NOBILITY. 



243 



superiority of military chieftains. The caste of the 

 Bramijis in India has surrendered its power to the 

 caste of the Ketri, though the rulers on the islands 

 of the Indian archipelago are even now obliged to 

 pay the greatest respect to the descendants of the 

 elder nobility, over whom they exercise unlimited 

 power. See Crawford's History of the Indian archi- 

 pelago (London, 1820, iii. 33). Among the ancient 

 German tribes, which gave its present form to modern 

 Europe, only obscure traces of hereditary nobility 

 are found, which, in later periods, was generally 

 established throughout that continent. Many of 

 them seem, however, to have recognised one ruling 

 family, as the Saxons, Danes, and Normans the 

 family of Odin ; the Visigoths that of Balth ; the 

 Ostrogoths that of Amal ; the Bavarians that of 

 Agilolfing. These families seem to have stood in 

 the same relation to their nations as the Incas to the 

 Peruvians ; for their founders (the Aseri) so much 

 excelled the mass of the people, and conferred such 

 great benefits upon them, that a divine origin was 

 attributed to them, and their descendants were, on 

 tins account, honoured during many ages. Besides 

 these, no other hereditary nobility existed among the 

 Franks, Saxons, Normans, Danes, Swedes, and most 

 of the other nations of the North. The Athelings of 

 the Saxons are exclusively members of the reigning 

 house, and the same name frequently denotes only 

 the successors to the throne. The Antrustiones and 

 Leudes (Liti) of the Franks ; the Degenes ( Thaini, 

 TAani, TAegnas, &c.) of the Saxons ; the Hirdmans 

 and Dingmans of the Danes and Normans, are not 

 noblemen, in the modern sense of the word, but 

 merely the successors of the prince's companions, 

 described by Tacitus, and have gradually usurped a 

 hereditary rank by the later addition of feudal 

 property. The dignities of the counts of the Franks, 

 the aldermen and great thanes of Britain, as also of 

 the juris (in England Eorlas) of Denmark, were 

 accessible to every one distinguished by merit, and 

 favoured by fortune. In France and Germany, the 

 first hereditary nobility begins with the downfall of 

 the Carlovingian dynasty ; in England, with the 

 conquest of the Normans, in the tenth and eleventh 

 centuries ; and was afterwards spread over all 

 Europe ; for, since that time, dignities, as well as 

 lands, have become hereditary. Under various 

 forms and combinations, the nobles of the first rank 

 (as princes, counts, and lords), together with the 

 warriors (consisting of knights bound to do service 

 in war and at the court), which latter were not 

 always considered as perfectly free, were distin- 

 guished from the peasants and common citizens, who 

 were bound to perform the common laborious ser- 

 vices. These latter, however, are not to be con- 

 sidered altogether in the light of bondmen. The 

 further progress of these civil distinctions, and their 

 relations to the people, took a very different course 

 in the different countries of Europe. In England, 

 Scotland, Spain, and to some extent in Italy, the 

 higher nobility, attached to the titles of lords and 

 barons, descended only to the eldest son. The 

 younger sons, even in case of preferment in civil 

 life (their rank in England is established by law), 

 belong essentially to the mass of the people. They 

 engage in various kinds of business; they not only 

 devote themselves to the clerical profession, and to 

 military service, but become lawyers, merchants, 

 proprietors of manufactures, &c. In England, here- 

 ditary nobility, including various classes of titles, 

 e. g. those of dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, and 

 barons, (see England] is rather more personal. There 

 are also feudal tenures merely titular, to which cer- 

 tain privileges and honours are attached, the free 

 exercise of which is allowed to every proprietor; but 



the proprietor does not belong to the nobility, unless 

 he is raised to this distinction by a special* patent. 

 In Spain and Italy, on the other hand, the same rank 

 (that of the titulados, princes, dukes, marquises, and 

 counts) depends, in a greater measure, upon property; 

 for these titles, though sometimes conferred by the 

 monarchs, are mostly connected with estates, and 

 often attached to very small fiefs. Hence the multi- 

 tude of counts in Upper Italy, the conti di terra 

 ferma of Venice in former times. The distinguished 

 Spanish families collect, in this manner, a great num- 

 ber of such titles, which constitute an object of their 

 pride. They are called gorras (caps), and sometimes 

 amount to four or five hundred. In France, this rank 

 is common to all the members of the noble family. 

 The rights of the peerage, and the feudal estates, 

 however, descended, even before the revolution, only 

 to the eldest son ; and the younger sons were obliged 

 to seek their fortune either in the army or the church. 

 Every meaner employment, even mercantile business, 

 was followed by the loss of nobility. The nobility of 

 England has never risen to sovereignty, except that 

 some provinces which formerly were domains of 

 princes of the royal family (as Lancaster, Corn- 

 wall), and some viscounties (Durham, Chester, the 

 isle of Ely, and especially the isle of Man, belonging 

 to the duke of Athol), enjoyed, as counties palatine, 

 so called, subordinate rights of government. The 

 sovereignty connected with the ancient fiefs of the 

 French princes as the dukedoms of Normandy, 

 Bretagne, Guienne, Burgundy ; the counties of 

 Toulouse, Champagne, Flanders ; and the territories 

 of Dauphine, Provence, Franche-Comte, Venaissin, 

 &c. took its rise at a very early period, and had 

 already become complete, when Hugh Capet as- 

 cended the throne. But France was fortunate enough 

 to unite, by degrees, all these extensive fiefs with the 

 crown, so that only a few small sovereignties (as the 

 princedoms of Bouillon, Dombes, Orange, Avignon, 

 and Venaissin, &c.&c.) havemaintained themselves a 

 such to more recent periods. In the age of Louis IX.. 

 appeals from the courts of the barons to the supreme 

 courts of the king and parliaments were introduced, 

 and were followed by a gradual extension of the 

 king's authority over the territories of the barons ; 

 and finally, under the reign of Louis XIII., the 

 power of the grandees was completely destroyed by 

 Richelieu. The course which the nobility took in 

 Germany was different. Here the ancient dukes of 

 Saxony, Bavaria, Franconia, Suabia, Lotharingia, 

 and, next to them, the margraves in the east and 

 north of the German empire, obtained, at the same 

 time as in France, the rights of sovereignty ; and the 

 title of count became partly hereditary, partly an 

 appendage to the ecclesiastical establishments. The 

 emperors succeeded in annihilating these ancient 

 principalities, but profited little by it, for new sover- 

 eignties soon took the places of the ancient duke- 

 doms, inferior in size and power, but equal to them 

 in the extent of their rights and privileges. The 

 greater number, of the courts assumed the rights of 

 sovereignty, and a vast number of ruling families 

 thus sprang up in Germany, and formed a ruling 

 order of nobility, in which not only the rank, but also 

 the property, was hereditary, and became the common 

 inheritance of the whole family. One principle in 

 this system is peculiar to the German states, which 

 was never established in any other country of Europe, 

 namely, that the mother must be of equal rank with 

 the father, in order to place her children in the full 

 possession of their father's rights. Many even 

 princely families, as Baden, Anhalt, c., have trans- 

 gressed this principle ; but others adhered to it with 

 great strictness. The same principle has been ex- 

 tended to the lower class of the German nobility. 

 8 



