The Consolidation of Noble Power in Europe

Contents
List of Maps List of Tables Preface Notes on Contributors Glossary of Technical Terms 1 The Consolidation of Noble Power in Europe, c.16001800 H.M. Scott and Christopher Storrs 2 The British Nobility, 16601800 John Cannon 3 The Dutch Nobility in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries J.L. Price 4 The French Nobility, 16101715 Roger Mettam 5 The French Nobility in the Eighteenth Century Julian Swann 6 The Nobility in Spain, 16001800 I.A.A. Thompson 7 Nobility and Aristocracy in Ancien Rgime Portugal (Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries) Nuno Gonalo Monteiro 8 The Italian Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Claudio Donati Guides to Further Reading Index
vi vii viii ix xi 1 61 94 127 156 191
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322 336
1
The Consolidation of Noble Power in Europe, c.16001800
H.M. Scott and Christopher Storrs
Universities of St Andrews and Dundee
I
The widespread revival of interest in Europes nobilities, already a striking feature of historical writing when the first edition of this collection was published in 1995, has continued and even gathered pace over the past decade. Since the mid-1970s, scholars have rediscovered nobility as a historical phenomenon. This is true for all periods and for most countries. Medieval historians, most notably Georges Duby, Lopold Genicot and Karl-Ferdinand Werner, have done much to clarify the origins, characteristics and evolution of the lite which emerged in Europe during the centuries after c.1000, while scholars such as Arno Meyer, Heinz Reif and David Cannadine have charted the enduring importance of the aristocracy in the nineteenth and even twentieth centuries.1 A stream of monographs, general studies and edited collections have appeared;2 special issues of journals have been devoted to the nobility;3 while an increasing number of academic conferences those barometers of scholarly fashion have examined the lite.4 The revival comes after a generation during which other social groups, in particular the peasantry and the middle class, secured the lions share of attention, being thought to be more worthy of study than a nobility assumed to be in long-term decline. This rediscovery has been accompanied by a widespread recognition of the lites central importance in all areas of human history: social relations, political and religious life, central and local government, intellectual activity, cultural patronage, even economic enterprise. Though this renaissance has been apparent from the Ancient World to the twentieth century, it has been especially evident in the study of the early modern period. It is unnecessary to be an apologist for the ancien rgime, far less to be eager for its return, to recognise the crucial and wide-ranging importance of Europes nobilities during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This shift undoubtedly owes something to the carousel of historical fashion: many topics experience periods of neglect followed by bouts of
1
intensive interest and study. But the current revival has far more fundamental causes. One major stimulus has been the re-evaluation of absolutism, with the recognition that traditional institutions and the lites who dominated them continued to play an important role in government until the very end of the early modern period.5 In many ways, however, the question is not why the nobility is once again in fashion, but why it was so seriously neglected, and for so long. Here the nobilitys apparent eclipse during the twentieth century and even, to some extent, during the nineteenth as well, has exerted an important influence on subsequent historiography. Historians tend to study success, even if this preference can be subconscious. By that yardstick, the relative neglect of the nobility may be comprehensible for later modern history, but it is much less so for earlier centuries. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that Europes lite has suffered from an established tendency to conceptualise the continents entire history in terms of economic progress and the accompanying and irresistible advance of the middle class to social, economic and political power. The nobility has all too often seemed an anachronism in an industrial and democratic society, a reminder of a world that has been lost, and this long contributed to its neglect by modern scholars. The subject itself presents certain other problems. All historians depend, to a very great extent, on the fortuitous survival of sources and especially written records. Here the situation regarding Europes lite is contradictory. On the one hand, far more records are likely to be available than for subordinate social groups, above all the peasantry. At the same time, however, the nobility poses source problems all of its own. The papers of many families simply do not survive, or where they do either remain inaccessible or have not been adequately catalogued or are in fragmentary form.6 This is usually due to chance, but sometimes to the dispersal and even deliberate destruction of records. It is especially the case in France, where the Revolution of 1789, with the destruction of seigneurial archives and the noble emigration which followed, caused particular problems. In Spain both the Peninsular War and the later Civil War destroyed or dispersed valuable source material for the study of the Spanish lite. Similar difficulties were created by the upheavals in Russia during and after 1917. Such problems over sources have been exacerbated by subsequent political developments, which have often contributed to the subjects neglect. One particularly obvious example is the way that the nobility could not be studied directly in the USSR for more than 80 years after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917:7 as throughout Communist Eastern Europe for four decades after 1945, until the disintegration of the Soviet bloc in 1989. Though this situation is changing, it has been an especial barrier to our knowledge of the East European nobilities, to which the second volume of this collection is largely devoted. Here Western scholars, who have not been subject to the same political and ideological pressures, have been in the forefront of research.
H.M. Scott and Christopher Storrs 3
In another sense, however, there is also the very opposite problem: too many studies of the nobility, but of the wrong type.8 Traditionally, there have been two principal ways of writing about the European lite. Family histories have been the most numerous. The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were the heyday of works of family pride, with the publication of significant numbers of books inspired and frequently actually written by a descendant. Understandably such works celebrated the achievements of the House in general and glorified individual ancestors.9 They were often principally and even entirely genealogical in nature. Though they have to be used with caution, they should certainly not be neglected, and they have continued to be produced, though in smaller numbers, until the present day.10 The later nineteenth and twentieth centuries also saw some significant political and institutional studies of the nobility.11 For the early modern period, these tended to focus on relations between the emerging modern State and the traditional social lite, who often appeared in the guise of inevitable victims of an irreversible historical process. These books suffered from perspectives which were blinkered and incomplete, rather than entirely flawed, and they too contributed to a developing understanding of the nobility. The modern scholarly study of the European nobility, however, goes back no more than 50 or 60 years, and it has flourished during the past three decades.12 Among continental scholars, one key text was Otto Brunners Land und Herrschaft, the first edition of which was published in 1938.13 It became influential after the Second World War, despite its odious political associations due to the authors Nazi sympathies, and did much to establish the approach of the following generation of continental scholars. Brunners work has remained influential until the present day, and certainly repays re-reading. A veritable explosion of research and publication during the last generation has securely established the study of Europes nobilities. The subject has been and continues to be approached in a plurality of ways, partly due to differences in national historical traditions and to the relative availability of sources in different countries. But certain broad problems and perspectives can be identified. One fundamental difficulty is that in most continental countries, the size of the early modern lite makes detailed and reasonably comprehensive studies of entire national nobilities very difficult and probably impossible, except within relatively narrow geographical or social boundaries. Even if a reliable and extensive documentary base could be found, such studies are only feasible for relatively small lites, such as those of Venice, the Southern Netherlands, early modern Scotland or the eighteenth-century British peerage.14 The past generation has seen certain broad types of detailed study establish themselves, though the distinctions between these are often blurred and the amount of overlap can be considerable. The first builds on the traditional concern with the fortunes of an individual family to produce scholarly studies of the trajectory of one noble House, often over an extended
period of time. Outstanding examples of this genre are Ignacio Atienza Hernandezs study of the changing fortunes of the Castilian House of Osuna across four centuries; Grete Klingensteins examination of the rise at the Habsburg Court of the Moravian ministerial family of Kaunitz; Pierre Hurtubises survey of the Salviati and their changing fortunes at the Papal court; Tommaso Astaritas monograph on the Caracciolo di Brienza in Spanish Naples; and Caroline Castigliones sophisticated exploration of the rural context of the Roman aristocratic family of Barberini.15 These and similar works are broadly socio-economic in focus, paying considerable and occasionally overwhelming attention to the landed power base, but also finding space for some examination of leading members of the family. The particular merit of this approach is that it recognises that the crucial unit of the early modern lite and thus for its historian also is the noble family, House or lineage, which inspired the actions of individuals and provided the framework within which these took place. Linked to this approach, though far less numerous, have been biographical studies of one especially prominent nobleman. Notable examples are Thomas Winkelbauers political biography of Gundaker Liechtenstein, an important seventeenth-century Habsburg aristocrat and high official, and Rohan Butlers panoramic study of the youth and emergence of the duc de Choiseul, who rose to be Frances leading minister from 1758 until 1770.16 Such studies, admirable in themselves, have tended to be more concerned with the individuals life than with his role within the lite. They depend on the survival of adequate documentation and for this reason have mostly been of members of the aristocracy. Occasionally, however, the fortuitous survival of sources has enabled a member of the lesser nobility to be examined in detail. The classic example here is Otto Brunners remarkable evocation of the life and ethos of a member of the Ritterstand (knights or lesser nobility) of Lower Austria, Wolf Helmhard von Hohberg (16121688).17 In this case, Hohbergs authorship of the so-called Georgica Curiosa enabled Brunner to reconstruct the social and cultural world of a nobility in the twilight of its days. The case of Helmhard von Hohberg, however, is quite exceptional, and his world can only be reconstructed so minutely because of the unique nature of the available sources.18 Studies of particular families are now less common, however, than monographs devoted to regional nobilities or to prominent groups within a particular lite. In each case, the size of the nobility selected for investigation is such that, given adequate sources and an extended period of research time, a reasonably comprehensive investigation can be undertaken. French historians have been in the forefront of this approach. This is both because of the prevailing fashion for the regional monograph during the generation after the Second World War, under the influence of the Annales school of historians, and because the large-scale French doctorat dtat, only recently superseded, provided the space and time essential. The first such study,
and the model for those that followed, was Jean Meyers remarkable thesis, published in 1966 and devoted to the nobility of eighteenth-century Brittany. Other examples of this genre are Jean Nicolass study of the Savoyard lite, Jean-Marie Constants work on Beauce, Calixte Hudemann-Simons thesis on eighteenth-century Luxembourg (then part of the Austrian Netherlands) and, most recently, Michel Nassiets detailed exploration of Brittanys numerous and impoverished lesser nobility.19 These and other similar works devote particular attention to the internal composition and demographic evolution of the lite and to its social position and economic activities. This approach has not been entirely the preserve of French historians. Heinz Reifs impressive and large-scale study of the nobility of Westphalia at the end of the early modern period, Eila Hassenpflug-Elzholzs statistically oriented analysis of the eighteenth-century Bohemian nobility and Petr Matas largescale study of the Bohemian nobility all adopt a broadly similar approach.20 On a more modest canvas, Dutch and American scholars have also produced socio-economic studies of regional or local lites.21 A broadly similar method has been that of focussing upon an especially important group within the nobility. Once again, the manageable size of the group studied and the availability of source material are important considerations. An outstanding example of this genre is Jean-Pierre Labatuts social study of the aristocratic lite of seventeenth-century France, the ducs et pairs.22 Three American scholars of early modern Russia have adopted this perspective: Robert O. Crummey and Marshall T. Poe in their excellent monographs on the seventeenth-century boyar aristocracy, and Brenda Meehan-Waters in her examination of the generalitet, the members of the first four divisions in Peter the Greats Table of Ranks.23 The final approach, which has become especially prominent during the past generation, has been to study the lites distinctive ethos and to explore changes in the concept of nobility during the early modern period. This makes considerable use of contemporary literary evidence, and views the nobility through a socio-cultural lens. It also employs certain anthropological categories, above all the concern with identifying value-systems. The foremost exponent of this approach is the French scholar Arlette Jouanna, and this perspective has also been adopted by Italian and North American historians.24 These divisions are no more than broad categories and certainly are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, the best research is usually informed by a plurality of approaches: as, for example, in Maria-Antonietta Visceglias remarkable studies of the traditional nobility of the Kingdom of Naples.25 The advances in our knowledge and understanding of the individual nobilities of early modern Europe during this past generation have been very striking. Yet surprisingly little of this scholarship is accessible to an Englishspeaking readership, while the undoubted excellence of the detailed studies cannot hide the absence of accessible surveys of national Europes lites at a crucial point in their evolution. The present collection aims to fill this
gap and to present an up-to-date picture of the European nobilities during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. By integrating the increasingly plentiful specialist research into the studies of particular lites, it seeks to carry forward the subject. The last generation has established certain broad approaches to the study of the nobility, and these are followed in the individual essays. Certain limitations can be indicated at the outset. One has already been referred to in passing. It is that sources for the middle and especially upper ranks of the nobility are always likely to be more abundant and our knowledge of these groups far more detailed and exact than of the numerically far more abundant though usually less important lesser nobility, which are difficult to study in any detail. Britain is here something of an exception, as John Cannon makes clear: this is due primarily to the small size of the English peerage (Volume I, Chapter 2). The essays on the continental nobilities are more detailed on the aristocracy and the higher nobility, for whom the surviving evidence is always more abundant. A second limitation arises from the unequal state of development in the study of particular national nobilities. In certain countries, the scholarly study of the lite is still in its infancy. Finally, considerations of space mean that certain topics can only be dealt with in outline or have been neglected altogether. The principal lacunae both the result of an editorial decision in the national surveys which follow are the nobilitys role in and links with the various European Churches, and its cultural activities, especially its role as artistic patrons.26 One established theme has been the manifold problems which the early modern nobility faced. Some historians have spoken of a seventeenthcentury crisis of the lite, while others have detected a long-term decline in the face of the twin threats of the Leviathan State and the rising middle class which was a preparation for its subsequent eclipse. The nobilitys problems at this time have been viewed as the consequence of three interlocking developments. The first was economic, with a short-term and sometimes acute period of difficulties for the finances of many families during the downturn in the European economy which characterised the seventeenth century and, in the longer perspective, a shift in the balance of wealth away from an increasingly indebted lite and towards the rising middle class, within an economy which was increasingly commercialised. Secondly, the nobility has been seen as losing its traditional authority, politically to the centralising State which was coming into existence at this time, socially to other groups in the community. Finally and linked to these two developments, the nobility has been viewed as having undergone a severe crisis of identity, as the moral basis of nobility itself was challenged and its traditional roles undermined. The lite is believed to have suffered a collective loss of selfconfidence and purpose which was compounded by its own failure to equip itself with the education which was essential if it was to retain power in a changing world.
The essays in this collection provide very limited support for such a pessimistic diagnosis. Individual families and even whole sectors of the nobility clearly experienced real economic difficulties, particularly during the first half of the seventeenth century, but the lite as a whole surmounted these problems and prospered during the decades of renewed economic expansion which followed (see Section IV). The military and administrative changes at this time did not destroy the nobilitys role in warfare and government; on the contrary, in important respects it consolidated and even extended it (see Section V). The ideological challenge was very real and would ultimately prove to be the most serious. Yet until the Enlightenment began to question the whole basis of privilege and the inequalities which sustained it, and instead to champion notions of merit and service as the foundations of an elite, the idea of nobility itself rarely came under direct attack except, of course, during the mid-seventeenth-century English Revolution. The House of Lords had been abolished in 1649 and was restored at the Restoration of 1660 (Volume I, Chapter 2). This was quite exceptional, at least until the French Revolution. Though in the longer perspective the doctrine of natural rights and the political changes to which this contributed would eventually undermine the nobility, these developments had made next-to-no progress before 1800. The essays which follow make clear that the most appropriate descriptions of the lites fortunes during these two centuries are not crisis and decline, but consolidation and transformation. Whatever political, social and economic difficulties the nobility had faced in the decades after 1600, by the later eighteenth century they were everywhere not only firmly entrenched but probably in a more powerful position. The means by which noble power was consolidated, perpetuated and defended provide the dominant themes in the essays which follow.
II
The concept of nobility was based upon, and found its justification in, the celebrated, though idealised and somewhat theoretical, division of medieval society into three orders or Estates. Since the central Middle Ages the nobilitys raison dtre the justification for its privileged position in state and society had been that it was the fighting class (defensores or bellatores). Whereas the First Estate, the clergy, prayed and the Third Estate worked (to provide for the other two in their more essential tasks) the Second Estate provided protection and military muscle. In some languages the very words for nobility, or parts of it, derived from this military function: for example, cavalieri (Italian), chevalerie (French) and riddarskapet (Swedish). The European nobility thus consisted originally of the men on horseback, the mounted knights who had formed the backbone of medieval armies. In return for this military service the nobles had been rewarded by lands and by certain political and social privileges, and slowly evolved into a separate
group within society: a noble order had come into existence in France by the end of the twelfth century and throughout much of Europe by the end of the fourteenth century. Increasingly, this Second Estate came to be regulated by the ruler, who sought to establish distinct legal criteria for entry to it. This led, during the early modern period, to an increasing emphasis being placed upon lineage, which was linked to an expansion of genealogical research. The search for homogeneity actually led to greater differentiation within the nobility, and contributed to the stratification evident at the time.27 The origins of the nobility were primarily, though not exclusively, military, and were accompanied by a distinctive lifestyle. These notions remained alive in the early modern period. A good definition of what is meant to live nobly was provided by the Dutch observer, Wouter van Gouthoeven, in 1620. Nobles, he declared, had to live from their own income from lands, tithes and manors, and [refrain] from mercantile activities, and in particular shopkeeping; but practicing war and serving in the Princes court, or in some honourable office, and owing the country and other two [orders] protection with their weapons against the violence or attack of enemies, provided that they have commission from high authority.28 Noble status was acquired primarily by birth. Though this status was essential, however, it was not sufficient; it had to be defended and upheld by the maintenance of a lifestyle that was self-evidently noble. The nobility was further distinguished by being the only social group entitled to use titles, such as count, or duke, or prince. The importance of these designations would increase during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as will be seen. Yet the essays in this collection make clear that, even in 1800, only a minority and sometimes a very small minority of the Second Estate possessed titles. In every continental country most members of the nobility were untitled, and distinguished only in nomenclature by the right to employ the operative participle: de in French, von and zu in German. These and similar designations were the marks of simple nobility. Another important badge of noble status was the ownership or occupation of landed estates. Yet though land and nobility often went hand in hand and new or aspiring noblemen were always keen to secure such property, the connection was far from exclusive. The nobility was always an important and sometimes a dominant landowner, but the king and the Church were also likely to control substantial estates. More importantly, many members of the lesser nobility all across Europe owned no landed property, though this in itself was not a barrier to the maintenance of their noble status. The attractions of a landed estate and the social and economic power that this conferred were, however, considerable and their possession everywhere the aim of the nobility as a whole.
