Patrician (post-Roman Europe) - Scandinavia

Scandinavia

In Denmark–Norway, the term patricians came to denote a social class from, roughly, the 17th century until the 19th century, namely the mercantile elite in the cities, as opposed to the traditional land-based nobility. Many patrician families accumulated great wealth. The patricians frequently intermarried with the families of higher civil servants and the nobility; the boundaries between the groups were not sharp. In Norway, the patrician families were mostly based in the cities of Eastern Norway (such as Christiania and Skien), and many of them based their wealth on shipping and timber trade. Some patrician families also owned substantial land.