The German nobility (German: Adel) was the elite hereditary ruling class or aristocratic class from ca. 500 B.C. to the Holy Roman Empire and what is now Germany.
Read more about German Nobility: Principles of German Nobility, Nobiliary Particles Used By German Nobility, Alphabetic Sorting of Noble Names, Divisions of Nobility
Famous quotes containing the words german and/or nobility:
“Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus was then alive,—
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
“Something has ceased to come along with me.
Something like a person: something very like one.
And there was no nobility in it
Or anything like that.”
—Jon Silkin (b. 1930)