The problems of terminology have aroused extended and sometimes heated debates, though these have so far been inconclusive. In particular, whether the nobility can be accurately described as a class remains to be proved, especially in view of the assumptions which now surround that term about the economic determination of social status. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the nobility was a distinct group within society distinguished primarily by the social and legal privileges which it enjoyed and by its position as an important and often dominant landowner. Terms such as order or Estate seem much more satisfactory than class to describe this lite. The early modern nobility, moreover, was distinguished from the various lites that have existed at different periods of human history and in different countries and continents by the hereditary nature of its position and power. Noble status and wealth were transmitted across the generations by inheritance and did not depend upon external political and economic circumstances. These might change, but at least until the very end of the eighteenth century such alterations exerted little influence upon the position of the European nobility as an lite. Nobility was essentially a status that was hereditary and conferred important privileges which were both juridical and social in nature.29 These privileges attached both to a noblemans person and to his property. They were unequally distributed throughout the nobility as a group. All noblemen and noblewomen possessed significant privileges; this was what distinguished them from the rest of society, who enjoyed rather fewer and, for the lower strata, none at all. But within the nobility the more powerful individuals possessed additional privileges. These were often honorific in nature, such as the monopoly of certain titles or the right to be addressed in a particular way, and they marked out a hierarchy within the lite itself. These privileges varied significantly in incidence and importance from one country to another and between regions of the same country, as the national essays make clear. The principal exception was Russia, where the nobility only secured the legal rights which their counterparts elsewhere had long enjoyed in 1785 through Catherine IIs celebrated Charter to the Nobility (Volume II, Chapter 10). Until that date the Russian elite unique of all Europes nobilities remained liable to corporal punishment, at least in theory.30 Noble privileges were many and varied. One important category guaranteed the nobilitys right to participate in and, in practice, to dominate political life. Where national or provincial representative assemblies or Estates survived and continued to meet, they were almost everywhere dominated during this period by noblemen who either attended in person or chose a deputy as a representative. Indeed, in eighteenth-century Hungary the magnates alone could attend the Diet (Volume II, Chapter 8). Where the Roman Catholic Church continued to be represented, either as an Estate in its own right or as part of a unicameral assembly, this enhanced noble
10 The Consolidation of Noble Power in Europe, c.16001800
influence since the lite also provided the overwhelming majority of highranking churchmen. In most European countries, certain public offices were reserved for the nobility, either legally or in practice, while the lite enjoyed preferential access to many other posts in government. Less formally, rulers all across Europe continued to consult the nobility both as individuals and as a group, and this practice survived down to 1800 and far beyond. Noblemen were long seen as the natural counsellors of kings and a source of authority within society at large. In Roman Catholic countries the nobility both in practice and, sometimes, formally enjoyed privileged access to the higher echelons of the Church, which they completely dominated. This was certainly so in eighteenth-century France, where nobles provided almost all the bishops and most heads of monasteries (Volume I, Chapter 5). In Portugal the most important dioceses were controlled by the court aristocracy along with one or two royal bastards (Volume I, Chapter 7). In many German cathedral chapters places were formally reserved for members of the lite, while in Poland most bishoprics and prelacies could only be occupied by nobles.31 The Catholic Church in Hungary similarly came under the control of the magnates during the eighteenth century (Volume II, Chapter 8). The second category of privileges were juridical in nature. Here there was considerable variation from country to country. In general terms, however, the nobility was not subject to the same legal system and courts as the unprivileged groups within society. A nobleman accused of a crime would often be able to claim special legal treatment. He would be tried in a separate court and, upon conviction, might be subject to a different range of punishments. If convicted of murder, or another capital offence, he could claim decapitation (usually by a sword) rather than hanging, which was the fate meted out to common criminals. A nobleman also enjoyed important privileges in civil law and often could not, for example, be successfully sued by his creditors an important privilege for an lite that, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was increasingly indebted. Finally, until a surprisingly late date the nobility itself continued to administer much of the law in its own locality.32 The growth of State-administered justice, and the codification of law which accompanied this, was an important development during the early modern period and especially the eighteenth century. But though this pushed back the realm of private jurisdictions, it certainly did not do more than limit its scope. Until 1800 and beyond, noblemen continued to hold their own courts, now increasingly staffed by their own lawyers, and to administer justice as they had long done. This was one dimension of a wider lordship which they exercised over their tenants and neighbours and which conferred considerable social prestige as well as bringing important income from the profits of justice.
A third group of privileges were essentially fiscal in nature. The most important, and also the most celebrated, was the nobilitys supposed exemption from direct taxation, on the grounds that it served personally in warfare, rather than supporting it indirectly through paying taxes as the remainder of the population were expected to do. This has been a fertile source of misunderstanding and exaggeration, largely because of the success of the French nobility in defending its exemption from the taille personnelle (the principal direct tax in large areas of France) and the supposed role of this privilege in bringing about the Revolution of 1789. In fact, the fiscal position of the European nobilities was much more complex and generally less favourable to the lite than the French case might suggest. It also varied significantly between countries, and even within individual states, as the individual essays make clear. The lite clearly did not enjoy a generalised exemption from direct taxation, while much depended on the nature of the fiscal system. One crucial difference was between taxation of land and taxes levied on the person. A nobleman was much more likely to pay the former. Exemption from direct taxation was important and, where it existed, a significant privilege, but it was far from universal. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, moreover, some of the nobilitys fiscal exemptions were undermined by hard-pressed States. Nobles were liable to pay taxes in Savoy-Piedmont after 1731 and in Luxembourg (then part of the Austrian Netherlands) after 1771, while the eighteenthcentury French monarchy made some inroads into the lites fiscal exemptions through levies such as the dixime and the capitation.33 Yet in France, as elsewhere, the nobility remained grossly undertaxed.34 By the closing decades of the eighteenth century, even where they survived, such exemptions were as much a social privilege and badge of status as a real financial advantage. The final group of privileges were social in nature. These were both a matter of law and of custom, and collectively they marked out the lite as a distinct and dominant group within the community. A nobleman was often the only member of society who was legally entitled to bear arms, in recognition of the lites military origins and continuing role as the fighting class. The carrying of a sword remained a badge of nobility and was widely prized during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. It distinguished a nobleman from the common people; significantly, impoverished members of the nobility of Poland-Lithuania carried wooden-swords, even though they were too poor to be able to acquire the real thing.35 The nobility alone were entitled to wear certain kinds of clothes, a privilege that was sometimes guaranteed by sumptuary legislation. Noblemen could display their coats of arms, for example over the portals of their residences or on their carriages, and their servants were entitled to be clothed in distinctive liveries. They had the right to be addressed in particular ways: one of the most celebrated was the rise of the don in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century
Spain. They alone could acquire titles, such as baron or count or duke in the German-speaking lands, which were introduced or became more widespread throughout Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The nobility had a privileged position in any religious or secular ceremony or procession in which they took part. In church, for example, they would normally have their own pew and even private box or gallery, located prominently next to the pulpit and below the altar in order to underline their place at the top of the social hierarchy. Where as often happened more than one noble family attended the same church, fierce and prolonged disputes over precedence were common.36 The importance of such pre-eminence within a society in which visual impressions were all-important is obvious enough. At the local level, the nobles had a further series of privileges which were an important source of revenue and which largely proceeded from their dominant position as landlords and seigneurs. In certain countries, theoretically, they alone possessed the right to own land, but this privilege was being eroded during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when a small number of commoners purchased estates. Noblemen, however, secured important privileges from their pre-eminent position as landowners. They could compel their tenants to use their mill, or oven, or wine-press, and to pay for the privilege. Local noblemen often possessed a monopoly over local hunting and fishing rights and over the natural resources of the estate, such as minerals. They also possessed important rights over their tenants, who could be unable to move or to marry without the lords permission. These were part of the wider lordship which the nobility had traditionally exercised over society at large and continued to enjoy. These privileges varied in incidence and importance from one country to another, and between regions of the same country. They belonged both to the nobility as an Estate and as individuals. The individual nobleman or noblewoman, however, was everywhere subordinate to the demands of the wider family or House. This is one of the dominant emphases of recent scholarship, and it is crucial to any understanding of the early modern nobility. During the later modern period and especially the twentieth century, possessive individualism has come to the fore in all areas of human activity. By this is meant the pursuit of personal ambition and advancement, often at the expense of family cohesion and group solidarity, arising out of the assumed centrality of economic factors in life. The situation in the early modern period was quite different, especially among the lite for whom the individual was always a representative of a wider grouping and where his or her interests were expected to take second place to those of relatives and of family and to advance the position, wealth and influence of the wider group or House. Each House was a gigantic dynastic enterprise stretching across the generations. It was defined, at the end of the eighteenth century, by Edmund Burke as a partnership not only between those who
are living, [but] those who are dead, and those who are yet to be born.37 The over-riding goal was always the advancement of the lineage and the increase of its fame and fortune whether by an advantageous marriage, a successful military or political career, or simply the skilful management of the family estates. A younger son might be deprived of any share in an inheritance, a daughter packed off to a comfortable seclusion in a nunnery, each prevented from marrying because family strategy dictated such a course of action. The rise in the real value of dowries during the early modern period increased the number of children prevented from marrying. In Venice, where restricted marriage was widespread among the nobility, 64 per cent of sons were unmarried by the eighteenth century; two hundred years earlier the figure had been 18 per cent. In early eighteenth-century France 42 per cent of the sisters of the ducs et pairs remained unmarried.38 Success and failure would determine the trajectory of the family within the nobility. The ultimate disaster, of course, was extinction; the name and arms of the House ceasing to exist through a failure of heirs and especially of its male children. This was a greater threat than might at first be realised. Since except in Britain all legitimate children of a nobleman and noblewoman were noble, the transmission of status and property should have been relatively secure. Usually, however, nobility descended primarily in the direct male line. This, together with the familiar demographic uncertainties of the early modern period, made succession a much less certain business. The pitfalls are graphically demonstrated by the case of a Dutch nobleman, Johan Wolfert van Brederode (15991655). Brederode married twice and fathered no less than twenty-one children: twelve by his first wife, Anna Johanna, countess of Nassau-Siegen; and nine by his second bride, Louise Christina, countess of Solms-Braunfels. Such fecundity, it might be thought, would have ensured the survival of the House of Brederode. In fact, the outcome was very different. Seven of his twelve children by his first wife died in infancy, the remaining five were all daughters. His second marriage produced nine children: two did not survive infancy; four died around the age of twenty; and only three survived. Two of these were daughters, leaving a solitary son, Wolfert, to perpetuate the line. But Wolfert died childless in 1679 and took one of Hollands leading noble families to the grave with him.39 The extinction of the House of Brederode underlines both the fragility of the links between one noble generation and the next, and the importance of extinction as a threat to the entire Second Estate. Though most of the nobility should have enjoyed better nutrition than the common people and with it an improved chance of procreation and survival, the hazard of childbirth and the threat of disease were ever-present in the early modern period and did not respect social hierarchies. Biological failure, that is to say the extinction of an entire family or House, was a permanent and ubiquitous problem for the Second Estate. Rates of biological failure varied both from one country
to another and within national nobilities, but it was an ever-present threat which often became a reality. In England, of 63 peerage families in 1559, only 22 remained a century later, while in the duchy of Savoy, the rate of extinction may have been as high as 37 per cent over the period 1702 1787.40 Figures like these could be produced from all over Europe.41 It was an especial problem for nobilities starved of new entrants: for example, the lite of the Dutch Republic after 1579, of Venice for much of the early modern period and of Denmark before 1660 in each case, a sharp numerical decline is visible (Volume I, Chapters 3 and 8; Volume II, Chapter 3). But all noble Houses lived under the permanent threat of extinction, and for many it became a reality. Such biological failure was not, of course, new; the typical noble family of later medieval France had seldom survived longer than three or four generations in the direct male line.42 It was not entirely the outcome of biological chance, though that clearly had much to do with it. Extinction also resulted from a number of demographic variables: the frequency and age of marriage, and the rates of fertility and child and adult mortality. Conscious choice also played a part. Many families, especially among the higher nobility, adopted strategies to overcome the economic difficulties which they faced during the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries (see Section IV). These could actually increase the chances of extinction, though their purpose and in most cases their effect was the reverse. But the widespread adoption by the higher nobility throughout much of southern and parts of central Europe of entail and primogeniture restricted the family patrimony to one male relative, usually the eldest son.43 This could be accompanied by a strategy of restricted marriage, by which younger sons and all the daughters might be prevented from leading an independent life and especially stopped from marrying. In this way primogeniture, by concentrating all the familys future prospects on the small number of males who did marry, heightened the importance of the fertility of particular unions and actually increased the possibility of extinction. The individual essays reveal that with some important exceptions the total numbers in national nobilities increased, sometimes sharply, over the seventeenth and most of the eighteenth century. Yet this demographic expansion should not disguise the reality of the threat of extinction which faced many families at this time. It was a universal threat but not a ubiquitous fate. Many noble Houses whose origins lay in the period before 1600 survived and prospered into the nineteenth century and beyond. The expansion of the lite, however, was made possible by constant replenishment, with the entry of new families into the nobility. As families became extinct, others replaced them, underlining once again that the Second Estate was itself constantly undergoing change. Such replenishment was crucial to the consolidation of noble power, and highlights the importance of the ways in which nobility itself could be acquired.
Noble status could be obtained in several ways. The most important, which has been referred to already, was also the simplest through birth. On the continent all the legitimate children female as well as male of a nobleman were themselves noble, while in certain countries and under particular circumstances a noblewoman alone could also transmit her privileged status to her children. The situation in Britain was quite different (Volume I, Chapter 2). Here only the eldest son of a nobleman received his fathers status, the other children being in law commoners unless the family possessed courtesy titles which passed to one or more younger sons. This was quite exceptional in the context of continental Europe, where a fathers noble status normally passed to all his legitimate children. Uniquely, noble status (hidalgua) in the Spanish Monarchy also passed to the illegitimate children of a nobleman (Volume 1, Chapter 6). The second way in which nobility could be acquired was from a ruler, either by grant or sometimes purchase. The two notable exceptions to this generalisation were Poland-Lithuania after 1601 and Sweden during the Age of Liberty (17201772) where the Estates or Diet, rather than the King, usually ennobled.44 During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, rulers continued to reward meritorious service by a patent of nobility or by advancing a nobleman within the lite through the award of a title or a higher rank than he possessed. The principal routes to such ennoblement continued to be military and administrative service. During the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, rulers in Denmark, Sweden and Russia in particular formalised this practice through the creation of Tables of Rank, the best known of which was introduced by Peter the Great in Russia in 1722 (Volume II, Chapters 2, 3 and 10). These tied noble status to service to the ruler and State, and laid down that any individual who reached a particular rank in the army or grade in the administration would automatically be ennobled. Privileged rank could also be acquired by purchase, either of a patent of nobility, of land that conferred noble status or by buying an ennobling office. This attracted a good deal of unfavourable comment from contemporaries, but in most countries the numbers ennobled in this way were a relatively small proportion of the total. It was, however, of considerable significance in France and Spain (Volume I, Chapters 4, 5 and 6). The numbers who secured the status of noblesse de robe in France were considerable, reflecting the scale of the sale of such charges and the way in which the practice became systematised after the introduction of the paulette in the early seventeenth century.45 Within the Spanish Monarchy, it was primarily positions in local government which could be purchased and which could ennoble their holder. The outright sale of nobility itself was rarer in seventeenthand eighteenth-century Europe, though it certainly occurred. From time to time a financially hard-pressed ruler would permit a favoured applicant to purchase the status of noble or a title which enabled him to rise within the lite, or might even bestow that status in return for the covert cancellation
of a loan. These were unusual, and almost always to individuals deemed worthy of the honour in the first place.46 The final way in which nobility might be acquired was by assuming the status and hoping it would be acknowledged by other members of society. A commoner who had acquired some wealth or land, or aspired to a position of standing within the community, would simply begin to behave like a nobleman: by carrying a sword, by wearing noble dress, by claiming some of the other privileges of nobility and so forth. He might seek to have estates he had purchased reclassified as noble land, a practice which was particularly widespread in France. If he were able to secure acceptance of this status and especially of the privileges which conferred, particularly exemption from direct taxation or other State burdens, he might be able to establish himself as a member of the local lesser nobility and, in certain countries such as Spain, have his status formally confirmed by a law court. The growing emphasis during the early modern period upon maintaining a noble lifestyle facilitated this way of entering the lesser nobility, which was very difficult to detect. A man who was prepared to leave his own immediate locality and take up residence elsewhere would often be able to establish a claim to noble status in this way, especially if he possessed or could pretend to experience of military service the connection between arms and nobility was still crucial. The essays in this collection suggest that the fraudulent assumption of noble status was especially common in countries such as France and Spain (Volume I, Chapters 4, 5 and 6), where the fiscal privileges of nobility were especially valuable, and in other countries which had a large and illdefined lower nobility, such as Poland-Lithuania and Hungary (Volume II, Chapters 7, 8 and 9). In certain states, the revenue lost to such false nobles, together with a desire to regulate the elite, even led the government to institute enquiries into the noble status of families within a particular region; these were especially common in seventeenth-century France, the so-called recherches de la noblesse, while both rulers and the lites themselves were keen to prevent impostors securing noble status and in this way undermining the concept of nobility. Yet it was extremely difficult to prevent a wealthy and skilful commoner slipping into the lesser nobility and even rising within it; the barrier between the Second Estate and the rest of society was always permeable. The social fluidity at the bottom of the noble Estate was particularly marked in Hungary (Volume II, Chapter 7), but was to be found to some extent throughout the continent. It was, for example, clearly apparent in the Reich, where the nobility appears to have been open to rising social groups (Volume II, Chapter 4). At the very end of this period, the Prussian Allgemeines Landrecht (General Law Code) of 1794 acknowledged this through its provision that 44 years living as a noble without challenge conferred an express or implicit recognition by the state of privileged status.47
The reverse of this was the question of how and under what circumstances a nobleman or noblewoman might fall out of the lite. There was always a steady exodus out of the nobility and in the second half of the eighteenth century, this river became a torrent; it has recently been suggested that as many as one-third of the entire European nobility disappeared during the century after 1750.48 Once again, such losses were concentrated at the lower end of the Second Estate, with considerable movement out of the lesser nobility into the ranks of the commonalty. In the French province of Brittany (Bretagne), for example, the size of the Second Estate dropped by perhaps as much as a half between around 1600 and the eve of the French Revolution, from some 40,000 to 20,00025,000.49 In this case a sizeable and often impoverished lesser nobility suffered significant losses. Across Europe as a whole, by far the majority who lost their lite status did so more or less willingly, and largely because they were unable to support the lifestyle demanded of a nobleman. Even if the poverty of a member of the lesser nobility might be relative when considered against that of a peasant, it was still a formidable barrier for many who were faced with the mounting costs of supporting the style of life demanded by their status, particularly when the privileges it brought were being reduced by the actions of the State. Another way in which a member of the lesser nobility might fall out of the Second Estate was by contracting a marriage that was unworthy, that is to say, with a commoner. The conclusion of a msalliance would often deprive a nobleman or noblewoman of their status and many who contracted such unions willingly dropped out of the nobility. This was strengthened by the growing preoccupation with lineage and untainted descent during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There were several other ways in which noble status might be lost, all involving action by the State which, during the early modern period, came to regulate membership of the lite. One has already been mentioned: the recherches de la noblesse by which the financially hard-pressed French Crown, especially during the seventeenth century, sought to reduce the number of false nobles and the accompanying loss to the treasury of direct taxation. The catalyst to such investigations was the Bourbon monarchys pressing financial problems, particularly during the 1630s and from the 1660s onwards. Organised on a provincial basis, they operated in a socially conservative way.50 Such enquiries became a more significant factor in the numerical decline of the nobility during the following century, when both the Spanish Bourbon and Austrian Habsburg governments began to investigate and thus to challenge the status of large numbers of the lesser nobilities throughout their territories.51 In a more general way, it is clear that the early modern period saw an increasing body of legislation defining the nobility more precisely than medieval law codes had done and thus laying down what members of the Second Estate could and could not do. The impact of these new laws, however, is less easy to establish with any certainty.
