Serbian nobility (Serbian: великаши, племићи, velikaši, plemići, velikaš, plemić) was the privileged order or class of Serbia in the Middle Ages and Early Modern times.
The first nobles of greater status were those in the 9th and 10th century, who were connected to the royal family by marriage. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the nobility greatly expanded, and in the Serbian Empire lavish titles were given in the Byzantine order. With the fall of Serbia in the 15th century, Serbian nobility survived in Montenegro, and in the Austro-Hungarian lands. In the 19th century, with the independence from the Ottoman Empire, a new nobility based out of warriors and other wealthy intelligentsia emerged.
Read more about Serbian Nobility: Privileges, Duties, Forms, History, See Also
Famous quotes containing the word nobility:
“I have come to the conclusion that the closer people are to what may be called the front lines of government ... the easier it is to see the immediate underbrush, the individual tree trunks of the moment, and to forget the nobility the usefulness and the wide extent of the forest itself.... They forget that politics after all is only an instrument through which to achieve Government.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)