sometimes associated
with a right to bear a hereditary title and, for example in pre-revolutionary France, enjoying
fiscal and other privileges. Today, in most countries, "noble status" is a purely honorary dignity that confers no legal
privileges; an important exception is the United Kingdom, where certain titles (titles of
the peerage, until recently guaranteeing a seat in the Upper
House of the UK Parliament, hence its name House of Lords), still confer some residual privileges.
Nobility is a historical, social and often legal notion, which should not be confused with socio-economic status which is mainly statistical based on income and possessions. Being wealthy or
influential does not automatically make one a noble, nor are all nobles wealthy and influential (aristocratic families have lost
their fortunes in various ways, and the concept of the 'poor nobleman' is almost as old as nobility itself).
Countries without a feudal tradition do not have a nobility as such; various republics, including the United States and Italy have expressly
abolished titles of nobility. Although many such societies have a privileged 'upper class' with great wealth and power, this does
not entail a separate legal status, or different forms of address.
Western nobility
European nobility originated from the feudal/seignorial system that arose in Europe
during the Middle Ages. Originally, knights or nobles were
mounted warriors who swore allegiance to their sovereign and promised to fight for him in exchange for an allocation of land
(usually together with serfs living there). During the time period known as the Military Revolution, nobles gradually lost their role of raising and commanding private armies, as
many nations created cohesive national armies. This was coupled with a loss of the social-economic power of the nobility, owing
to the economic changes of the Renaissance and the growing economic importance of the
merchant classes (or bourgeoisie), which increased still further during the Industrial Revolution. In countries where the nobility was the dominant class, the
bourgeoisie gradually grew in power; a rich city merchant was more influential than a minor
rural nobleman. However, in many countries at this time, the nobility retained great social and political importance; for
instance, the UK's government was dominated by the nobility until the twentieth century.
The nobility of a person might be either inherited or earned. Nobility in its most general and strict sense is an acknowledged
preeminence that is hereditary: i.e., legitimate descendants (or all male descendants, in some societies) of nobles
are nobles, unless explicitly stripped of the privilege. In this respect, nobility is distinguished from the
peerage: the latter can be passed to only a single member of the family.
The terms aristocrat and aristocracy are a less formal means to refer to persons belonging
to this social milieu. Those lacking a distinct title, such as junior siblings of peers (and perhaps even the children of
'self-made' VIPs) may be considered aristocrats, moving within a small
social circle at the apex of a hierarchical social
pyramid.
Blue blood is an English expression recorded since 1834
for noble birth or descent; it is a translation of the Spanish phrase sangre azul, which described the Spanish
royal family and other high nobility who claimed to be 'pure', free of Moorish or Jewish
blood, being of Visigothic descent. There is no connection between the phrase and the actual
blood color of nobility; however, in the ancient agricultural societies of Europe the whole upper
class had superficial veins that might be more visible and appear bluish by
comparison to the rest of the pale-pinkish skin, as the skin itself was not tanned. In contrast with the working class of the time (mainly peasants), nobility and in general upper class people did not have to
work outdoors, and mostly lived sheltered from the sun by dwellings and attire. The same contrast could be observed between
untanned upper-class Europeans—especially of Northern-European stock, whose skin tends to be less pigmented—and all social strata
of Mediterranean populations with higher levels of genetically determined skin
pigmentation. An alternative traditional explanation, argyria (a disease causing a
blue-grey skin tone after digestion of silver), is considered less valid, as table silverware was not regularly used by much of
the nobility. (Becket (film) dramatizes the introduction of the fork at the court of King Henry II of England.)
Robert Lacey explains the genesis of the blue blood concept: "It was the Spaniards who gave
the world the notion that an aristocrat's blood is not red but blue. The Spanish nobility started taking shape around the ninth
century in classic military fashion, occupying land as warriors on horseback. They were to continue the process for more than
five hundred years, clawing back sections of the peninsula from its Moorish occupiers, and a nobleman demonstrated his pedigree
by holding up his sword arm to display the filigree of blue-blooded veins beneath his pale skin—proof that his birth had not been
contaminated by the dark-skinned enemy. (Robert Lacey, Aristocrats. Little, Brown and Company, 1983, p. 67)
The same expression is encountered in several European languages:
In France, influential high bourgeois, most particularly the members of the
parlements (courts of justice), obtained noble titles from the king. The old nobility
of military origin, the noblesse d'épée ("nobility of the sword") became increasingly irritated by this newer noblesse
de robe ("nobility of the gown"). In the last years of the ancien régime,
before the French Revolution, the old nobility, intent on keeping its privileges, had
pushed for restrictions of certain offices and orders of chivalry to noblemen who could
demonstrate that their family had enough "noble quarterings" (in French, 'quartiers de
noblesse'), a reference to a noble's ability to display armorially their descents from armigerous noble forebears in each of their lines of descent to demonstrate that they were descended from old
noble families, who bore arms that could be quartered with their own male line arms, and
thus prove that they did not derive merely from bourgeois families recently elevated to noble rank. A noble could be asked to
provide proof of noble antecedents by showing a genealogy displaying seize quartiers (sixteen quarterings) or even
trente-deux quartiers (thirty-two quartering) indicating noble descent on all bloodlines back five generations (to
great-great grandparents) or six generations (great-great-great grandparents), respectively. This illustrates the traditional
link in many countries between heraldry and nobility; in those countries where heraldry is
used, nobles have almost always been armigerous, and have used heraldry to demonstrate their ancestry and family history. (However, it is important to note that heraldry has never been restricted to the noble
classes in most countries, and being armigerous does not necessarily demonstrate nobility.)