A good example of this is provided by the concept of derogation. In theory, any nobleman who took part in certain kinds of activities, principally engaging directly in commerce or performing manual labour, put his noble status in jeopardy. Nobility could also be forfeited by msalliance, that is to say contracting a marriage with a non-noble.52 Many states possessed or acquired such legislation during the early modern period. In France, for example, formal laws concerning derogation were introduced during the 1560s and 1570s, giving juridical backing to earlier conventions prohibiting such activities by members of the lite. The actual impact of these provisions is far less easy to establish. In the first place, noble status was usually suspended, rather than forfeited altogether, and it could be recovered, sometimes relatively easily. In Brittany, for example, a nobleman intending to establish or recover his familys fortunes by a successful career in commerce could put aside his noble status and simply resume it when convenient. Overall, the essays in this collection suggest that formal laws of derogation were neither a universal nor a very effective threat against noblemen engaging in commercial activities. Indeed, as Dr Thompson points out, it is probably not legitimate to suggest a dichotomy between land, and economic and commercial activities of all kinds.53 It was always accepted that a nobleman could exploit his own landed estate, which was likely to generate agricultural produce which could be sold, and in this way involve commercial activities of certain kinds. Many noblemen supported commercial enterprises and invested the nobleman in a variety of financial opportunities either openly or through an intermediary, and very few suffered loss of status because of this. In France, moreover, a desire to promote economic development, together with official concern at the number of merchants who were living nobly,54 led to the removal in stages of the threat of derogation from involvement in certain kinds of commercial activities: maritime trade (1669), naval construction and arms manufacturing (1681), maritime insurance (1686), wholesale commerce (1701) and banking and all kinds of manufacturing (1767).55 These concessions, to a large extent, recognised the social reality of noble involvement in economic activities and underline that derogation was less of a real danger than a statement about the dominant cultural ethos of the lite. One traditional way of losing noble status was becoming a thing of the past during the seventeenth and especially the eighteenth centuries. This was through rebellion or treason. Occasionally this could still be a factor of importance. The unsuccessful Bohemian rebellion against the Austrian Habsburgs in 16181620 led to significant numbers of the Kingdoms nobility losing their lands, their status and, in some cases, their lives, while many others were forced into impoverished exile. This was followed by a significant reconstitution of the Bohemian lite, with the ascent and sometimes the arrival of many noblemen devoted to the House of Habsburg. It has been calculated that anything between one half and three-quarters
of all land in the Kingdom of Bohemia changed hands at this period, a figure without parallel in the history of early modern Europe (Volume II, Chapter 6). A generation later, the English Civil Wars of the 1640s inflicted surprisingly little damage, at least in the long-term, on the peerage (Volume I, Chapter 2). Simultaneously, a significant minority as many as 40 per cent56 of the Portuguese nobility remained loyal to Madrid during the extended rebellion (16401668) by which Portugal regained its independence after 60 years of union with Spain. Though this group lost lands and were forced into exile, some of its members were subsequently rewarded by the Spanish King with grants of titles and of lands. A generation later, during Spains War of Succession at the beginning of the eighteenth century, some Castilian nobles including four grandees of the first class suffered for choosing the wrong side in the struggle between Habsburg and Bourbon. Such cases were becoming exceptional, and underlined that domestic politics were everywhere now less violent, as the nobilitys own military power waned.57 By the eighteenth century, noble rebellion had become a thing of the past. Treason was also now extremely rare, and seldom led to the permanent loss of noble status. The most celebrated case was that of the Portuguese Houses of Aveiro and Tavora, who were jointly implicated in an attempt to assassinate King Jos I in 1758.58 The retribution inflicted was severe: their estates were confiscated, their arms and residences destroyed, the very name of the Tavora temporarily expunged. Yet the family survived: Portugals leading minister during the third quarter of the eighteenth century, the Marquis of Pombal, who had himself carried out the judicial proceedings, subsequently married one of his own daughters into the Tavora House. It exemplified a general trend; though individuals would occasionally suffer a severe fate for treason, their families would frequently survive and, in time, flourish again. Nobility was too precious a plant for a single stem to be destroyed simply because one bud had failed to blossom. The attempted regicide was significant in a second respect. During its severe judicial aftermath which secured widespread international publicity, members of the two noble Houses involved were treated with especial brutality. The Duke of Aveiro and the Marquis of Tavora were both broken on the wheel, their arms and legs being crushed, without first being strangled. The other family members implicated were also broken on the wheel, but were first put to death. Such treatment was not unfamiliar in eighteenth-century Europe, though it was usually the fate of common criminals, not leading aristocrats, and the sentences were for that reason widely condemned. The episode underlined the extent of the privileges the nobility possessed and expected to enjoy even when convicted of the heinous crime of treason.
III
Around 1600, Europes nobilities were the product of an evolution which extended back over five or six centuries, yet they were still in a state of flux. The lites of individual states were often surprisingly heterogeneous, reflecting the various ways in which the status of nobility could be and had been acquired: this diversity is apparent in the essays which follow. The Italian peninsula (Volume I, Chapter 8) best highlights the two principal routes into the lite: the traditional nobility created by service and especially military service to a sovereign, rewarded by grants of land and rights of lordship and the evolution of urban patriciates into noble lites. The second route path was also important in the Reich, where the town patricians like their Italian counterparts acquired lands and armorial bearings as they became part of the nobility (Volume II, Chapter 4). One significant conclusion which emerges from the national essays is that the world of the nobility spanned rural and urban life: particularly in the more urbanised parts of Europe, a significant proportion of noblemen and noblewomen ordinarily lived in towns. Yet the possession of a landed estate and the accompanying rural lifestyle were everywhere seen as essential badges of noble status avidly sought by those who lacked them, equally determinedly maintained by their fortunate owners. Indeed, one key development in later sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy was a renewed search by the urban patriciates for landed property, where they might cultivate what they saw as the attributes of true nobility. One general conclusion which emerges from the two volumes is that the European nobilities were not evenly distributed, either between individual countries or within particular states. Each national lite had been shaped by a distinct historical evolution and this influenced both its size and its composition. The individual essays provide such figures as are available for the size of particular nobilities, both numerically and as a proportion of that states total population. In view of the significant variations between countries, any attempt to aggregate these totals to produce a figure for Europe as a whole would be misleading. We should rather see a spectrum, ranging from those states Britain, Portugal, Denmark, the smaller territories of the Holy Roman Empire, Brandenburg-Prussia where the nobility amounted to less than one per cent of the total population, to the countries whose lites were a much higher proportion: in Spain, Hungary and Poland-Lithuania the corresponding figure was 5 or 6 per cent. The remaining countries would all be located somewhere between these two extremes. One interesting general conclusion is that everywhere, as more detailed research is undertaken on noble demography, employing fiscal and other records, previous figures are having to be revised downwards and contemporary estimates revealed to be exaggerated, sometimes significantly so. The lite was not a consistent proportion of the population in a second important way. It was never distributed evenly throughout a particular
society. Within individual countries there were usually significant regional variations. In the Spanish Monarchy, for example, noblemen were much more numerous in the north and relatively scarce in some areas of the south, because of the distinctive historical evolution (Volume I, Chapter 6). In parts of central and eastern Europe, it had been particularly easy to secure the status of noble, as medieval rulers sought to encourage colonisation and settlement of inhospitable regions this was why both Eastern Pomerania in Brandenburg-Prussia and Mazovia in Poland-Lithuania contained whole villages composed largely and occasionally entirely of impoverished nobles (Volume II, Chapters 5 and 9). There were parts of Poland-Lithuania, however, where noblemen and noblewomen were extremely scarce. This underlines an important point: everywhere the nobility was not evenly distributed, either as a proportion of a States total population or as a component in a particular society. The nobility throughout Europe resembled a pyramid, though the steepness or otherwise of the sides varied according to the characteristics and the composition of the individual lite. At its apex were a small number of wealthy and powerful families who together composed an aristocracy. Originally, this word, of Greek derivation, had simply meant rule by the best. But during the eighteenth century, it was increasingly used to describe the noble lite, in the sense of a group of leading nobles who enjoyed immense social and political authority and, usually the economic resources to support this.59 This was an index of a process that was underway by which the lite of the nobility became more sharply differentiated. Though the aristocracy would be influential in at least one locality, its horizons would always be national rather than regional. Below it was to be found the middle ranks of the nobility: families of standing in their particular locality, whose ambitions and perspectives occasionally moved upwards to the national level. The base of the pyramid would everywhere consist of a numerous and sometimes impoverished lesser nobility, whose interests seldom extended far beyond their own region. These divisions were fluid, yet are fundamental to an understanding of the structure of Europes nobilities. In 1600, the lites in western and southern Europe were rather more complex in structure than those of countries lying to the north and east, reflecting their longer and more varied evolution. Everywhere, by 1800, as lites became more stratified, the proportion of the Second Estate which belonged to the upper levels of the nobility increased, while that represented by poorer families declined. Though these horizontal divisions were important, there was always significant movement within the nobility. The rise and fall of individual families was a permanent feature, as Houses competed for social capital, political influence and economic resources. This rivalry was probably more important than the movement into and out of the lite which was discussed earlier. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the principal development, apparent in all European countries to some extent, was the increased
degree of stratification within the nobility, with the aristocracy everywhere emerging as more wealthy, more powerful and more sharply differentiated from the remainder. Poland-Lithuania diverged in one important respect from the European pattern. While a group of magnates can always be identified, its composition was much less stable than elsewhere, as families moved in and out of the aristocratic elite, reflecting the way in which income from crown offices was crucial to wealth and power (Volume II, Chapter 9). Everywhere, this process was usually assisted by the State, which saw clear advantages in elaborating the social hierarchy over which it presided. But stratification resulted primarily from the success of individual families in securing land, wealth and the political power which everywhere accompanied these. The rivalries of individual families divided the nobility vertically, especially its middle and upper ranks. Emphasis on the elements which united the lite in particular, a common ideology and shared privileges does not mean that it was a unified body. On the contrary, it was rather an aggregation of rival and fiercely-competitive individuals, families and Houses.60 The great and middle-ranking nobility were engaged in a continuous struggle for advancement and a search for additional status and new economic and political opportunities for themselves and for their followers. Those families which were successful in this competition moved up the noble hierarchy, and the most successful entered the aristocratic lite emerging at this time. In most countries, this lite was also distinguished and sometimes defined by its monopoly of certain titles. Once again, this was widespread rather than universal. In early modern Poland-Lithuania the only titles either had Lithuanian or Ruthenian origins or were foreign imports and the possession of crown offices was more important in designating the social hierarchy, while in neighbouring Russia the situation was also complex, with native princes but no other titles until Peter I sought not altogether successfully to introduce these as part of his thoroughgoing attempt to create a westernstyle nobility (Volume II, Chapters 9 and 10). In countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Brandenburg-Prussia, indigenous titles seem to have been a relatively late innovation and one that was of limited significance (Volume II, Chapters 2, 3 and 5). Elsewhere, however, they increased in number and in importance during this period. Titles were as they had long been a way of rewarding meritorious service, and recognising status and social and political power. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, they increasingly became a way of favouring and, at the same time, distinguishing the aristocratic lite. This development in turn highlighted the growing internal stratification of the nobility. One classic example of this trend was the rise of the ducs et pairs in seventeenth-century France.61 Successive kings sanctioned and, in some measure, created an lite of wealth and power at the top of the French nobility through the grant or extension of the title of duc and the privileges
associated with this, together with gifts of lands and, occasionally, cash to the especially favoured (Volume I, Chapter 4). During the seventeenth century a broadly similar process was underway in Spain (Volume I, Chapter 6) and in the Hereditary Lands of the Austrian Habsburgs (Volume II, Chapter 6). Titles were everywhere important as a public mark of a familys power and achievements and of the esteem in which it was held. Promotion in the established hierarchy of titles was eagerly sought by families engaged in the ceaseless search for power and advancement. There was an element of social engineering in this: rulers such as Louis XIV were motivated in part by a desire to create a more stratified hierarchy both within the lite and within the nobility as a whole. The granting of such advancement, moreover, recognised an existing hierarchy more than it created a new one. The award of a higher title was often a simple recognition of social and political reality and of the distribution of wealth and power. It acknowledged a familys growing importance and, sometimes, its economic might, more than contributing to its rise. A good example of this is provided by the Esterhzy family, whose seventeenthcentury ascent from minor and impoverished Hungarian nobles to great aristocrats was the most remarkable success story of the age (Volume II, Chapter 7). It was brought about by a mixture of matrimonial and political skill, loyal service to the House of Habsburg and the rewards that brought, principally in the form of lands. This was climaxed in 1687 when a grateful Emperor created the Palatine Paul Esterhzy a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire. This section has emphasised both the vertical and the horizontal divisions within the early modern nobility and has outlined the different degrees of status, power and wealth. These were undoubtedly significant and became more so during the two centuries after 1600. Yet at the same time, the European nobilities were also remarkably unified social groups, particularly in their interaction with other sections of society. One of the clearest illustrations of this was in later eighteenth-century Hungary. There the real tensions economic as well as political between the magnates and the lesser nobility, evident in the crisis of 17901791, did not dissolve the fundamental unity of the Second Estate, though it certainly placed it under considerable strain (Volume II, Chapter 8). The very concept of nobility was everywhere a powerful adhesive. By marking out who was, and therefore who was not, noble, it imparted enormous unity to the Second Estate. The process of consolidation was advanced by the development of clientage and patronage links among all Europes nobilities during the early modern period.62 By this is meant a series of personal ties and networks that ran vertically through the noble lites in particular of all continental countries. One element in the power of the great aristocrats was the links they established and cultivated with the middle and, indirectly, lower ranks of the nobility. An aristocratic patron would secure social and professional
opportunities and advancement for his clients, who in return would provide loyalty, support and, sometimes, payments in cash or kind. This relationship was reciprocal, and it was continually nurtured by the distribution of favours and advantages to the patrons noble clients in the localities. These opportunities could take many forms: a fortunate marriage, the award of lands or a pension, entry into or advancement within the army, government or (where this was to be found) the Roman Catholic Church. These vertical bonds did much to unify the Second Estate, and they were everywhere the means by which national aristocracies maintained important links with their countries regional nobilities and in this way strengthened their own position and influence.
IV
Wealth was an important element in nobility, enabling families to live nobly, which was crucial if their status was to be upheld. Noble descent was only to be valued if accompanied by a lifestyle which was visibly noble. Both collectively and individually, the nobility was the wealthiest group in society; only in the Dutch Republic was this not so (Volume I, Chapter 3). During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there was surprisingly little change in the sources of that wealth, which remained overwhelmingly landed in origin and nature. This is not to say that the lite was uninterested in commerce, finance or manufacturing; as has been seen, derogation was seldom much of a barrier to such activities, which may actually have increased during this period. Their very wealth, moreover, often made the nobility the only group within society with sufficient capital available for investment. Yet the origin of that wealth was predominantly landed, and the major element in noble fortunes, the estates which they controlled and exploited. Even in Hanoverian Britain, where commercial opportunities were far more abundant and where no code of derogation inhibited the economic activities of the peerage, the basis of its considerable wealth was the landed estate (Volume I, Chapter 2). The major exception to this generalisation was Portugal, where royal grants and crown support, rather than landed wealth, was the basis of the lites prosperity (Volume I, Chapter 7). The exploitation of these estates was overwhelmingly traditional in tone, and pragmatic and opportunistic in nature.63 It was reactive in the sense that it was shaped by the geographical and economic contexts of the family lands and the consequent opportunities. This management was guided by a distinctive approach, which did not correspond to modern conceptions of economic rationality, but was rooted in social and cultural assumptions about the aristocratic family and House, and its distinctive requirements. Though the modern science of economics was born in the Enlightenment, its immediate impact was slight. Economy was famously defined in the Encyclopedia as the wise and legitimate management of the household.64 It was
concerned, first, with the running of the extended family at the heart of which the individual House stood, and secondly with the administration of the lineages resources, both landed property and moveable wealth.65 These resources were managed less to promote growth, which was everywhere a secondary aim, but to generate the income needed to support the familys activities at any particular point. Borrowing might periodically be essential to these operations. It could be necessary to fund a daughters dowry or to launch a sons career, or to pay for a new palace or a family funeral. Paradoxically, debt was at least as likely to be a symptom of prosperity and carefully managed finances as an indicator of economic problems.66 One reason why this was so was that a proportion of income, and sometimes a significant percentage, would come in kind rather than cash, reflecting the dominance of landed estates as a source of income. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries many noble families, and especially those in the lites middle and upper ranks, acquired expanded administrative agencies or groups of bailiffs and officials who advised on this exploitation and carried it out. These men brought expertise and their activities contributed to the real prosperity of many noble families by the second half of the eighteenth century. A more professional and systematic exploitation of the family estates could lead, for example, to new opportunities being pursued. The best example of this is the way in which forests and woodlands came to be exploited more systematically. By the second half of the eighteenth century the income of numerous noble families was being boosted by the profits of the timber trade. In a similar way, manufacturing was well established on many of the larger estates in Poland-Lithuania by the eighteenth century and contributed substantially to magnate wealth (Volume II, Chapter 9). The economic health of the nobility as a whole at this period is a subject of crucial importance, yet one where satisfactory generalisations are difficult and may even be impossible. Too often the short-term problems of one family have been used as the foundation for speculative theories about the lite as a whole. There is also a need to view developments in the long-term. A family experiencing financial problems at one point could, a generation later, once again be prospering. Though some impressive studies have been published, there is still an urgent need for much more detailed research into the finances of individual families and the economic circumstances of particular groups within national nobilities. One considerable barrier to such investigations is the paucity of surviving records, especially for families outside the higher nobility.67 Yet even where the documentation for such a study exists, the obstacles in the way of exploiting these records are still considerable.68 Nevertheless, some tentative conclusions about the subject of noble finance are becoming possible. Once again, much more detailed information is likely to be available for the aristocratic lite than for other groups within the nobility, where information is less abundant and generalisations are more problematical.
