512 



NOBILITY 



the mass of the people. Society has a tendency to 

 inequality <>f coinlition, aiising fxun the natural 

 inequality, physical, moral, and intellectual, of 

 those lio eom|>se it, aided liv tin- diversity of 

 external advantages, and of the principles and 

 habits imhil>ed at an early age. This inequality 

 is apt to increase ; the son inheriting the faculties 

 of his father is more favourahly situated than his 

 father was for making use of them ; and hence 

 in almost every nation in even the very early Bl 

 of civilisation '\ve find naMtUng like a hereditary 

 nobility. Privileges originally acquired hv wealth 

 or political ix>\ver are secured to the family of the 

 possessor of them ; and the privilegeil class come 

 to constitute an order, admission into which requires 

 the conneiit of society or of the order itself. 



The ancient Romans were divided into nuliilfs 

 and ignobila, a distinction at first corresponding 

 to that of patricians and plebeians. A new nobility 

 afterwards sprang out of the plelieian order, and 

 obtained (330 B.C.) the right to rise to high offices 

 in the state ; and in course of time the descendants 

 of those who had filled curule magistracies inherited 

 the jiu iinityiiiitin, or right of having images of 

 tlieir ancestors a privilege which, like the coat- 

 of-arms in later ages, was considered the criterion 

 of nobility. The man entitled to have his own 

 image was a nova* homo, while the ianobilit could 

 neither have his ancestor's image nor his own. 



The origin of the feudal aristocracy of Europe is 

 in part connected with the. accident* which in- 

 fluenced the division of conquered lands among the 

 leailcrs and warriors of the nations that overthrew 

 the Roman empire, and is sketched in the article 

 Feudalism (q.v.); and the evolution of the 

 dignities of Baron, Count (Comes), Earl, Marquis, 

 Duke, and other ranks will l*e found under 

 those several heads. In the suhinfeudations of the 

 greater nobility originated a secondary sort of 

 nobility, under the name of Vavasour*. Castellans, 

 and lesser barons ; and a third order below them 

 comprised vassals, whose tenure, by the military 

 obligation known in England as knight's service, 

 admitted them within the ranks of the aristocracy. 

 In France the allegiance of the lesser nobles to 

 tlieir intermediary lord long continued a reality ; 

 in England, on the other hand, William the Con- 

 queror obliged not only his barons who held in 

 chief of the crown, hut their vassals also, to take 

 an oath of fealty to himself ; and his successors 

 altogether aliolUhed suhinfendation. The military 

 tenant, who held hut a (Hirtion of a knight's fee, 

 participated in all the privileges of nobility, and 

 an impassable barrier existed between his order 

 and the common people. Over continental Europe 

 in general the nobles, greater and lesser, were in 

 use, after the 10th century, to assume a territorial 

 name from their castles or the principal town or 

 village on their demesne ; hence the prefix 'de,' or 

 its Herman equivalent ' von,' still considered over a 

 great part of the Continent as the criterion 

 of nobility or gentility. Britain was, to a great 

 extent, an exception to this rule, many of the 

 moot distinguished family names of the aristocracy 

 not having a territorial origin. See NAMES. 



Under the feeble successors of Charlemagne the 

 iliikcH, marquises, and counts of the empire en- 

 croached more ami more on the royal authority, 

 anil by the end of the 9th century the Carlovingian 

 empire hail lieen parcelled into se|>arote ami inde. 

 pendent piincipitlitics, under the dominion of 

 (Miwerful iiolile.-*, against whom, in (Germany, the 

 crown never recovered its power. In France, how- 

 ever, the royal authority gradually revived under 

 the I a|H'tiin race, the great fiefs of the higher 

 noliility U-ing one by one alisorbcd by the crown. 

 In England, where the subjection of the feudal 

 aristocracy to the crown always was, and continued 



to tie a reality, the ic-i-tance of the nobles to tha 

 royal encroachments was the means of rearing the 

 great fabric of constitutional liU-rty. All those 

 who, after the Conquest, held in eapite from 

 William belonged to the noliility. Such of them 

 as held by barony (the highest form of tenure) are 

 enumerated in Domesday. Their dignity wan 

 territorial, not personal, having no existence apart 

 from liaronial possession. The comet was a Inron 

 of superior dignity and greater estates; and these 

 were in England the only names of dignity till the 

 time of Henry 11L 



After the Introduction of Heraldry (q.v.), and 

 its reduction to a system, the possession of a coat- 

 of-arms was a recognised distinction lictween the 

 noble and the plclicinn. On the Continent who- 

 ever has a shield of arms is a nobleman ; and in 

 every country of continental Europe a grant of 

 arms, or letters of nobility, is conferred on all such 

 a noble's descendants. In Kn^l.-ind. on the other 

 hand, the words noble and nobility are restricted 

 to the five ranks of the peerage constituting the 

 greater nobility, and to the head of the family, to 

 whom alone the title liclongs. Gentility, in its 

 more strict sense, corresponds to the noliility of 

 continental countries (see GENTLEMAN). ThU 

 difference of usage is a frequent source of misappre- 

 hension on Until sides of the Channel ; at some of 

 the minor German courts the untitlcd member of 

 an English family of ancient ami distinguished 

 blood and lineage lias sometimes lieen postponed to 

 a recently-created baron or ' Herr von,' who has 

 received that title, and the gentility accompanying 

 it, along with his commission in the army. It has 

 been taken for granted that the latter tielongs to 

 the ' Adel" or noliility, and not the former. For 

 the German noliility. see I;KI:MAXV, Vol. V. p. 177. 

 Throughout the middle ages the lesser nobility of 

 Britain preserved a position above that of most 

 continental countries, being, unlike the rorie- 

 sponding class in Germany, allowed to intermarry 

 with the high nobility, and even with the blood- 

 roval of tlieir country. 



The higher nobility, or noliility in the exclusive 

 sense, of England consist of the five temporal 

 ranks of the peerage Duke, Marquis. Karl, 

 Vi-eoutit, and Baron (in the restricted signification 

 of the word, q.v.), who are ineniltent of the I'ppcr 

 House of Parliament. Archbishops and bishop* are 

 lords temporal, but not peers. The dignity of the 

 peerage is hereditary, but in early times was terri- 

 torial, the dignity originally lieing attached to the 

 possession of lands held directly from the crown in 

 return for services to be pcrformcil to the soveicign. 

 Later, peers were created by writ of summons to 

 attend the king's council or parliament, but now 

 the creation of a new peer is always mode by 

 letters-patent from the crown. In order to the 

 efficient carrying out of the appellate jurisdiction 

 of the House of Lords there are now a limited 

 number of life peers, styled Lords of Appeal in 

 Ordinary, lly the Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 1S7H. 

 as amended 1887, it is enacted that every nidi 

 lord, unless he is otherwise entitled to sit in the 

 House of Lords, shall by virtue and according to 

 the date of his appointment lie entitled during his 

 life to rank as a baron, and shall be entitled to a 

 writ of summons to attend and to sit and vote in 

 the House of Lords. P.ut his dignity is not to 

 descend to his heirs. A peerage is forfeited by 

 attainder for high-treason; attainder for felony 

 forfeits a (icerage by writ, not by patent ; on 

 attainder, peerage cannot IK' restored by the crown, 

 only by an act of parliament. Ladies may lie 

 peeresses in their own right either by creation or 

 by inheritance. The wives of peers are also styled 

 peeresses. The question as to descent through 

 males only or heirs-female will be found noted at 