Nobles typically commanded resources, such as food, money, or labor, from common members or
nobles of lower rank of their societies, and could exercise religious or political power
over them. Also, typically, but not necessarily, nobles were entitled to land property, which was often reflected in the title.
For example, the title Earl of Chesterfield tells about property, while the title
Earl Cairns was created for a surname. However all the above is not universal; quite often
nobility was associated only with social respect and certain social privileges. An example of the latter would be late XIX-cent.
Polish szlachta after their political, economic and judicial
privileges were abolished. In the modern age, the notion of inherited nobility with
special rights has become, in the Western World,
increasingly seen as irrelevant to the modern way of life. The founding
fathers of the United States rejected anything that could have helped in recreating
a nobility; the French Revolution abolished the nobility and its special privileges
(though some nobility titles would be recreated by Napoleon I and III, they were mostly honorific).
A list of noble titles for different European countries can be found at Royal and
noble ranks. To learn how to properly address holders of these titles, see Royal
and noble styles.
Some con artists also sell fake titles of nobility, often with impressive-looking
documents to back them up. These may be illegal, depending on local law. They are more often illegal
in countries that actually have nobilities:such as European monarchies. In the U.S., such commerce would be a form of
fraud, but it would only victimize the buyer of the supposed titles and would not threaten an
established class of nobes with enforceable titles.
Nobility in non-Western countries
Medieval Japan developed a feudal system similar to the European system, where land was held in
exchange for military service. The daimyo class, or hereditary landowning nobles, had great
social and political power. Like their European counterparts, they commanded private armies made up of samurai, an elite warrior class; for long periods, these held real power
without a real central government and often plunged the country into a state of civil
war. Although there are differences, the daimyo class can be compared to European peers, and the samurai to European knights, but
with important differences, such as the distinction between the European code of chivalry and
the Japanesecode of bushido. These feudal titles and ranks were abolished in Japan with the
Meiji Restoration of 1868 and replaced by the kazoku,
a five-rank peerage system after the British example which granted seats in the upper house of
the Imperial Diet, but this too was abolished in 1947, following Japan's defeat in World War II.
Many other non-Western nations have had noble or aristocratic classes of various kinds: these are so diverse that it is
somewhat misleading to try to translate them all into western feudal terminology. For the feudal hierarchy on the
Indian subcontinent, see princely state.
In some Islamic countries, there are no definite nobility titles, but the closest to
that are given the title Syed or Sayyid. This exclusive title, given only to certain descendants,
literally means, 'Sir' or 'Lord'. There are no special rights concerning the title: they are considered more religious than the
general population, and many people come to them for first-hand religious questions.
In East Asia the system was often modelled on imperial China, the leading culture, where the emperor conferred degrees of nobility, which were not permanent but
decreased a rank each generation. China had a feudal system in the Shang and
Zhou dynasties, but the system gave way to a more bureaucratic system beginning in the
Qin dynasty (221 BC). By the Qing dynasty, titles of
nobility were still granted by the emperor, but served merely as honorifics: under a centralized system, governance in the empire was the responsibility of the Confucian-educated
scholar-officials and local gentry.
In tribal societies, such as and the Polynesian Island
states, the system of often (semi-)hereditary tribal chiefs can also be compared to a form
of noble class; in Tonga, after Tongan contact with Western nations, the traditional system of
chiefs developed into a Western-style monarchy with a hereditary class of barons, even adopting that English title.
Nobility by nation
For full categorized countries, see Category:Nobility by nation; some other follow:
Italian Nobleman of the Fifteenth Century. From a Playing-card engraved on Copper about 1460 (Cabinet des Estampes, National
Library of Paris).
See also
Sources and references
External links
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