Different groups were clearly affected in different ways, while the chronology of decline and recovery also varied significantly, in line with the highly regionalised structure of the European economy as a whole. Throughout the nobility, moreover, individual families were prospering, maintaining their position or declining during this period not only, or even principally, because of wider economic factors. The trajectory of an individual House or family would frequently be determined by variables such as the succession of a spendthrift heir or of one who was financially astute. Biological chance also played a considerable part. Too many daughters, with dowries to be paid upon marriage or entry to the Roman Catholic Church, might help to undermine a familys finances. Conversely, too many sons who had to be provided with portions could impair the fortunes of a noble lineage. But these might also be retrieved sometimes in the most spectacular fashion by a sons fortunate marriage or dazzling career in military or Crown service, with the rewards these might bring. There is, however, considerable and accumulating evidence that the nobility was facing serious economic problems in the decades around 1600. One established explanation was that these difficulties were a delayed consequence of the dramatic sixteenth-century rise in prices, particularly of foodstuffs. Nobles were squeezed between increasing costs, which resulted both from this inflation and from their own soaring expenditures, and incomes that were stable and sometimes decreasing. Their revenues were often fixed (particularly in the form of long-term leases of land) and could not easily be raised to meet the new costs. These problems were compounded by the widespread economic instability apparent at this time with the end of the long period of economic and demographic expansion, stable prices and widespread prosperity. The nobility was clearly affected by this downturn, the precise chronology and incidence of which varied from country to country and even region to region. Members of the lesser nobility were particularly adversely affected and, in some countries, faced major economic difficulties by the later sixteenth century. One region where this was clearly the case was Lower Austria. Noble landowners, most of whom received over two-thirds of their incomes in the form of fixed feudal rents, services and other dues, were severely affected by the cumulative impact of the sixteenth-century Price Revolution. Unable to profit from the prevailing high prices for agricultural produce (since so little of their income came in that form), the nobility of Lower Austria, and especially the lesser nobles and younger sons, went through a period of serious economic difficulty between around 1580 and 1620.69 These problems were exacerbated by the accompanying demographic expansion, which increased the numbers of landless nobles. By the final decades of the sixteenth century, significant numbers of poorer nobles in particular were facing severe economic problems all across Europe. The same broad process was underway in Denmark and in Scotland. In each country, the
lesser nobility was trapped between incomes that were stable and even declining and outgoings that were rising sharply.70 Yet this trend was far from universal, nor in itself a complete explanation for the undoubted economic problems of many noble families at this time. In the first place, short-term leases, with rents which could readily be raised were widespread. A proportion of noble income and sometimes the greater part was likely to be paid in kind, and this offered a degree of protection against inflation. The sale of agricultural surpluses received as rent or dues, or produced by direct farming did help to cushion the nobility against increases in its own expenditure. One especially noteworthy example is provided by the Junkers of Brandenburg-Prussia who, as Edgar Melton makes clear (Volume II, Chapter 5) had prospered throughout the sixteenth century and continued to do so until the 1620s. Their wealth was based very largely on the profitable sale and export of grain, mainly produced by demesne farming involving serf labour, and was only undermined by the widespread destruction of the Thirty Years War, which devastated central Germany and Brandenburg in particular.71 The economic problems of the Junkers owed everything to the dislocation and destruction caused by this fighting and to the residual problems after it ended in 1648. Yet that same conflict also enabled some Junker families to rebuild their fortunes through successful careers as mercenary soldiers. The near-continuous warfare of the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries enabled many noblemen to retrieve their economic fortunes. The long period of Civil War in France between 1562 and 1598, for example, exemplified exactly this combination of opportunities for enrichment and severe damage to noble incomes caused by the disruption of their established agricultural profits.72 This underlines once again that the fortunes of individual families and of groups within the nobility were determined by national and local factors as well as by European-wide trends. There is, however, an emerging consensus that the nobilitys economic problems around 1600 were caused primarily by the new scale and purposes of expenditure being undertaken, especially but not exclusively by the aristocratic lite, rather than by the erosion of incomes by inflation. These soaring costs had several origins. The transformation of warfare during the early modern period (see pp. 406) required increased outlays on the part of every noble officer. Military careers might and sometimes did yield a significant return, but the investment demanded had gone up substantially. Changes in noble lifestyles were even more important. Conspicuous consumption, undertaken especially by lite families, in order to keep up appearances, was widespread. The importance now placed upon maintaining a lifestyle that was self-evidently noble was apparent in all these expenditures. Nobles were building more resplendent country residences, often with ornate and costly gardens, while the tendency for the higher nobility, particularly in France, Portugal and Spain, to reside at or near to the royal
court for at least part of the year involved the running costs and sometimes the construction of a second major residence in the capital. A similar process was underway in the British Isles, where the Union of the Crowns in 1603 was followed by the migration of some prominent Scottish nobles to James VI and Is court in London. Though this brought new wealth, in the form of royal patronage and economic opportunities, it also increased expenditure sharply and drawing up an overall balance sheet is difficult.73 At the end of the seventeenth century, a similar evolution can be seen in the lands of the Austrian Habsburgs (Volume II, Chapter 6). The AustroBohemian aristocracy in particular was drawn to the court in Vienna, where they built impressive town houses and then suburban palaces. Residences, entertainments, funerals, even clothes: all were becoming more resplendent and therefore expensive, particularly throughout Western Europe. Individual families and sometimes whole groups of the nobility were clearly experiencing significant financial problems throughout the later sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth century. The nobility, moreover, was not immune from the general economic difficulties of these decades, with at the very least the ending of sixteenth-century expansion and the prosperity it had brought. Yet the Second Estate and especially the aristocratic lite were frequently better placed than other social groups to cope with these difficulties. This was principally because of their access to new sources of income and, more important, to credit. This was certainly the case in the Spanish Monarchy during the first half of the seventeenth century, when frequently one-third and sometimes as much as two thirds of a grandees revenues was being spent to service his debts.74 Throughout Europe, the higher nobility prospered from the new financial and economic opportunities offered by the monarchical State. Pensions and cash gifts went to a favoured minority,75 but land and advantageous economic opportunities were more widely distributed among the noble lite, while the salaries and other income available to the agents of the expanding State structures (Section V) benefited the nobility not least. The most remarkable example of this was the Portuguese aristocracy, which was created and sustained by means of its partnership with the new Bragana dynasty, itself an aristocratic family, which secured the crown upon the recovery of independence from Madrid after 1640 (Volume I, Chapter 7). Access to Court and central government was also instrumental in securing essential loans, which were crucial in enabling the aristocracy to survive the economic downturn of the seventeenth century. One result of this survival was a growing interdependence between rulers and their elites, who prospered from the new financial and economic opportunities offered by the State. Portugal, where a new aristocracy was created by royal revenues after the recovery of independence from Madrid, provides the best example of this crucial nexus (Volume I, Chapter 7); in Poland-Lithuania also the magnates grew notably rich at the crowns expense (Volume II, Chapter 9). Everywhere, pensions and cash donations were enjoyed by a favoured minority,
but gifts of land and advantageous economic opportunities were more widely distributed particularly among the noble lite, while the salaries and other income available to the agents of the expanding State structures (see Section V) were enjoyed primarily by the nobility. The nobility as a whole, and especially the aristocracy, prospered during the long economic recovery, which began around 1660 and continued almost until the end of the eighteenth century. The fortunes of individual families rose and fell, but the nobility as a group did well out of the upturn in the economy. The essays in this collection make clear that for most nobles, until the very end of this period and even beyond, the principal source of wealth remained the land they owned and exploited. Their estates were either farmed directly or leased out to tenants; here there was considerable variation from country to country and even from region to region. The chapters in the second volume qualify the familiar emphasis on the distinction between Western Europe and the lands lying to the east of the river Elbe. They make clear that throughout Central and Eastern Europe, demesne farming based on serf labour was certainly important, but it was far from universal. Here, too, some parts of the noble estate were leased out, rather than exploited directly by means of a subject peasantry. At the apex of the noble pyramid, the power and wealth of certain families was truly immense. A few individuals notably the Esterhzy princes in northern Hungary and several magnate families, such as the Radziwill, in the eastern regions of Poland-Lithuania ruled over what were in effect private kingdoms and maintained their own administrations, legal systems and even princely Courts. These land-holdings were at times as large as some of the smaller territories within the Holy Roman Empire, and the authority of the ruling aristocrat was scarcely less complete, at least over his own peasants and tenants. Such power was certainly exceptional, but all across Europe, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the consolidation of large latifundia owned and dominated by the noble lite: be it the feudal baronage in the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, the grandees in Spain or the aristocracy of the Austro-Bohemian lands. There were significant exceptions to this, as has been seen, but the general trend is clear. These vast family estates were rarely territorially consolidated or fully contiguous: the pattern of landholding in ancien rgime Europe was a bewildering mosaic of small or medium-sized properties each with different owners. This reflected the impact of political and religious upheavals, and also of inheritance practices, over several centuries. The unusually precise figures for the Dutch Republic underline the considerable variations in land holding (Volume I, Chapter 3), and this was true over much of Europe. A territorially compact land holding of any size was difficult to create. One notable example of such consolidation was the Zamoyski entail in Poland-Lithuania, established in 1589. This extended over some 4000 square kilometres and was located principally in the palatinate of Lublin in central
Poland. By the 1770s, its population approached 100,000, with close to 100 manors, more than 220 villages and 10 towns.76 The relative compactness of the Zamoyski land holdings was unusual. The more usual pattern was of groups of separate estates scattered across several regions and even different provinces. Though a significant proportion of these might lie close to the area where the family had originated and, perhaps, derived its title, the obstacles to further rationalisation were considerable. An outlying property might be sold and the income used to purchase lands closer to the centre of family power, though the higher nobilitys increasing adoption of the practice of entail could be an obstacle to such transactions.77 The aristocratic owner of such a patrimony enjoyed considerable social and economic power but he was the preponderant influence in these regions rather than the sole or even the principal landowner, and he would also own or control many estates at a distance from the centre of his own power. Two examples will illustrate this crucial point. The Esterhzy family was the largest landowner in eighteenth-century Hungary, and one of the biggest in Europe as a whole. Its estates covered some 4800 square kilometres when the first family entail was established in the mid-1690s. There were then no less than 37 separate properties principally in Hungary and Transylvania, but also at Schwartzenbach in Lower Austria. During the eighteenth century, this total declined slightly due to the alienation of some minor Transylvanian estates, but at the death of Prince Nikolaus the Magnificent (the celebrated Maecenas and patron of Joseph Haydn) in 1790, there were still 29 separate properties.78 At the other end of Europe, the Spanish ducal house of Bejar, a prominent grandee family, had estates which in the seventeenth century were scattered all across Spain: from Baares in the far north, close to the French frontier, to Cartaya in the extreme south-west.79 In both cases, there was a central core of family possessions together with some widely scattered properties distributed across a much larger area. This reflected the way in which most great noble estates had been built up in stages and over an extended period of time. They were assembled through skilful marriages, fortunate inheritance, shrewd property dealings and, less frequently, donations of land by a grateful ruler. The acquisition of new estates would increase the wealth and power of a noble House and was everywhere a dominant element in family strategy: land usually provided an accurate index of status. This meant that the estates of most successful noble families tended to grow very slowly over several generations. The consolidation of aristocratic landed power was sometimes assisted and seldom opposed by early modern rulers; only in Russia does there appear to have been an established strategy of seeking to prevent members of the lite acquiring properties close to their existing estates and in this way strengthening their position in that locality.80 This underlines the fundamental community of interests between royal and aristocratic power, an interdependence that increased during this period and was probably most complete in Portugal (Volume I, Chapter 7).
The consolidation of landed property, evident across most of Europe at this time, illustrates the immense significance of the subject of inheritance for any historian of the nobility. Once again, generalisations are difficult and even problematical, in view of the considerable diversity in legal provisions and customary practices. There was immense variation not merely between individual territories and provinces, but also within the same region. Yet at the risk of oversimplification, certain broad points can be made about the situation during the sixteenth century. A distinction was made between real wealth (that is to say, landed property) and moveable wealth. With some significant exceptions, all sons would have a right to some share of their fathers real property, which would normally be inherited solely by his male descendants. There was considerable variation in the precise proportions inherited by each son. In Muscovy, for example, a father would divide his lands approximately equally among all his male children, and would also make some provision for his widow and any daughters.81 This was exceptional. It was much more usual for one son to inherit most of the real property, with the other male children receiving their portions from the remaining estates and the moveable wealth. In some countries younger sons and daughters might be provided for out of the wifes property, assuming it was sufficiently large.82 In a family where there were male heirs, any daughters would secure only some share of their fathers moveable wealth and in theory would be furnished with the necessary dowry when they married or entered a religious foundation. It was rather less common for daughters to inherit any of their fathers land where there were surviving sons. One country where they did was Poland-Lithuania, where one quarter of a fathers inheritance was set aside to pay his daughters dowries (Volume II, Chapter 9). These provisions for partible inheritance of real property among the sons were an obvious obstacle to the creation of landed estates, far less the consolidation which took place at this time. If strictly observed, they would tend to militate against the creation and survival of noble landed power by enforcing a division of the patrimony every generation. In this way, the continued existence of a noble family would be threatened, and successive generations forced to engage in a continual scramble for new lands and other sources of wealth. Even before 1600, however, there is clear evidence that such legal provisions were being circumvented in practice. One area where this was certainly so was the Protestant territories of the Reich, where family arrangements to mitigate the impact of partible inheritance were widespread (Volume II, Chapter 4). Where such division of a fathers estate prevailed, informal understandings and, sometimes, formal agreements were made between the surviving brothers in order to keep the family estate, or the great part of it, together. Normally, the eldest son would retain most and often all of the landed patrimony, while the other brothers might secure the bulk of the
moveable property, financial assistance and even a little land. The fact that extended families were common among the higher nobility also meant that several brothers might continue to reside with the eldest. The strategy of restricted marriage would sometimes accompany such arrangements. In its strictest form, only the son succeeding to the family lands would marry. If he remained childless or fathered only daughters, then another brother might then be married, in order to perpetuate the line. It is clear that both formal agreements and informal understandings of this kind were familiar during the later Middle Ages and the sixteenth century. A good example of the former is the fraterna or fraternal partnership to be found in the Italian peninsula. Yet it is impossible to know exactly how widespread such inheritance practices were, even among well-documented families in the higher nobility throughout the early modern period. The essays in this collection, however, suggest that the consolidation of aristocratic power during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was facilitated by the widespread adoption, particularly among the noble lite, of succession arrangements favouring one son, almost invariably the eldest. This could be achieved by the head of a family customarily favouring the senior male heir in his will, and was widespread in those regions where inheritance was normally regulated by testamentary disposition.83 In the much larger areas of the continent where written law prevailed, often with a notably generous allowance for younger children, succession arrangements were increasingly controlled by the formal establishment of an entail, usually accompanied by the adoption of male primogeniture. The legal device of entail had been familiar during the Middle Ages, but it became much more widely adopted, particularly among the aristocratic lite of many European countries, between the mid-sixteenth and the mideighteenth century.84 Simultaneously, nobles and their propagandists argued forcibly against dividing inheritances into ever-smaller shares and in favour of some form of male primogeniture. The attraction of entails to the higher nobility in particular was that they were a means by which the wealth and thus the glory and renown of a noble House could be secured and perpetuated. The Neapolitan Prince Guglielmo Ruffo di Scilla explicitly declared when founding a second family entail in 1747 that there is no other means to ensure the splendour of the great Houses than [to provide for] the continuation of their wealth.85 Yet by the eighteenth century a new attitude founded in the doctrine of natural rights was becoming apparent. When the marquis dYerre, a Savoyard aristocrat, declared that, I believed I had to have a single heir to maintain [the property], he was tacitly acknowledging that, while he might favour the eldest in the traditional way, he was also obliged to provide for his younger sons as well.86 Though there were significant variations in the form, nature and chronological and geographical incidence of entails, certain broad points can be made about their role and importance. Technically, an entail was an unbreakable
trust covering the greater part of a familys landed property and regulating succession to it, usually by male primogeniture. Entails were usually laid down in wills or marriage settlements. Newly acquired estates could be added subsequently, along with other family income and assets. The heir was not the owner of this patrimony but merely a temporary beneficiary who enjoyed the income during their own lifetime. He or, very occasionally, she was also a trustee who was obliged to administer the property with care and to pass it on to his own heir in the condition that he received it. Only property not covered by the trust could be freely bequeathed by a father, usually to his younger children. Legally an entail, once established, could be broken only with considerable difficulty. This like the formal creation of such a trust usually required the rulers explicit sanction. In practice, however, it is clear that entails were not absolutely watertight. Some land was being taken out and sold or otherwise disposed of, while other estates were being added from time to time. Entails were a fertile source of litigation, both by disappointed younger children and by families suing for the full payment of dowries, which was being refused because the assets were protected by a trust. Such arrangements were themselves an effective legal defence of a familys wealth: it was very difficult for creditors to undertake successful court action for the payment of debts against a noble House whose property had been entailed. Entail was not ubiquitous, and it was most widely practised among the aristocracy and higher nobility. This collection of essays makes clear that it was most important in Spain, Portugal and the Italian Peninsula, where it had existed during the later Middle Ages and became much more widespread in the sixteenth century (Volume I, Chapters 6, 7 and 8). Around 1600, the device spread north of the Alps, first to Poland-Lithuania, where a handful of magnate families adopted it, and then to the Austrian Habsburg territories, where it was much more widely influential (Volume II, Chapters 9 and 6). In Great Britain, a form of entail, the so-called strict settlement, was clearly instrumental in the creation of the great aristocratic landed estates after the Restoration of 1660 (Volume I, Chapter 2). Elsewhere, it did not become established to any great extent.87 Peter Is attempt to introduce it into Russia through his Law of Single Inheritance in 1714 was widely unpopular among a nobility deeply attached to partible inheritance, and this measure was revoked after the coup of 1730 (Volume II, Chapter 10), while it was not until the nineteenth century that entail was at all widely adopted among the Prussian Junkers. There were also relatively few in early modern Denmark, though legislation to make these possible was enacted during the 1660s, as part of the Crowns attempt to create a new nobility of service, and by the eighteenth century entails were becoming much more common (Volume II, Chapter 3). Further research is needed on the spread and function of entails as Professor Donati wisely remarks, we must be careful not to exaggerate their
role until much more detailed information is available.88 Yet their central place in the consolidation of aristocratic landed power during these centuries seems established. One of the clearest demonstrations of their importance is provided by developments in Bohemia. There, the sixteenth century had seen larger estates continually broken up through the operation of partible inheritance. From around 1600, however, the introduction and rapid spread of the Fideikommiss immediately put a stop to this fragmentation. Instead, as Professor James Van Horn Melton makes clear (Volume II, Chapter 6), the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the build-up of the impressive latifundia which were the basis of the power of the Habsburg aristocracy, especially in the Kingdom of Bohemia. This was exactly why the Prussian King Frederick the Great advocated the practice of entail and unsuccessfully sought to persuade the Junkers to adopt it after the Seven Years War.89 The importance of entail underlines that the aristocracies which consolidated their power at this time were, first and foremost, landed lites. The great estates which they owned and exploited provided both income and social power. Landed possessions, however, were fundamental to noble identity in a further way, incisively set out by Alexis de Tocqueville in the mid-nineteenth century. Writing in his Democracy in America, he explained the link:90 In nations where the law of inheritance is based on primogeniture, landed estates generally pass undivided from one generation to another. Hence family feeling finds a sort of physical expression in the land. The family represents the land and the land the family, perpetuating its name, origin, glory, power, and virtue. It is an imperishable witness to the past and a precious earnest to the future Nobles also exercised authority in their own regions as the local agents of the Kings government and, sometimes, in the central administration, too: here the continuity from earlier periods was striking. This was one dimension of what was always the key relationship: that between the nobility and the monarchical State.
