European Nobility - Rank Within The Nobility

Rank Within The Nobility

Nobility might be either inherited or conferred by a fons honorum. In its broadest manifestation and strictest sense nobility is an acknowledged preeminence that is hereditary, i.e. the status descends exclusively to some or all of the legitimate, usually male-line descendants of a nobleman. In this respect, nobility has long been distinguished from a title of nobility, such as peerages in France and the United Kingdom, grandezas in Portugal and Spain, and some noble titles in Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Prussia and Scandinavia. In the Netherlands and Spain, noble titles are now equally heritable by females and males.

Aristocrat and aristocracy, in modern usage, refer informally and broadly to persons belonging to the nobility or upper class. Those lacking a distinct title, such as junior siblings of peers, wealthy members of the landed gentry (and perhaps even the children of 'self-made' VIPs) may be considered aristocrats or (in the United Kingdom) gentry, moving within a small social circle at the apex of a hierarchical social pyramid.

In France, some wealthy bourgeois, most particularly the members of the various parlements, were ennobled by the king, constituting the noblesse de robe. The old nobility of landed or knightly origin, the noblesse d'épée, increasingly resented the influence and pretensions of this parvenu nobility. In the last years of the ancien régime the old nobility pushed for restrictions of certain offices and orders of chivalry to noblemen who could demonstrate that their lineage had sufficient "quarterings", i.e. noble ancestry (matrilineal as well as patrilineal), to deserve to compete as equals with nobles of medieval descent for offices and favors at court, (although historians such as William Doyle have disputed this so-called "Aristocratic Reaction". (W. Doyle, Essays on Eighteenth Century France, London, 1995)). Various court and military positions were reserved by tradition for nobles who could "prove" an ancestry of at least seize quartiers (sixteen quarterings), indicating exclusively noble descent (as displayed, ideally, in the family's coat of arms) extending back five generations (all sixteen great-great grandparents).

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. Scotland is, though, an exception.

In the modern age, inherited nobility with special rights has largely been abolished in the Western World as intrinsically discriminatory, and discredited as inferior in efficiency to individual meritocracy in the allocation of societal resources.

Many nations traditionally had an untitled lower nobility (including, in continental Europe, hereditary knights) in addition to titled nobles. Examples are the landed gentry of the British Isles, the Junkers of Germany, the noblesse de robe of France, the hidalgos of Spain and the nobili of Italy.

Some con artists 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 United States, such commerce may constitute actionable fraud rather than criminal usurpation of an exclusive right to use of any given title by an established class.