V
One recurring theme of recent research and of the essays in this collection is the extent of noble involvement at all levels of government and particularly the highest.91 This was certainly true of Spain, where during the seventeenth century the grandees were always influential and sometimes dominant in central government, especially under Charles II (16651700), while their clients among the lesser nobility controlled municipal administration. During the next century, however, Spains new Bourbon rulers excluded the aristocracy from posts in the central administration (Volume I,
Chapter 6). In the states of the Italian peninsula, both the urban patriciates and the landed nobilities continued to play an important administrative role, though in some areas particularly the Duchy of Milan this was reduced by centralising reforms introduced by the new Austrian Habsburg rgime during the second half of the eighteenth century (Volume I, Chapter 8). In seventeenth-century France, the traditional military nobility (the noblesse dpe) remained formally and informally involved in government, especially through the provincial governorships (Volume I, Chapter 4). Indeed, one influential revisionist view has emphasised that the relative strength and success of Louis XIVs domestic rgime during the Sun Kings long personal rule after 1661 was due as much if not more to the policy of co-operation with established provincial lites as to the recent administrative innovation of the intendancies.92 The traditional nobilitys grip upon the key positions in central government certainly slackened, particularly after 1661, but it was reasserted after Louis XIVs death in 1715. The noblesse dpe were usually well represented and occasionally dominant in Frances eighteenth-century ministries (Volume I, Chapter 5). Even in the Dutch Republic, the landed nobility were influential in the local administration of the landward provinces (Volume I, Chapter 3). By the eighteenth century, Britains political society was considerably more mature than that of most continental states, with a developing parliamentary system. Yet once again the peers influence was considerable, both on political life and on central and local government (Volume I, Chapter 2). The nobilitys administrative role was even greater throughout northern, central and eastern Europe, as the essays in the second volume make clear. There, the lack of an alternative source of potential State servants enhanced the lites role in central and especially local government. This consensus reflects the direction of recent research, which views the relationship between crown and nobility as one based on mutual dependence and necessary co-operation, rather than rivalry and conflict.93 Yet it also represents a departure from an established interpretation which had seen absolutism as resting on the defeat of the aristocracy, and had assumed that the nobility as a whole were inevitable victims of the new administrative arrangements introduced at this time. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries witnessed an expansion of government, driven principally by the need to raise the taxes, the men and the matriel to conduct frequent and new-scale warfare. New institutions and novel methods enabled rulers to enforce their authority more effectively and to carry out a wider range of functions. These new tasks in turn required those who carried them out to possess more education, or at least training; government demanded an increasing degree of professionalism. The chronology and extent of these changes varied from country to country, and their overall impact has been the subject of much discussion; in particular whether they can be described as absolutism in any meaningful sense has been hotly debated. Yet the
impact of the administrative expansion on all sections of society cannot be doubted. One established interpretation saw the key development as being the emergence of bureaucracies, increasingly staffed by men of middle-class birth. This view had its origins in the writings of institutional historians during the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, strongly influenced by the great German sociologist Max Weber, who saw bureaucracy as one of the principal agents of modernisation. It was buttressed by the publication of documentary collections drawn substantially and sometimes exclusively from central state archives. The most notable of these was the celebrated series on the history of the eighteenth-century Prussian administration, the Acta Borussica. The result was a view of the early modern State as a centralised bureaucratic structure staffed by professional administrators, often drawn from the middle classes and sometimes trained in law, who were everywhere replacing noblemen as the main agents of royal government. This view was seriously incomplete rather than totally wrong. It concentrated on central government and on institutions. The most important omission was the key area of local administration, where only slowly did effective royal agents emerge to carry out decisions taken at the centre and where traditional, informal government, usually carried out by the local lite, long remained predominant. Though the early modern period undoubtedly witnessed the emergence of new administrative agencies staffed by men with more training and from a different social background, such changes were mainly at the centre. There were also important continuities from earlier centuries, particularly at the provincial level. There the established administrative structures, dominated by members of the local nobility who were paid very little, if at all, were in practice only slowly overlaid, and never entirely replaced, by the institutions of the emerging absolutist State. This was exemplified by the role of the Junkers as Landrte (provincial commissioners) in Brandenburg-Prussia (Volume II, Chapter 5). The limitations upon monarchical rgimes, and the need to view government as a matter of personalities as well as institutions, are now fully recognised. This has been accompanied by renewed attention to the regional and local dimension of absolutism and a corresponding appreciation of the nobilitys continuing role. In a seminal essay, the distinguished German historian, Gerhard Oestreich, wrote of this process that an entirely different world is revealed within absolutism itself: the old world of the European nobility, shaped by the ideal notion of the three estates and by ancient aristocratic tradition. It was a world at once uniform and diverse, which continued to be the dominant force not only in spiritual, social and economic life, but also in the political shaping of absolutist society.94
These continuities were most important in local government and were a corollary of the nobilitys social, economic and political power in the provinces. At the centre, the picture is less uniform. There is evidence both of the aristocracys continuing influence in central government, particularly at the highest level, and of its replacement by a new breed of professional administrator. Yet nowhere was it completely excluded from power. This enduring role resulted from three related considerations. The most important was the composite nature of all early modern States.95 Though royal authority increased at this time, the expansion and the territorial integration which accompanied it both fell far short of that achieved by the unified nation-state which first came into existence during the nineteenth century. Early modern States, by contrast, consisted of a number of provinces and even semi-independent kingdoms sometimes only recently united. Such polities were really only groups of territories under one ruler, and in one or two cases notably Brandenburg-Prussia and the seventeenthcentury Spanish Monarchy the constituent parts were actually separated by land and even by sea. Full incorporation of distant provinces was seldom attempted and even more rarely accomplished. The slowness and unreliability of communications, and the relative smallness of all administrations at this time, were further obstacles to unification. Within these composite monarchies each particular territory sought to defend its own institutions, legal and fiscal privileges and way of life, and did so with tenacity and surprising success during the seventeenth and even the eighteenth centuries. Such integration as was achieved was usually by means of compromise and co-operation with existing agencies of government and established political lites, in each case largely composed of regional nobilities.96 Everywhere rulers were forced into partnership with nobles who enjoyed significant power in their own localities. Great lords continued to exercise their traditional sway in their own regions, where their kin and clients provided a secure foundation for political authority. One way such influence might be exercised was through representative assemblies.97 There is no doubt that provincial and national Estates declined throughout Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and, in some countries, such assemblies even ceased to exist: as did the Russian Zemsky Sobor and the French Estates-General, which did not meet between 161415 and 1789. Extinction, however, was an unusual fate. More usually, the political power of such Estates might be reduced, but they continued to play a role in local administration, often through their influential standing committees.98 Here too the power of regional nobilities was decisive. Their partnership with Europes rulers was based on mutual interest; the central government secured decisive assistance in the task of ruling, while the lites obtained an opportunity for advancement and increased status and wealth, together with protection for their own interests and those of their clients.
The alliance was consolidated by two further considerations. King and nobility both expected that the lite would play a central rule in government, as it had always done. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century States were essentially hierarchical and traditional political structures. Their rulers were aware that their own authority rested on the same social and political hierarchy as that of the nobility. In other words, they could not seriously weaken noble power without simultaneously reducing their own authority. Crown and aristocracy might and did clash over the extent of the latters influence; yet this is a very different matter from attributing to the monarch policies that were in any fundamental sense anti-noble. Cardinal Mazarin here spoke for all rulers in his celebrated deathbed advice in March 1661 to his royal pupil: The nobility [declared Louis XIV] was my right arm. I should support it and treat it with confidence and generosity in all respects.99 A century later, Frederick the Great reaffirmed its central role in BrandenburgPrussia. In his first Political Testament, drawn up in 1752, he unequivocally declared that An object of policy of the Sovereign of this State is to preserve his noble class; for whatever change may come about, he might perhaps have one which was richer, but never one more valorous and more loyal.100 Noble attitudes mirrored those of the rulers. The obligation and right to provide counsel, to aid the monarch in the work of government, was still central to the ideology of Europes nobilities. The advance of State power, however limited in practice, threatened to impose new burdens on their tenants and even to challenge their leadership of local communities. This threat was always far less than the new opportunities presented by the expanded armies and administrations of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.101 Service to the ruler and to the dynasty remained an essential means of legitimating their own status as noblemen. Such service, moreover, continued to be seen in terms of personal loyalty, rather than duty to an impersonal State, and continued to rest on formal oaths of allegiance until a surprisingly late point. Eighteenth-century Prussia was the most military and bureaucratic State of the age. Yet, when its most famous king, Frederick the Great, came to the throne in 1740, one of his first actions was to travel round all his territories receiving the personal fealty and homage of his noble subjects, and the grievances and requests which accompanied this.102 His action emulated by his two immediate successors in 1786 and 1797 exemplified the composite nature of even the eighteenth-century Hohenzollern State. It also underlined that nobilities and rulers both still saw their relationship primarily in personal terms. Nobles still expected to serve their king, whether on the battlefield or in the council chamber, and expected to be rewarded for loyal and meritorious service. The fact that officers commissions in the army numerically by far the preponderant form of such service continued to be bestowed by the ruler personally, reinforced these traditional links. The final consideration, which weighed especially heavily with rulers in the eastern half of the continent, was the shortage of personnel to command
royal armies and to staff central and local government. The expansion of government created an urgent need for more and more trained administrators, able to discharge tasks which were increasing both in number and in complexity. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the appearance of significant numbers of new officials. These men had often acquired an appropriate professional education or other training, and frequently came from social groups other than the nobility. Many soon entered it, being rewarded with noble status by a grateful ruler or, sometimes, actually purchasing it. Their numbers, however, everywhere fell short, and sometimes far short, of the totals required to staff the expanding state machines, especially in the crucial area of local government, which can all too easily be forgotten by historians. These new men tended to fill the new administrative offices that were coming into existence, while the nobility continued to dominate the established agencies. This was exactly the situation in eighteenth-century Savoy-Piedmont, where the intendancies introduced under Victor Amadeus II were filled by commoners, while the higher nobility all but monopolised the provincial governorships mirroring the situation in France, which had been the prototype for these changes, where the new group of noblesse de robe, a legal and administrative nobility made up of individuals who had purchased an ennobling office, provided the overwhelming majority of intendants.103 The continued involvement of noblemen at all levels of government was thus essential; not that its permanent exclusion was ever seriously considered at this time. Public authority had traditionally been exercised by the aristocracy, working together with the Crown, and this continued to be so throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Rulers all over Europe expected to base their domestic rgimes upon partnership with their nobilities, whose local power they continued to harness. Only occasionally did they encounter outright obstruction from the regional lites. One notable example of this came in seventeenth-century Brandenburg-Prussia where the Great Elector, Frederick William I (16401688), encountering opposition to his policies from the particularist nobilities of the scattered Hohenzollern territories, strengthened and worked through a new lite which, though it contained representatives of some native noble families, was largely recruited from outside his own lands; the Aulic nobility, so-called because these men had been given titles by the Emperor Leopold I (16581705). The Junkers as a consequence found themselves temporarily excluded from government. They retrieved their position spectacularly during the eighteenth century, joining in an alliance with the ruling family, and this was crucial for Prussias emergence as a leading European power (Volume II, Chapter 5). This evolution, rather than the earlier exclusion, conformed to the wider European pattern. Almost everywhere, the expanded State structures of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries provided careers, income and status for aristocracy and lesser nobility alike. It was most obviously the case where the rapidly expanding armies of the period were concerned.
Military service remained the principal way in which Europes lite served the State during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This is at first sight surprising, since by the decades around 1600 the nobilitys traditional military role and function had appeared to be challenged and even undermined by the new scale and nature of land warfare. During the early modern period, armies and the battlefield came to be dominated by infantry and gunpowder weapons, rather than cavalry; modern-style defensive fortifications, better able to withstand the new field artillery, became widespread, at least in western Europe; while the military forces of most states grew rapidly in size, reaching a peak during the first decade of the eighteenth century. Measuring this increase is notoriously difficult, but the numbers maintained under arms by most European states multiplied at least sixfold and may have expanded even more rapidly. This was the key development in what has been labelled the Military Revolution.104 Campaigns also became longer and forces remained in existence at their conclusion. The need to train these enlarged standing armies required more efficient military organisation, and this was usually provided by the State, which alone could mobilise resources on the scale now needed for war.105 These changes undoubtedly posed a significant challenge to Europes nobility. A central element was the rapid and final decline of heavy cavalry, which had consisted almost entirely of noblemen, and its replacement by a numerically far smaller group of light horse. This threatened the nobilitys very raison dtre as the fighting class (defensores) at a time when its nearmonopoly of armed force was also being very rapidly undermined. The large-scale armies of the age of the Military Revolution consisted principally of infantry, overwhelmingly recruited and usually conscripted from the ranks of the common people. Simultaneously, the early modern period and especially the seventeenth century saw a steady decline in the value and use of the noble feudal levy (principally the system of knights service), as the cavalry it largely produced became redundant.106 In France, for example, the ban and arrire-ban seems to have been abandoned after the ending of the Nine Years War in 1697. Occasional attempts to summon it during the preceding two generations had revealed its negligible military value. In Denmark the feudal levy was effectively suspended by the new absolute monarchy after 1660 and it seems to have been formally abolished in 1679, after a short lived revival during the Swedish War of the 1670s. An identical evolution was evident in Piedmont-Savoy. By the close of the seventeenth century, the feudal levy (cavalcata) was only summoned in an emergency and even then commuted to cash payments; in practice it had become a way of levying extraordinary taxation upon the nobility. This was also the case in the small German principality of Hesse-Kassel, where the local nobility was permitted to give cash in 1654 and 1672, the last two occasions when the levy was imposed before the attempt to revive it at the very end of the eighteenth century. Throughout Europe the feudal levy had
become outmoded, from a military point of view, by 1700. It was widely regarded as an exceptional measure and even as a form of covert taxation, since it was commuted almost everywhere.107 These changes in warfare directly reduced the nobilitys military potential, as the State slowly emerged as the monopoly provider of armed force and aspired to control all legitimate violence. Its success, and the resulting decline in the lites military potential, was one basis of the growing cooperation evident from the second half of the seventeenth century onwards. During these decades, individual noble arsenals declined and private fortifications were destroyed: up to 150 in the French province of Languedoc alone, after the governments defeat of the Montmorency rising in the early 1630s. This diminution of the nobilitys own military capacity was apparent in the way aristocratic uprisings were becoming a thing of the past. The abject military weakness of the Bohemian nobility was evident in its shattering defeat at the battle of the White Mountain in November 1620, two years after it had spearheaded a rebellion against the Austrian Habsburgs. In Piedmont-Savoy, the final such revolt was that of the marquis of Parella in 1682, while in France the last open insurrection by leading noblemen had taken place a generation earlier, the unsuccessful Fronde of the princes which had ended in 1653. Thereafter French aristocrats conspired usually in a futile way at Court, rather than engaging in rebellions against the Crown. This transition was evident across much of Europe. Almost everywhere aristocratic military power and the disruptive potential it represented were rapidly disappearing. The major exceptions to this general trend were areas such as the Highlands of Scotland, Hungary and Poland-Lithuania, where the nobilitys private military power and even the feudal levy theoretically survived long into the eighteenth century and, very occasionally, even beyond. These were all regions where the new military technology had a delayed and limited impact and where, in any case, magnate power was usually strong. The appearance of mass conscript armies, and the social and administrative changes which accompanied this, clearly challenged the exclusivity of the nobilitys military function. In a period of increasingly organised land warfare, simple obedience seemed more important than the individual heroism and feats of valour in which the independent noble/knight had traditionally gloried. At the same time, however, the Military Revolution created significant new opportunities for Europes lite, while the infrastructure of most monarchical States proved to be inadequate to the task it now faced and this perpetuated the nobilitys role in organising warfare.108 The rapidly expanding armies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries might be based on mass conscription, but they still had to be officered. Indeed, one dimension of the growth of State control was an increase in the proportion of officers to rank and file and this created additional opportunities for noblemen in search of a military career. This period saw a remarkable
and rapid increase in the size of the officer corps in every European state. That of Russia, for example, multiplied more than fivefold during the century after Peter the Greats death, rising from some 5000 in 1725 (in itself a great increase on the numbers a few decades earlier) to 9000 in 1762, around 16,000 in 1796 and 27,000 by 1825.109 The consequent opportunities were certainly not missed by Europes lites. By the eighteenth century, the officer corps of all continental armies were overwhelmingly noble in composition and becoming more so, particularly in the line regiments. Sweden exemplified this trend. In 1684, the officer corps still contained a small majority of commoners (52 per cent), but by 1780 this proportion had fallen to around 20 per cent as the nobility consolidated its grip. Noble propagandists always claimed that the qualities necessary for such leadership were to be found mainly and even exclusively in the social lite, for whom military service long remained a defining characteristic and not simply a career choice. Europes rulers shared this preference and overwhelmingly employed noblemen to command their armies. This attitude undoubtedly incorporated a realistic awareness that there was no other social group capable of providing officers in the numbers now required. But it proceeded primarily from a conviction that the nobility alone possessed an inherent capacity for leadership and innate qualities particularly appropriate for the military vocation, and should therefore be given special preference when officers were being selected. It was assumed that a noblemans overwhelming sense of honour, of family and of lineage would ensure that he would always do his duty. Military virtue was believed still to reside principally in the social lite. One reason why the nobility provided the majority of the officer corps was that the military hierarchy reproduced the fundamental social hierarchy, with all its inequalities and privileges. The apotheosis of this attitude was the celebrated Sgur Law of 1781, which sought to end the practice of selling commissions in the French army and instead restricted entry to the officer corps to those able to demonstrate four complete generations (that is to say, sixteen quarterings) of nobility.110 This measure was for long interpreted as the victory of social privilege over military effectiveness. It has been demonstrated, however, that its advocates were inspired by the conviction that the older noble families, though generally poorer, were more likely to possess the appropriate military virtues and thus be capable of being moulded into good officers than the more recently elevated, who were not merely wealthier but also more independent. The attitude which these debates revealed was widely shared at the end of the ancien rgime. The nobility continued to be viewed and to view itself as a military caste, whose privileged position within state and society principally derived from this enduring function. This was certainly the view of Prussias Frederick the Great, who declared in 1763 when refusing to sell noble lands or the status of nobility itself that he would not debase the Second Estate. Noble status, the King continued,
can only be gained by the sword, by bravery and by other outstanding behaviour and services. I will tolerate as vassals only those who are at all times capable of rendering me useful service in the army.111 In every continental country, established families continued their traditions of military service during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In France, the Saulx-Tavannes provided successive generations of soldiers, as did various branches of the Choiseul family, while the nobilitys middle ranks contained many military dynasties, such as the Scpeaux clan which provided eighteen officers, nine of whom rose to be generals, between 1660 and 1789. In the Austrian Habsburg lands, successive generations of the Daun family served in the army, culminating in Maria Theresas favourite commander, the notably cautious and ineffective Field Marshal.112 Spanish army dynasties included those of lesser nobles such as the Alos of Catalonia and the Gortazar of Vizcaya. Brandenburg-Prussias lite contained numerous such dynasties of military commanders (Volume II, Chapter 5). The nobilitys grip on the officer corps of most continental armies tightened during this period. In France, for example, far from all officers had been noblemen at the beginning of the seventeenth century, but a hundred years later the nobility dominated the army command. This pattern was widely replicated. In Prussia, less than one-tenth of the total number of officers (695 out of 70008000) were non-nobles in 1806, while for Spains army in 1800, the equivalent figure was around a quarter. The lesser, usually untitled nobility filled the lower levels of command, but everywhere the senior posts were the preserve of the titled, and often the Court, aristocracy. Louis XIVs generals, for example, were drawn overwhelmingly from this group and especially from the older families. No less than 93 per cent of Frances aristocratic lite, the ducs et pairs, followed a military career, and 41 per cent became generals and 11 per cent marshals of France during the Sun Kings reign. During the second half of the eighteenth century around 90 per cent of Portuguese aristocrats served in the royal army, a remarkably high figure.113 Such service, moreover, involved battle action and a considerable risk of injury and even death, particularly for those noblemen serving in the lower ranks of the officer corps. The French nobility suffered considerable losses in Louis XIVs final war, that of the Spanish Succession (17021713), while Swedens lite was similarly weakened by the casualties it suffered during the Great Northern War (17001721) (Volume II, Chapter 2). The significant losses of eligible noblemen seems to have been the explanation for the large number of noblewomen who married commoners in eighteenth-century Sweden, making the country unique in Europe on account of the high incidence of msalliance.114 The losses suffered by Prussias nobility during the wars of 17401763 were altogether exceptional and due to Frederick the Greats desperate plight, especially during the Seven Years War (17561763).
Yet they are a significant reminder of the scale of noble bloodletting that could occur (Volume II, Chapter 5). Such losses were a significant element in the demographic problems of particular families and even of whole national lites, while the fact that many noble soldiers remained unmarried further weakened the biological continuity of the Second Estate. One notable consequence of the Military Revolution, as Dr Thompson underlines, was a sharp increase in the expenditure of money and time now demanded of the noble soldier.115 Equipment was expensive, while in those armies where commissions were sold, the costs of entry and, even more, of advancement were considerable. Many a family estate was burdened with substantial debts to launch and sustain a sons military career. Noblemen were also expected to advance their own money on those frequent occasions when the State was unable to meet the regiments costs. The commitment of time now demanded of a would-be soldier was an even more fundamental transformation. During the early modern period, a military career changed from being an occupation that was temporary, and even occasional and sporadic, to one that was more or less permanent. Standing armies were a scarcely less permanent vocation for the officers than for the rank and file. By the second half of the eighteenth century, a typical noble officer was likely to be in uniform almost permanently, to be with his regiment for much of the time, and to identify himself overwhelmingly with the army and military service. It was a remarkable change. This in turn brought about an increased militarisation of noble life and culture by the closing decades of the eighteenth century. The willingness of increasing numbers of noblemen to serve in their States armies can be explained largely in terms of a mixture of traditional duty and enhanced opportunity. The persistence and even intensification of the noble ethic of service to the monarch was crucial. The fact that a commission was usually sanctioned and sometimes personally bestowed by the ruler was especially valued by the lite, since it seemed to confirm the special relationship between nobleman and king. Noblemen everywhere still saw their ruler as a feudal lord to whom they and their kin were bound by ties of fealty, even in the second half of the eighteenth century. This link could be reinforced by the personal oaths of loyalty to their ruler, which many high-ranking officers continued to take. In some countries, such as Denmark, officers had privileged access to the king, while in Frederick the Greats Prussia army officers dominated such Court as there was in Berlin and favoured commanders were admitted to the Kings private society at Potsdam. Military service, moreover, remained an important route albeit a slow path to ennoblement and to advancement within the nobility. Army officers received around one-third of the titles (numbering almost 2000) granted in the Habsburg Monarchy between 1711 and 1789, while in France over three quarters of new royal creations between 1589 and 1723 were military in origin. There is some indication that, by the eighteenth
century, military service was recovering its earlier pre-eminence as a source of ennoblements. The material rewards of such service were also important, especially for younger sons of the aristocracy and for the middle and lower ranks of the nobility. The increasing prevalence of inheritance practices favouring the eldest male child among the noble lite placed additional pressure on cadets to find a career or vocation that offered an appropriate lifestyle and income, but did not threaten noble status, as direct involvement in trade theoretically might do. One obvious target and a traditional one was the army. The financial rewards of a military career were not negligible, though the costs could be at least as high. The expenses involved in purchasing a command and supporting the expected lifestyle often outran salary, especially in the lite units stationed in the capital and near the Court. In the more obscure and isolated regiments, a careful officer of lesser means might just about make ends meet. Yet war remained potentially profitable for the nobility, as it had always been, though in a different way. One broad consequence of the Military Revolution was to transform the army officer from a freebooter into a salaried State employee. Officers salaries were not always high, far less paid promptly, but often they were all that separated a poor nobleman from the rest of the impoverished population and in this way enabled him to maintain his privileged status. Any promotion would bring an enhancement of financial rewards, while the introduction of a broadly accepted hierarchy of ranks within most armies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries offered the possibility of a career path and with it increased income. The financial rewards of army service might be more apparent than real, but to the often-impoverished mass of the nobility, they were still a powerful lure. Warfare in the Age of the Military Revolution demanded higher professional standards of those who commanded, and the nobility exhibited a degree of willingness to acquire this technical training. The decades immediately after 1600 saw the foundation of a series of noble academies intended primarily to prepare the aspiring officer for a military career: notably those at Sedan (1606); Padua, Udine, Treviso and Verona (all in the Venetian Republic and founded 16081610); Siegen (1617); Gitschin (1624); and Madrid (1625). The costs of such an education were beyond the pockets of everyone outside the noble lite, and most of these institutions soon closed their doors, or came to serve different purposes, such as preparing an aristocrat for life at Court. In the next century, however, such training came to be provided by the State which established and financed cadet corps, where sons of the nobility could be trained as soldiers before securing their first commissions. These corps were founded in Prussia (1717: in fact this was an amalgamation of three military academies established by Frederick III/I at the very beginning of the eighteenth century), Saxony (1725), Russia (1731), Bavaria (1756), Portugal (1757) and France (1776: the cadets-gentilshommes), while
in Piedmont-Savoy (1737) and Spain (1738), cadet places reserved for young noblemen were established in each regiment. These initiatives were more enduring and successful than the earlier military academies, but even the significant increase in the number of places for cadets was far short of the demand for such training from the poorer lesser nobility for whom they were primarily intended. Such initiatives underline the States belief that only the nobility could officer its armies. They also make clear that the lite itself was far from hostile towards change. On the contrary, noblemen great and small eagerly sought the modicum of technical education and with it the patina of social polish now demanded of an officer. These developments possess a much broader significance for the early modern nobility. By redefining themselves as a military service lite, the nobles and especially the lesser nobility were integrated to a greater and greater extent within the emerging absolutist State. The Second Estate was an agent and ultimately a beneficiary, rather than a victim, of the Military Revolution: as of the administrative changes which had accompanied it. A similar pattern is apparent in Europes fledgling diplomatic services, though the number of noblemen involved was far fewer and drawn largely from the higher nobility. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw an important expansion of resident diplomacy, with the ending of a long period of generalised warfare.116 The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 brought to a close the Thirty Years War, while a decade later the settlement of the Pyrenees (1659) concluded a long-running Franco-Spanish conflict and that of Oliwa (1660) terminated half a century of intermittent fighting around the Baltic. The return of general peace though this proved temporary encouraged resident diplomacy, following the lead given by Louis XIVs France. By the end of his long reign in 1715, Europes capitals with the single important exception of Constantinople were linked by a reciprocal network or embassies and, in peacetime, all states usually maintained continuous political relations with each other. This fundamental change in the nature of diplomacy had profound implications for the social standing of the men who transacted it. The earliest resident diplomats of the century after 1450 had been a very mixed group socially, but had contained relatively few members of Europes lite. Noblemen had been sent on occasional and often formal missions of importance, to conclude a peace settlement or to arrange a dynastic marriage, but such glamour embassies had usually been short-lived and the aristocrat at its head had returned home once the negotiations had been concluded. During the second half of the seventeenth century, a new pattern began to evolve. The embassies which multiplied all across Europe were now more permanent and, though they contained a number of experts, often of relatively humble social origins, they tended to be headed by noblemen or, to a diminishing extent, Churchmen and at least in the major capitals often
by leading aristocrats. Such men would increasingly have undertaken the Grand Tour, with its mixture of travel, education and culture, and this would be an appropriate preparation for such an embassy. During the later seventeenth century, diplomacy acquired the distinctly aristocratic tone which it long retained. The growing dominance of the high nobility resulted from the principle that an ambassador represented his sovereign: rulers would therefore send the men most capable of embodying their own majesty. The widespread employment of noblemen also reflected a general desire not to offend a recipient by employing diplomats of lower social standing. It was reinforced by the expectation that due to the belated and incomplete payment of expenses, which was widespread an aristocratic diplomat would have more of his own money to spend in the kings service. The increasingly aristocratic tone of the new resident diplomacy was fully apparent to well-placed contemporaries. Franois de Callires, who served as an official in Louis XIVs foreign office and wrote the best-known guide to diplomatic practice, was quite clear on this point. The first requirements for a diplomat, he declared, were birth and lineage, together with an appropriate fortune to spend serving the monarch.117 The extent of aristocratic dominance has been underlined by a major study of the social origins of European diplomats in the period 16971715.118 The results for Spain are especially striking: out of 38 diplomats, no less than 34 were members of the titled lite (titulos) with 3 princes, 5 counts, 12 marquises and 14 dukes.119 The fact that most Spanish diplomatic missions during that period were sent to Paris undoubtedly increased the aristocratic tone, but these figures do highlight a widespread trend. The major posts in the diplomatic services of France and of the Habsburg Emperor were also dominated by the high nobility, while that of the Republic of Venice was overwhelmingly drawn from the noble patriciate. The only exceptions to this general trend were the Dutch Republic and, to some extent, England. Yet members of the Republics landed nobility were also to be found in the Dutch diplomatic service, while that of the emerging British state contained a significant number of peers: out of 38 diplomats during the years investigated, no less than 16 were members of the House of Lords.120 The pattern apparent around 1700 persisted throughout the next century and far beyond.121 The embassies sent to the major capitals of Europe quickly became and long remained a near-monopoly of Europes lite, as the diplomatic hierarchy came to parallel the social hierarchy exactly as the military one did. Relatively few noblemen made an extended career in diplomacy, and those who did were drawn overwhelmingly from the lesser nobility. Members of leading families would seldom take more than one or two embassies, almost always to a major European capital: Rome (for Catholic monarchies), Paris, Madrid, or, increasingly, London and Vienna. Ancien rgime diplomacy at its apex was not only aristocratic but also amateur; such professionalism as existed was provided by a cadre of experts who filled
the lesser positions in an embassy and were usually men of much lower social standing. The fact that most ambassadorial appointments were limited in duration (most were for a few years), together with the attractions of spending time at a major foreign court, explain the relative popularity of the new opportunities in diplomacy. Embassies were, of course, integrated into established noble family strategies.122 Though far less plentiful than military commands or even posts in the civil administration, they were particularly prized for the glory they conferred and the opportunities they presented. Diplomacy was another form of service to the dynasty and a means thereby of elevating a family above its rivals. The most important embassies tended to go to the most prominent families and, crucially, to those with regular access to the ruler. This was a further incentive for leading noblemen to spend an increasing proportion of their time at Court, where diplomatic appointments like military and administrative posts were normally to be secured. In the final decades of Louis XIVs reign, for example, the most important French embassies were monopolised by groups enjoying regular access to the king, above all the noblesse de cour, the noblesse dpe, the clerg de cour and the leading robe families.123 This was part of a broader evolution, and one which has been seriously misunderstood. The presence of the noble lite at Court has often been viewed as part of the process by which the early modern State domesticated its aristocracy. The Court has been seen as the crucial link in a chain of developments, which transformed the higher nobility all across Europe from local provincial power and even semi-independence to a dependent position in the kings entourage. It was viewed as a mechanism for cutting off the great nobles from their local power bases and the sources of their military strength, and in this way taming them. This interpretation can now be recognised as simplistic. It was a central thesis in the work of Norbert Elias, but after a period when this had considerable impact, it is now clear that his influence is waning.124 Eliass interpretation was based on a narrow range of sources, and principally the celebrated Memoirs of one disgruntled aristocrat at Louis XIVs Versailles, the duc de Saint-Simon. The framework which he advanced was one-dimensional, rather than completely erroneous, as the notable revival of research on early modern Courts during recent decades has demonstrated.125 This scholarship is reinterpreting the nobilitys role and making clear that the Court remained central to a political system within which patronage continued to be vital and the role of personalities of enduring significance. In many countries, the rulers court remained important in policy-making, and everywhere it provided an essential point of contact between the monarch and the political lite.126 Once again a recognition that crown and nobility were partners rather than antagonists has been the foundation of this reinterpretation.127 Though it was occasionally convenient for a ruler to be able
to keep a close watch on the activities of one particular aristocrat or noble faction, the Court served many other purposes. It could, for example, actually be a stronghold of the higher nobility and the means by which it exerted its influence over the monarch or defended its position against non-noble lites. The Court was the key location for the refashioning of noble honour, which the monarch was now to validate and which emphasised service to the ruler above all other qualities.128 It endowed leading members of the lite with models of behaviour and civility which inspired emulation and so spread down through the Second Estate. The presence of the aristocracy at Court was also crucial for the growing stratification of the Second Estate during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It enabled key families and individuals to secure the lions share of the patronage which became available and in this way elevated the lite over the rest of the nobility. Here as elsewhere, the key was the regular access which the Court provided for fortunate individuals and groups. Early modern courts were significantly larger than their medieval and Renaissance predecessors and they came to be permanently located at one fixed point, rather than being peripatetic. These developments were obviously linked, and both affected the noble lite in important ways. Royal and princely courts expanded during the early modern period, though it is difficult to measure this increase with any precision. It can be illustrated by the example of the French Court, which grew dramatically in size, particularly during the sixteenth century and again under Louis XIV. There is a crucial distinction between the royal household (maison du roi) and the total Court population, which was much larger. Precise figures can only be given for the royal household, and even these are not completely reliable. A further complication is that most Court offices (which were largely the preserve of the higher nobility) were held in rotation for periods as short as one month, but more often for three or six months this practice was widespread in early modern Courts. Francis Is household in the 1530s contained slightly over 600 people. The reign of the last Valois, Henry III (15741589), saw an increase in size, to between 1500 and 2000 at any one time. Allowing for the impact of office holding in rotation, this suggests a figure of around 6000 as the overall size of the royal household. The personal rule of Louis XIV saw a further, though more modest, increase in this total to around 10,000. It was facilitated by the Courts move in May 1682 to Versailles, which proved to be permanent and where it would remain for over a century. During the decades after 1600, however, the Bourbon Court had become less peripatetic than its Valois predecessor. It seldom travelled outside Paris and the surrounding region of the Ile-de-France, which contained a substantial number of royal residences. In the course of the seventeenth century, Paris and the royal Court became more important in the life of the great nobles, who spent a greater proportion of their time in the capital and built
resplendent town houses there (Volume I, Chapter 4). This development had its exact parallel in Spain (Volume I, Chapter 6). Madrid had been the Spanish capital and the fixed location of the court since 1561, but it was only in the early decades of the seventeenth century that the Spanish high nobility began to reside for more extended periods there and to build houses in the capital. In neighbouring Portugal the aristocracy which took shape after the accession of the Bragana dynasty soon began to acquire palaces in the capital Lisbon (Volume I, Chapter 7). Developments in Portugal, Spain and France had their counterparts in central and eastern Europe. Viennas position within the Habsburg Monarchy was particularly striking.129 The political and cultural diversity of the Austrian Habsburg territories ensured that the Court and the ruling dynasty would always be especially important; they alone unified the Monarchys scattered and disparate possessions. Yet Vienna was too exposed to Ottoman attack, and too remote from the dynastys lands and interests in the Reich for it easily to emerge as the political centre of the Habsburg realms. Though the seventeenth century saw an increasing identification between the city and the Habsburg dynasty, it was only after the relief of the second Turkish siege in 1683 that the city definitely became the capital and the permanent residence of the imperial Court. Throughout the seventeenth century, however, the Habsburg family had spent more of their time in Vienna which played an important role in the evolution of the AustroBohemian noble lite. In the decades which followed the second Turkish siege, the Monarchys leading families began to build the town houses and the suburban palaces which still adorn the city today (Volume II, Chapter 6). In Russia, too, noble residences came to be built in the leading city, where the lite would spend a larger proportion of their time. Peter the Greats thoroughgoing reform of all aspects of noble status involved forcing the leading members of the Russian nobility to build residence in the new city of St Petersburg and to reside there (Volume II, Chapter 10). The compulsion involved was unique to Russia, and because of the rulers wish to create a new city, identified with himself, that would eclipse the traditional capital, Moscow. Elsewhere, the high nobility willingly flocked to Court. The reasons for this influx were overwhelmingly traditional: above all, the desire to serve the king or prince, the wish to be physically close to the ruler and to share the majesty of monarchy, the hope and expectation of reward, and the search for an appropriate education. Poland-Lithuania provides the principal exception (Volume II, Chapter 9). There, the Crowns chronic poverty militated against the establishment of a large royal household, and leading magnates maintained their own private Courts, often of a surprising size and splendour. In earlier times, this had been quite common, though by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it had become exceptional. A few great aristocrats continued to maintain their own Courts, sometimes with a thriving cultural life most notably in the case of the Eszterzy
princes in Hungary. But in most countries, noble Courts were declining in importance. Royal Courts now occupied a more dominant place in the life of the higher nobility than hitherto. This was part of a wider process of social centralisation, whose origins extended far back before 1600. Courts were important as marriage markets and cultural centres. The capitals in which or near to which they were located were often important financial centres and as such an obvious source of loans for hard-pressed aristocrats. It is impossible to draw up a balance sheet for the financial consequences of the aristocracys presence at Court, though the expenditure involved clearly contributed to the growing indebtedness of many families at this time and this in turn reinforced the general trend. The capital also contained the principal law courts in the realm, and litigation was a frequent pastime for many noble families, who were likely to be involved simultaneously in several cases, usually involving disputes over property and inheritance. All across Europe, the aristocracys horizons were becoming more national, and even international. The growing numbers of noblemen making the Grand Tour and the spread of the French language, from the second half of the seventeenth century, among the lite of many continental countries advanced this process of integration. So too did the growing number of marriages, by the eighteenth century, between families in different national nobilities. There is a sense, by the eighteenth century, in which national aristocracies were coming to be part of an international noble lite.130 Yet most great noblemen also remained in close touch with their own localities, both by regular correspondence and occasional sometimes very occasional visits and through their clients among the regional lites. This was facilitated by the widespread practice of holding Court posts in rotation, which ensured that noblemen could return from time to time to their own localities, in order to attend to their private concerns and to public affairs: which their continuing role in government at all levels made necessary. The migration was often seasonal: summers spent on their estates, the rest of the year in the capital and at Court. This system suited both the aristocrats and their rulers, who were able to draw on the advice and support of the lite both at Court and in the localities. During the two centuries covered by this collection, there may have been a tendency for leading noblemen to spend less time on their own estates. But this certainly did not destroy, and may not seriously have weakened, their provincial power. The nobilitys role at the heart of the State was to be important during the nineteenth century. It has become fashionable during recent decades to point to the enduring nature of noble power and to emphasise its slow retreat in the face of the economic and political transformations of the later modern era (see Volume II, Chapter 11). The articles in this collection make this resilience more comprehensible. The second half of the eighteenth century had seen the origin of developments which would ultimately prove
fatal to the Second Estate. The Enlightenment and the French Revolution represented a decisive philosophical and political challenge to Europes lite, while the industrialisation that began in Britain would create new sources of wealth and eventually lead to the emergence of a dominant middle class. Yet when old Europe was restored in 1815, at the end of a quarter century of upheaval, the power of the aristocracy in many countries seemed as complete as ever. The consolidation of noble power social, economic and political during the preceding two centuries had paved the way for a further extended period of aristocratic influence and, at times, hegemony.
Notes
This survey incorporates material collected in the course of a research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust; the revised version has been completed during Professor Scotts tenure of a Major Leverhulme Research Fellowship. We are very grateful to the Trust for its generous financial support. 1. There is an incisive survey by Timothy Reuter, The Medieval Nobility in Twentiethcentury Historiography, in Michael Bentley, ed., Companion to Historiography (London, 1997), pp. 177202 an article with far wider implications than its ostensible subject while recent work on the late modern lite can be approached through William D. Godsey, Jr., Nobles and Modernity, German History 20 (2002), pp. 50421. 2. For example: David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (New Haven, 1990); Kristen B. Neuschel, Word of Honor: Interpreting Noble Culture in Sixteenth-century France (Ithaca, NY, 1989); H. Rssler, ed., Deutscher Adel 1430 1555 (Darmstadt, 1963); H. Rssler, ed., Deutscher Adel 15551740 (Darmstadt, 1964); R. Vierhaus, ed., Der Adel vor der Revolution (Gttingen, 1971). No attempt is made to provide a full bibliography in the footnotes to this introduction. For the period 16001800, an up-to-date survey of the literature available for each country is provided by the Guides to Further Reading which conclude each volume. 3. E.g. Cahiers du monde russe et sovitique 34: iii (1993) and Revue dhistoire moderne et contemporaine 46: 1 (1999). 4. See, from numerous examples, Philippe Contamine, ed., Ltat et les aristocraties: XIIeXVIIe sicle: France, Angleterre, Ecosse (Paris, 1989); R.G. Asch, ed., Der europische Adel im Ancien Regime: Von der Krise der Stndischen Monarchien bis zur Revolution (Cologne, 2001); B. Kpecki and E.H. Balzs, eds, Noblesse Franaise, Noblesse Hongroise, XVIeXXe sicles (Budapest and Paris, 1981); Jean Kerherv, Noblesses de Bretagne du Moyen ge nos jours (Rennes, 1999); Armgard von RedenDohna and Ralph Melville, eds, Der Adel an der Schwelle des Brgerlichen Zeitalters 17801860 (Stuttgart, 1988); G. Delille, ed., Les noblesses europennes au XIXe sicle (RomeParis, 1988). 5. See most recently the helpful review of the past generations scholarship on France by William Beik, The Absolutism of Louis XIV as Social Collaboration, Past and Present no. 188 (2005), 195224. 6. For the barrier this presents to the study of the nobility, see e.g. the comments of Miguel Artola in his prologue to I. Atienza Hernandez, Aristocracia, Poder y Riqueza en la Espaa Moderna. La Casa de Osua, siglos XVXIX (Madrid, 1987): a study that was possible because when the family experienced acute difficulties in the
H.M. Scott and Christopher Storrs 53 nineteenth century, the 12th Duke sold its papers (to raise much-needed cash!), and they ended up in the Archivo Historico Nacional in Madrid. Cf. Professor de Madariagas comments: vol. ii, p. 367. See, e.g., the comments of Jean Meyer, that the available literature is both vast and with the exception of a handful of titles at the same time mediocre in nature: La noblesse Bretonne au XVIIIe sicle (2 vols, Paris, 1966), i. xxi. E.g. Jacob Falke, Geschichte des Frstlichen Hauses Liechtenstein (Vienna, 186882); H. dOrlans, duc dAumale, Histoire des princes de Cond pendant les XVIe et XVIIe sicles (8 vols, Paris, 188596). E.g. Frst Karl zu Schwarzenberg, Geschichte der reichsstndischen Hauses Schwarzenberg (Neustadt an der Aisch, 1963). A notable recent example is Alastair Campbell of Airds, A History of Clan Campbell (3 vols, Edinburgh, 200004). E.g. G. dAvenel, La noblesse franaise sous Richelieu (Paris, 1901) and E. Schwenke, Friedrich der Grosse und der Adel (Burg, 1911). Two review articles provide a helpful introduction: Carlo Capra, La nobilt europea prima della Rivoluzione, Studi Storici 18 (1977), pp. 11738, which provides a perceptive survey of work on the eighteenth-century nobility down to the mid-1970s; and K.-G. Faber, Mitteleuropischer Adel im Wandel der Neuzeit, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 7 (1981), pp. 27696, devoted to publications of the 1970s. There is a remarkable English translation of Brunners immensely complex German text by Howard Kaminsky and James Van Horn Melton, Land and Lordship: Structures of Governance in Medieval Austria (Philadelphia, PA, 1992), with a notable introduction (pp. xiiilxi) on the works genesis and importance. For more on Brunners significance, see p. 3, and vol. II, p. 179. V. Hunecke, Der venezianische Adel am Ende der Republik 1646-1797 (Tbingen, 1995); Paul Janssens, Lvolution de la noblesse belge depuis la fin du Moyen ge (Brussels, 1998); Keith M. Brown, Noble Society in Scotland: Wealth, Family and Culture from Reformation to Revolution (Edinburgh, 2000); John Cannon, Aristocratic Century: The Peerage of Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge, 1984). Aristocracia, poder y riqueza en la Espaa Moderna La Casa de Osuna, siglos XVXIX; Der Aufstieg des Hauses Kaunitz: Studien zur Herkunft und Bildung des Staatskanzlers Wenzel Anton (Gttingen, 1975); Une Famille-Tmoin: Les Salviati (Vatican City, 1985); The Continuity of Feudal Power (Cambridge, 1992); Patrons and Adversaries: Nobles and Villagers in Italian Politics, 16401760 (Oxford, 2005). Frst und Frstendiener: Gundaker von Liechtenstein, ein sterreichischer Aristokrat des konfessionellen Zeitalters (ViennaMunich, 1999); Choiseul, volume I: Father and Son, 17191754 (Oxford, 1980). Adeliges Landleben und europischer Geist (Salzburg, 1949); see Professor James Meltons essay, vol. II, pp. 17981. Another notable exception is the study of the Lacger, a Huguenot minor noble family in south-western France by Raymond A. Mentzer, Jr., Blood and Belief: Family Survival and Confessional Identity among the Provincial Huguenot Nobility (West Lafayette, IN, 1994). La Savoie au 18e sicle (2 vols, Paris, 1978); Nobles et paysans en Beauce au XVIe et XVIIe sicles (Lille, 1981); La noblesse Luxembourgeoise au XVIIIe sicle (Paris, 1985); Noblesse et Pauvret: la petite noblesse en Bretagne XVeXVIIIe sicles (Rennes, 1997). Westflischer Adel 17701860: Von Herrschaftsstand zur regionalen Elite (Gttingen, 1979): it should be noted that this contains a significant amount of material
7. 8.
9.
10.
11. 12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17. 18.
19.
20.
54 The Consolidation of Noble Power in Europe, c.16001800 on the decades before 1770; Bhmen und die bhmischen Stnde in der Zeit des beginnenden Zentralismus (Munich-Vienna, 1982); Svet Ceske Aristokracie (15001700) (Prague, 2004). E.g. H.K.F. von Nierop, The Nobility of Holland: From Knights to Regents, 1500 1650 (1984; English trans., Cambridge, 1993); James B. Wood, The Nobility of the Election of Bayeux, 14631666 (Princeton, 1980); Jonathan Dewald, The Formation of a Provincial Nobility: The Magistrates of the Parlement of Rouen 14991610 (Princeton, 1980); Valerie A. Kivelson, Autocracy in the Provinces: The Muscovite Gentry and Political Culture in the seventeenth century (Stanford, CA, 1996). Les ducs et pairs de France au XVIIe sicle (Paris, 1972). Janine Fayards model study of the Councillors of Castile adopts a similar approach: Les membres du Conseil de Castille lpoque moderne (16211746) (Geneva and Paris, 1979), as in a different way does Fabian Persson, Servants of Fortune: The Swedish Court Between 1598 and 1721 (Lund, 1999), esp. chapter 6. Aristocrats and Servitors: The Boyar Elite in Russia, 16131689 (Princeton, 1983); Marshall T. Poe, The Russian Elite in the Seventeenth Century (2 vols; Helsinki, 2004); Autocracy and Aristocracy: The Russian Service Elite of 1730 (New Brunswick, 1982). For the generalitet, see vol. II, p. 350. See especially Jouannas thesis, Lide de race en France au XVIe sicle et au dbut de XVIIe sicle (3 vols, Lille, 1976; reprinted in 2 vols, Montpellier, 1981) and her more broadly-focussed Le devoir de rvolte: la noblesse franaise et la gestation de lEtat moderne, 15591661 (Paris, 1989); cf. Andr Devyver, Le sang pur: les prjugs de race chez le gentilhommes franais de lAncien Rgime (15601720) (Brussels, 1973); C. Donati, Lidea di nobilt in Italia, secoli XIVXVIII (Bari, 1988); Neuschel, Word of Honor; Ellery Schalk, From Valor to Pedigree: Ideas of Nobility in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Princeton, 1986) See especially Il bisogno di eternit: Comportamenti aristocratici a Napoli in et moderna (Naples, 1988), Territorio, feudo et potere locale: Terra dOtranto tra Medioevo ed et moderna (Naples, 1988) and her numerous articles, some of which have been republished in Identit sociali: La nobilt napoletana nella prima et moderna (Milan, 1998). Professor Visceglia has now begun to study the nobility of the early modern Papal states: see her La nobilt romana in et moderna (Rome, 2001). For some general remarks on its links with the Roman Catholic church, see below, p. 10. Ronald G. Asch, Nobilities in Transition 15501700: Courtiers and Rebels in Britain and Europe (London, 2003), chapter 1. Quoted by van Nierop, The Nobility of Holland, p. 33. Here the best introduction is still the comprehensive survey by Michael Bush, Noble Privilege (Manchester, 1983). Richard Hellie, Early Modern Russian Estate Management and Economic Development, in Paul Janssens and Bartholom Yun-Casalilla, eds, European Aristocracies and Colonial Elites (Aldershot, 2005), pp. 17995, at p. 180. John McManners, Church and Society in Eighteenth-century France (2 vols, Oxford, 1998); Jerzy Lukowski, The European Nobility in the Eighteenth-Century (Basingstoke, 2003), pp. 89. See, e.g., Steven G. Reinhardt, Justice in the Sarladais 17701790 (Baton Rouge, 1991). Jonathan Dewald, The European Nobility 14001800 (Cambridge, 1996), p. 32. Below, pp. 1856.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26. 27. 28. 29. 30.
31.
32. 33. 34.
H.M. Scott and Christopher Storrs 55 35. N. Davies, The Military Traditions of the Polish Szlachta 17001864, in B.K. Kirly and G.E. Rothenburg, eds, War and Society in East Central Europe, vol. I: Special Topics and Generalizations on the 18th and 19th Centuries (New York, 1979), pp. 3746, at p. 43. 36. See the interesting article by Jan Peters, Ones Place in Church: Hierarchical Attitudes in the Late Feudal Period, of which an abbreviated English translation was published in G.G. Iggers, ed., Marxist History in Transformation: East German Social History in the 1980s (New York, Oxford, 1991), pp. 16187. 37. Quoted (from the Reflections on the Revolution in France [1790]) by Lukowski, The European Nobility in the Eighteenth Century, p. 8. 38. Figures from Andr Burguire et al., eds, A History of the Family (1986; Engl. trans., 2 vols, Oxford, 1996), vol 2: The Impact of Modernity, p. 71. 39. van Nierop, Nobility of Holland, p. 65. 40. L. Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 15581641 (Oxford, 1965), pp. 1920; Nicolas, La Savoie au 18e sicle, i. 212. 41. There are some good examples in M. Bush, Rich Noble, Poor Noble (Manchester, 1988), p. 97. 42. E. Perroy, Social Mobility among the French Noblesse in the Later Middle Ages, Past and Present 21 (1962), pp. 21 et seq. 43. See below, pp. 3234, for more on this. 44. Lukowski, The European Nobility in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 2021. 45. See the authoritative study by William Doyle,Venality: The Sale of Offices in Eighteenth-century France (Oxford, 1996). 46. See below, vol. II, p. 235, for some figures for the purchase price of the titles of baron and count in eighteenth-century Hungary. 47. Lukowski, The European Nobility in the Eighteenth Century, p. 22. 48. G. Delille, Introduction, in idem., ed., Les noblesses europennes au XIXe sicle (Rome-Paris, 1988), pp. 112; cf. volume II, pp. 38891, for a discussion of this estimate. 49. J. Meyer, La noblesse franaise au XVIIIe sicle: aperu des problmes, Acta Poloniae Historica 36 (1977), pp. 2122. 50. See, e.g., D.J. Sturdy, Tax Evasion, the Faux Nobles, and State Fiscalism: The example of the gnralit of Caen, 163435, French Historical Studies 9 (197576), pp. 54972; E. Esmonin, La taille en Normandie au temps de Colbert (16611683) (Paris, 1913), pp. 198231. 51. See volume II, pp. 38889. 52. The complexities which might result for noblewomen who married commoners and subsequently had to petition for the restoration of their lost noble status and the fiscal privileges which went with it upon being widowed, are the subject of an illuminating article by Gayle K. Brunelle, Dangerous Liaisons: Msalliance and the early-modern French noblewomen, French Historical Studies 19 (1995), pp. 75103. 53. See below, chapter 6. 54. As Julian Swann points out: below, p. 167. 55. Pierre Serna, The Noble, in Michel Vovelle, ed., Enlightenment Portraits (1992; Engl. trans., Chicago, IL, 1997), p. 45. 56. Nuno Gonalo Monteiro, The Aristocratic Estates in Portugal and their Management, 16001834, in Janssens and Yun Casalilla, eds, European Aristocracies, pp. 99113, at p. 100. 57. See below, pp. 4042, for more on this.
56 The Consolidation of Noble Power in Europe, c.16001800 58. Kenneth Maxwell, Pombal: The Paradox of Enlightenment and Despotism, in H.M. Scott, ed., Enlightened Absolutism: Reform and Reformers in Eighteenth-century Europe (London, 1990), pp. 75118, at p. 100. 59. Jonathan Powis, Aristocracy (London, 1984), pp. 67. 60. For a striking demonstration that this was so, see David Parrott, Richelieu, the Grands, and the French Army, in J. Bergin and L. Brockliss, eds, Richelieu and His Age (Oxford, 1992), pp. 13573; This makes clear the extent of the competition among the leading families for commands in the army. 61. The classic study is Labatut, Les ducs et pairs. 62. There are some valuable essays on this topic in the collection edited by Antoni Mazak, with Elisabeth Mller-Luckner, Klientelsysteme im Europa der frhen Neuzeit (Munich, 1988). 63. See in particular the national essays in Janssens and Yun Casalilla, eds, European Aristocracies, which collectively provide the most up-to-date introduction to this subject. 64. Quoted by Jean Duma, The Characteristics of an Aristocratic Economy in France, 16th18th Centuries, in Janssens and Yun-Casalilla, eds, European Aristocracies, pp. 3756, at p. 37. 65. See the classic article by Otto Brunner, Das Ganze Haus und die alteuropische konomik [1950], reprinted and up-dated in his collected essays, Neue Wege der Sozialgeschichte (Gttingen, 1956), pp. 3361 and 22530. 66. Cf. the shrewd comments in Asch, Nobilities in Transition, p. 42. 67. This is a general problem facing all historians of the nobility: see, e.g., Atienza Hernandez, Aristocracia, Poder y Riquesa, pp. 2346; van Nierop, The Nobility of Holland, p. 96. 68. See, e.g., the comments of Daniel Roche, Aperus sur la fortune et les revenus des Princes de Cond laube du XVIIIe sicle, Revue dhistoire moderne et contemporaine 14 (1967), pp. 21743, at pp. 21820. 69. Karin J. MacHardy, The Rise of Absolutism and Noble Rebellion in Early Modern Habsburg Austria, 1570 to 1620, Comparative Studies in Society and History 34 (1992), pp. 40738, esp. pp. 41115. On the decline of the lower nobility, see also the same authors Der Einfluss von Status, Besitz und Konfession auf das politische Verhalten der Niedersterreichischen Ritterstandes 15801620 in G. Klingenstein and Heinrich Lutz, eds, Spezialforschung und Gesamtgeschichte (Wiener Beitrge zur Geschichte der Neuzeit, 8; Vienna, 1981), pp. 5683, and the same authors more broadly conceived study: War, Religion and Court Patronage in Habsburg Austria: The Social and Cultural Dimensions of Political Interaction, 15211622 (Basingstoke, 2003). See below, vol. II, pp. 17173. 70. E. Ladewig Petersen, The Crisis of the Danish Nobility 15801660 (Odense, 1967), esp. pp. 2527; Keith M. Brown, Aristocratic Finances and the Origins of the Scottish Revolution, English Historical Review 104 (1989), pp. 4687, esp. pp. 51 59, together with the fuller and more nuanced account in the same authors Noble Society in Scotland, part 1. 71. William W. Hagen, Seventeenth-century Crisis in Brandenburg: The Thirty Years War, the Destabilization of Serfdom and the Rise of Absolutism, American Historical Review 94 (1989), 30235; see volume II, Chapter 5. 72. See the contributions by Philip Benedict and Mark Greengrass to Peter Clark, ed., The European Crisis of the 1590s: Essays in Comparative History (London, 1985), pp. 84105 and 10634. 73. Brown, Aristocratic Finances, esp. pp. 634.
H.M. Scott and Christopher Storrs 57 74. See below, p. 223. 75. See, e.g., their importance for the Bourbon-Conty during the eighteenth century: Franois-Charles Mougel, La fortune des Princes de Bourbon Conty: revenus et gestion, 16551791, Revue dhistoire moderne et contemporaine 18 (1971), pp. 30 49. 76. J.T. Lukowski, Libertys Folly: the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Eighteenth Century, 16971795 (London, 1991), p. 26. For the legal device of entail, see below, pp. 3234. 77. See below, pp. 3134. 78. Jnos Harich, Das frstlich Esterhzysche Fideikommiss, The Haydn Yearbook. I (1962), pp. 527, at p. 5; Rebecca Gates-Coon, The Esterhzy Princes as Landlords: Estate Management in Hungary during the late eigheenth century, Studies in East European Social History ed. K. Hitchins vol II (Leiden, 1981), pp. 15789, at p. 157; a relatively full list of the major properties is given on pp. 16869 of the same authors unpublished Ph.D. dissertation: The Esterhzy Princes, 17601790 (University of Illinois, 1979). 79. See the map at p. 64 of Charles Jago, The Crisis of the Aristocracy in seventeenth-century Castile, Past and Present 84 (1979), pp. 6090. 80. See Professor de Madariagas comments: volume II, Chapter 10. 81. Crummey, Aristocrats and Servitors, pp. 35, 113, 11617, 171. 82. Burguire et al, eds, History of the Family, ii. 70, 76. 83. Notably in areas in the southern half of France where Roman law influences were strong: see the recent study by Donna Bohanan, Old and New Nobility in Aix-en-Provence 16001695: Portrait of an Urban Elite (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1992), pp. 6378 passim. The fathers will was also important in Savoy: Nicolas, La Savoie au 18e sicle, i. 37374. 84. The only attempt at a comprehensive study is the remarkable article by J.P. Cooper, Patterns of inheritance and settlement by great landowners from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, in J. Goody, J. Thirsk and E.P. Thompson, eds, Family and Inheritance: Rural Society in Western Europe 12001800 (Cambridge, 1976), pp. 192327; but this focussed especially on England (with some attention to Western Europe) and is in any case now out-of-date. Among subsequent historians, the Italian scholar M.A. Visceglia has been especially notable for her emphasis upon the crucial importance of entail. See, in particular, her Linee per uno studio unitaria dei testamenti e dei contratti matrimoniali dellaristocrazia feudale napoletana tra fine Quattrocento et Settecento, Mlanges de lEcole Franaise de Rome: Moyen Age et Temps Modernes 95 (1983), pp. 393470. 85. Quoted by Visceglia, art. cit., p. 423. 86. Quoted in Burguire et al., eds, History of the Family, ii. 66. 87. Though it was important in Portugal, where the holder of an entailed estate was even distinguished by a specific title, that of morgado, while his wife was the morgada. 88. See below, p. 303. 89. See his comments in the Political Testament of 1768: R. Dietrich, ed., Die politischen Testament der Hohenzollern (Berlin, 1986), p. 500. 90. Quoted by Dewald, European Nobility, p. 11. 91. See Carlo Capra, The Functionary, in Vovelle, ed., Enlightenment Portraits, pp. 32632, for a strong insistence on this.
58 The Consolidation of Noble Power in Europe, c.16001800 92. William Beik, Absolutism and Society in Seventeenth-century France: State Power and Provincial Aristocracy in Languedoc (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 33334 and passim. See now Beiks recent survey of subsequent research: The Absolutism of Louis XIV as Social Collaboration, pp. 195224. 93. See the useful and wide-ranging survey by Jean Brenger, Noblesse et Absolutisme en Europee poque de la Contre-Reforme, Il Pensiero Politico 11 (1978), pp. 14568. The notion of the interdependence of noble and state power is now established: see, e.g., Atienza Hernandez, Aristocracia, Poder y Riqueza; and Astarita, Continuity of Feudal Power. 94. The Structure of the Absolute State, in his Neostoicism and the Early Modern State, eds B. Oestreich and H.G. Koenigsberger (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 25872, at p. 262. 95. For which see especially H.G. Koenigsbergers 1975 inaugural lecture, Dominium Regale or Dominium Politicum et Regale: Monarchies and Parliaments in Early Modern Europe, reprinted in the same authors Politicians and Virtuosi: Essays in Early Modern History (London, 1986), pp. 126, esp. pp. 12 et seq., and J.H. Elliott, A Europe of Composite Monarchies, Past and Present 137 (1992), pp. 4871. 96. On this interaction there is much of interest in Wolfgang Reinhard, ed., Power Elites and State Building (Oxford, 1996), especially the essays by Gunner Lind, Great Friends and Small Friends: Clientelism and the Power Elite, and Antoni Mazak, The NobilityState Relationship, pp. 12348 and 189206. 97. There is now a convenient introduction by Michael A.R. Graves, The Parliaments of Early Modern Europe (London, 2001), along with some of the essays in Peter Blickle, ed., Resistance, Representation and Community (Oxford, 1997), an uneven collection which underestimates the continuing role of the nobility. The work of H.G. Koenigsberger remains fundamental: see his numerous articles, conveniently assembled in Estates and Revolutions: Essays in Early Modern European History (Ithaca, 1971) and Politicians and Virtuosi. 98. This was, for example, the case in the Habsburg Monarchy: see the various articles brought together in Daniel Tollet, ed., LEurope des Dites au XVIIe sicle (Paris, 1996); P.G.M. Dickson, Finance and Government under Maria Theresia (2 vols, Oxford, 1987); and the case-study by Christine L. Mueller, The Styrian Estates 17401848: A Century of Transition (New York, 1987). 99. Quoted in Richard Bonney, Society and Government in France under Richelieu and Mazarin, 162461 (London, 1988), p. 76. 100. This is translated in C.A. Macartney, ed., The Habsburg and Hohenzollern Dynasties in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (New York, 1970), p. 332; the original is in Dietrich, ed., Die politischen Testamente, p. 310. 101. Atienza Hernandez, Aristocracia, Poder y Riqueza, pp. 5560. 102. Walther Hubatsch, Frederick the Great: Absolutism and Administration (London, 1975), pp. 4155 passim. 103. Nicolas, La Savoie au 18e sicle, i. 6002. 104. The origin of the concept is Michael Roberts inaugural lecture at Queens University, Belfast, in 1955: The Military Revolution, 15601660, reprinted in the authors Essays in Swedish History (London, 1967), pp. 195225. The most persuasive subsequent views are those of Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 15001800 (Cambridge, 1988) and M.S. Anderson, War and Society in Europe of the Old Regime, 16181789 (London, 1988).
H.M. Scott and Christopher Storrs 59 105. The experience of Spain in the decades around 1600 is an important exception to this generalisation: see I.A.A. Thompson, War and Government in Habsburg Spain 15601620 (London, 1976). 106. See C. Storrs and H.M. Scott, The Military Revolution and the European Nobility 16001800, War in History 3 (1996), 141, on which the following paragraphs are largely based. 107. See volume II, p. 56. 108. Two major studies which demonstrate that this was so in the seventeenthcentury French army are David Parrott, Richelieus Army: War, Government and Society in France, 16241642 (Cambridge, 2001), esp. pp. 31320; Guy Rowlands, The Dynastic State and the Army under Louis XIV (Cambridge, 2002). 109. John P. LeDonne, Absolutism and Ruling Class: The Formation of the Russian Political Order, 17001825 (New York and Oxford, 1991), p. 42. 110. See volume I, Chapter 5. 111. Quoted by C.B.A. Behrens, Society, Government and the Enlightenment: The Experiences of Eighteenth-century France and Prussia (London, 1985), p. 60. 112. See Thomas M. Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy: Essays on War, Society and Government in Austria, 16181780 (Boulder, CO, 1982), Chapter 6. The essays assembled in this collection are a helpful introduction to the nobilitys role in the Habsburg Army. 113. See below, p. 279. 114. Lukowski, European Nobility in the Eighteenth Century, p. 163. 115. See below, Chapter 6. 116. An admirable survey is M.S. Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy 14501919 (London, 1993), pp. 41102. 117. Franois de Callires: The Art of Diplomacy eds H.M.A. Keens-Soper and Karl W. Schweizer (Leicester, 1983), p. 89. 118. Lucien Bly, Espions et ambassadeurs au temps de Louis XIV (Paris, 1990), pp. 291321. 119. Ibid., pp. 29495. 120. Ibid., pp. 291300, passim. For the enduring aristocratic element in Britains foreign service, a minority but a very sizeable and significant one, see D.B. Horn, The British Diplomatic Service 16891789 (Oxford, 1961). 121. This is immediately apparent, for example, from the lists of diplomats printed in the Repertorium der diplomatischen Vertreter aller Lnder 16481815 ed. L. Bittner et al. (3 vols, Berlin, etc., 193665). 122. See the comments of Bly, Espions et ambassadeurs, p. 307. 123. Bly, Espions et ambassadeurs, p. 292. 124. The Court Society (1969; Engl. trans., Oxford, 1983). Eliass work on the Court is the subject of a valuable reassessment by Jeroen Duindam, Myths of Powers: Norbert Elias and the Early Modern European Court (Amsterdam, 1995). 125. The last generations scholarship is valuably surveyed by John Adamson, Introduction: the Making of the Ancien-Rgime Court 15001700, in Adamson, ed., The Princely Courts of Europe: Ritual, Politics and Culture under the Ancien Rgime 15001750 (London, 1999), pp. 741. 126. See in particular the collection edited by Ronald G. Asch and Adolf M. Birke, Princes, Patronage and the Nobility: The Court at the Beginning of the Modern Age c.14501650 (Oxford and London, 1991), the introduction to which (pp. 138) provides a valuable survey of trends in research; cf. also J. von Kruedener, Die Rolle des Hofes in Absolutismus (Stuttgart, 1973); J.-F. Solnon, La cour de
60 The Consolidation of Noble Power in Europe, c.16001800 France (Paris, 1987); and H.C. Ehalt, Audrucksformen absolutistischer Herrschaft: Der Wiener Hof im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1980). See Adamson, Introduction, pp. 1519. Asch, Nobilities in Transition, pp. 12, 3, 87 and Chapter 4 passim. See R.J.W. Evans, The Austrian Habsburgs: The Dynasty as a Political Institution, in A.G. Dickens, ed., The Courts of Europe: Politics, Patronage and Royalty 14001800 (London, 1977), pp. 12145, a fundamental survey; Volker Press, The Imperial Court of the Habsburgs, in Asch and Birke, eds, Princes, Patronage and the Nobility, pp. 289312; and John P. Spielman, The City and the Crown: Vienna and the Imperial Court 16001740 (West Lafayette, IN, 1993). There are some interesting reflections in Walter Demel, European nobility oder European nobilities?: Betrachtungen anhand genalogischer Verflechtungen innerhalb des europischen Hochadels (ca. 16501800), in Wolf D. Gruner and Markus Vlkel, eds, Region Territorium-Nationalstaat-Europa: Festschrift fr Ludwig Hammermayer zum 70. Geburtstag am 7. Oktober 1998 (Rostock, 1998), pp. 81104. I am grateful to Michael Schaich and Markus Mosslang for providing me with a copy of this article.
127. 128. 129.
130.
Index
In this index there are major entries for the nobilities of each country covered by this volume, with many sub-headings related to each nobility. There are also entries on major themes in the study of nobilities so that the reader can compare the situation in different countries. For kings and queens listed in the index, regnal dates are given. For individuals birth and death dates are given. absolutism, 2, 35, 36, 40, 80, 316 France, 134, 150, 181, 184, 185, 190 Spain, 232, 234, 246 Academies, in Italian peninsula, 315 Act of Union (1707), 65 Act of Union (1801), 65, 86 agriculture Britain, 84 Dutch Republic, 101 France, 150, 163, 164 Italian peninsula, 2878, 300 Spain, 234, 241 alcabalas, 213, 214 Allgemeines Landrecht, Prussian Law Code (1794), 16 allodial, xi, 304 ambtsjonkers, 98, 106 American revolt, impact of British nobility, 845 Anglo-Scottish marriages, 689 Anne, Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland (170214), 64, 76, 78, 80, 81 Aragon, nobility in, 191, 197, 199, 243 Argenson, Marc-Pierre de Voyer de Paulmy, comte d (16961764), 159, 166 aristocracy, 212 in Britain, 612, 724, 801, 849 in Dutch Republic, 945, 11520 in France, 12733, 156, 160 in Italian peninsula, 312, 31316 in Portugal, 25661, 27881 in Spain, 194203, 20710, 245; hierarchy of, 20310, 211 army, 406 cost of, 44 ennoblement, 445 impact of casualties, 434 impact of conscript armies, 40, 41 increased need for officers, 412 material rewards, 45 military academies, 456 army, and the role of nobility in Britain, 756, 889 in Dutch Republic, 1078 in France, 1501, 159, 167, 1789, 182, 184 in the Italian peninsula, 307 in Portugal, 279 in Spain, 2012, 206, 21920 Association for the Preservation of Liberty and Property against Republicans and Levellers, 85 attainder, bill of, 80 aulic aristocracy, 39 authority, decline of, 61 banalits, 164 bandos, 221 baronet, 63 barons, 144 Bjar, dukes of, 30, 212, 214, 223, 225, 226, 227, 229 Belle-Isle, Charles Louis Fouquet, duc de (16841761), 161, 171, 174, 183 Bentinck, Willem, 100 Bohemian rebellion (161820), 1819 Bologna, nobility in, 295 Bourbon rule, in Spain, 2326 bourgeoisie Britain, 834 Dutch Republic, 116, 117 France, 131, 158 Spain, 242 Bragana dynasty, 258, 263, 270, 276, 278, 280
336
Index Brederode, Johan Wolfert van (15991655), 13 British nobility, 6193 changing composition of, 878 commerce, involvement in, 804 components of, 657 constitutional position, 73, 759 definition of, 627 education of, 6970 finances of, 63, 856 further reading, 3245 growth after 1776, 867 inheritance, 62, 63, 75, 80 judicial rights, 74 marriage between peerages, 67, 689, 82 privileges of, 745 relations between the peerages, 66 size of, 623, 689, 70, 71 threats to, 849 see also English nobility; Irish nobility; Scottish nobility Brunner, Otto (18981982), 3, 4 bureaucracies, 36 bureaucratic monarchy, theory of, in France, 134 Bureaux des Finances, 158 Burke, Edmund (172997), 85 Bute, John Stuart, 3rd earl of (171392), 86 caballeros, 191, 2046, 207, 288 hidalgo, 205 municipal government, 2212 as an urban lite, 206 cardinals, French, status of, 1412 Carnarvon, earls of, 65 Carr, Robert, earl of Somerset (c.15901645), 67 Cars, Jean Franois de Perusse, duc des (17471822), 1756, 184, 187 Castile, nobility in, 191, 192, 199200, 243 establishment of, 1956, 197 seorial dues, 213, 215 Catalonia, nobility in, 191, 199, 235, 243 establishment of, 197 Chambre des Comptes, 158 Charles I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland (162549), 71, 73
337
Charles II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland (166085), 68, 71, 72 Charles II, King of Spain (16651700), 199, 200, 205, 206, 211, 219, 231, 232 Charles III, King of Spain (175988), 219, 233, 234, 237, 240, 246 chiusura, in Italian peninsula, 290 Choiseul, tienne Franois, duc de (171985), 171, 178, 180, 183 city-states, 286, 290, 294, 313 Civil Wars in England, and effect on nobility, 70, 71, 77 class, 9 clientage, 234 France, 13440 Spain, 221 Code Napolon, and equal inheritance, 80 commenderies, Portuguese, 2645 commerce, involvement of nobility in, 18 Britain, 804 Dutch Republic, 11819 France, 131, 145, 147, 16870 Italian peninsula, 287, 299303 Portugal, 260 Spain, 2402 comtes, 144 conspicuous consumption, 27, 1712 Corn Laws, 1845, and threat to nobility, 81 Cortes, Portuguese, 258, 259, 261, 263, 280 Cortes, Spanish, 193, 200, 202, 204, 216, 222, 223, 230, 236, 237 corve, 164 Council of State, Spanish, 233 Cour des Aides, 158 cour des pairs, 128 Court of Wards, abolition of, 74 Court, nobility at, 4851, 209, 221, 228 Britain, 67, 68, 79 Dutch Republic, 105, 106, 117 France, 130, 134, 1445, 146, 150, 158, 161, 1667, 184 Italian peninsula, 295, 298, 307 Portuguese, 261 Savoy, 307 Sicily, 298 Spain, 209, 221, 228, 288 Tuscany, 294
338 Index Court, royal, size of, 49 Courts, noble, 501 Crown, first ministers of, 76 dAiguillon, Emmanuel-Armand de Vignerot du Plessis de Richelieu, duc (172088), 160, 167 definition of nobility Britain, 627 Dutch Republic, 947 France, 12733, 161 Italian peninsula, 286, 28991, 293, 2945 Portugal, 25661 Savoy, 293 Spain, 191 Tuscany, 2945 derogation, xi, 18 Britain, lack of, 64, 81 France, 131, 147, 169 Italian peninsula, 290 Spain, 197 drogeance, see derogation diplomacy, role of nobility in, 468 France, 151 Don, in Spain, 200 Don family, and decline in Venetian commerce, 3012 dowry, 13, 31 France, 1745 Spain, 224 Drenthe, 102, 104 decline of nobility, 98 political influence in, 11112 ducs et pairs, 5, 13, 223, 43, 1434 ducs non pairs, 1434 Dutch nobility, 94126 anatomy of, 97100 commerce, involvement in, 11819 concept of, 11617 decline of, 978, 114 definition of, 947 education of, 117, 118 finances of, 1018 further reading, 3256 income from land rents, 1023 lack of homogeneity, 99 lack of new creations, 97, 100, 116 lifestyle of, 118 marriage in, 99, 118 moving between provinces, 100 privileges, 90, 98, 99, 116 provincial base, 1067, 116 provincial differences, 99 regents, 120, 122 size of, 978, 122 social prestige, 11516 titles, 99 Dutch provinces decline of nobility in, 978 noble landholdings in, 102 political influence in, 1068 Dutch Republic, 120 economic development, 117, 120 influence of nobility, 946 Dutch Revolt, role of nobility, 95 ecclesiastical peers Britain, 62 France, 143 education of the nobility Britain, 6970 Dutch Republic, 117, 118 France, 177 Italian peninsula, 315 Portugal, 269 Spain, 219 Egmont, earls of, 66 Elgin, earls of, 68 Elizabeth I, Queen of England (15581603), 71 emphyteutic leases, 274 endogamy, ix Dutch nobility, 118 France, 176 Portugal, 2678, 270 English Civil Wars (16428), 19, 702 English dukes, increase in, 701 English gentry, 635 English knighthoods, 64 English nobility, 623, 65 ascendancy of, 724 differentiated from the gentry, 635 growth in new creations, 71 guardians of constitution, 73 size of, 623, 70 Enlightenment, the, 52, 61, 119, 186, 189, 194, 2378, 239, 306, 315
Index ennoblement, 1516 Dutch republic, 100 France, 128, 129, 130, 131, 158, 159, 190 Italian peninsula, 293 Spain, 195, 197, 199, 201, 202, 203, 222, 237, 23940 entail, 324 Britain, 80 Italian peninsula, 303, 3045 Portuguese, 261, 274, 278 Spain, 204, 21011 pe, see noblesse dpe Epernon, duc d, 137 Estates General, 128, 144, 157, 184, 185, 186, 187, 190 estates, landed, 245, 2930 Eszterhzy family, 23, 29, 30, 51 tat de la France (1676) and disputed membership of the royal family, 141 tats-gnraux, see Estates General tats, provincial, 144, 147, 152, 153 Eton, 70, 89 exogamy, xi, 82 extinction, threat of, 1314 false nobles, 16, 17 famiglia, meaning of, 291 family, 4, 1213, 256 France, 1723, 1801 Italian peninsula, 3045 Portuguese, 26570 Spain, 210 family histories, 3 fedecommesso, xi, 302 feudal levy, 401 feudalism Dutch Republic, 99, 108, 110, 112 Italian peninsula, 288, 293, 294, 296, 2978, 299, 301, 303, 304, 307, 316 Spain, 197, 202, 218, 223, 230, 235 fidalgo, 2567, 258, 259, 2601 fidalguia, 261 fideicommissum, 302, 303, 304 Fideikommiss, xi finances of nobility, 2434 Britain, 63, 856 Dutch Republic, 1018 economic problems around 1600, 268
339
economic recovery after 1660, 2930 France, 14550, 1623, 1867 loans, 289 Portugal, 2645, 2706 Spain, 198, 203, 207, 214, 2245, 2312, 235 State incomes, 28 First Estate, 7 fiscal privileges, 11 Florentine Republic, 294, 3001 France differences between north and south, 148, 14950 office, purchase of, 128, 133, 1478, 151, 1589, 167 see also French nobility fraterna, and inheritance, 303 Frederick II, King of Prussia, the Great (174086), 34, 38, 42, 43, 44 Frederick William I, Elector of Brandenburg, the Great Elector (164088), 39 freemasonry, 173, 1867 French Court, 4950 French language, spread of, 51 French nobility, 12789 careers of, 17781 commerce, involvement in, 131, 145, 147, 16870 conspicuous consumption of, 1701 debt, 171 decline of, from 1700, 1578, 159 definition of, 12730, 161 education of, 177 false claims, 16 finances of, 14550, 1623, 1867 further reading, 3269 gambling, 171 government, 35 hierarchy within, 1435 industrial and commercial activity, 16870 inheritance, 128, 133, 143, 14950, 174 lifestyle of, 1303, 1678, 1703 marriage, 132, 13440, 141, 153, 1737, 180 and the monarchy, 132, 134, 1667, 1834, 190 patronage, 13440
340 Index French nobility continued and the peasantry, 164, 1656 pedigree, 161 poverty in, 1623 power of, 1504, 1819 privileges of, 129, 144 provincial administration, 1514 purchase of office, 128, 133, 1478, 151, 1589 registration of, 1434 size of, 63, 127, 1568 social status, 1312 taxation, 1856 titles of, 128, 1405 wealth of, 14550, 160, 161, 16270 wealth, disparity of, 1623 see also noblesse; noblesse dpe; noblesse de robe French Revolution, 52, 156, 1889 impact on British nobility, 85, 88 impact on Italian nobility, 316 Friesland decline of nobility, 97 political influence in, 99, 106, 11213 Gelderland, 101, 106 decline of nobility, 98 political influence in, 99, 11011 Generality, the, in Dutch Republic, 107 Genoa, nobility of, 287, 288, 290, 291, 300 gentiluomini, 288 gentleman, concept of, 63 gentry, English, 635 and commerce, 823 gentry-peerage conjunction, in England, 63 George I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland (171427), 75, 78 George II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland (172760), 71, 72, 78 George III, King of England, Scotland and Ireland (17601820), 76, 79 Glorious Revolution, 62, 70, 71, 72, 80 government, growth of, 356 government, nobilitys role in, 3440 Britain, 724, 759 Dutch Republic, 989, 106, 10815 France, 1504, 1819 Italian peninsula, 30613 Portugal, 276, 279 Spain, 206, 21623, 2301, 2323 Granada, 199 grand matre de la garderobe, 142 Grand Tour, 47, 51, 31516 grand veneur, 142 grandees in Italian peninsula, 288 Portuguese, 2615, 2708, 279 Spanish, 191, 20810, 217, 21819, 223, 231, 232, 246 Grandeza, 263, 264 Groningen, 100 decline of nobility, 978 land holdings, 102 political influence in, 99, 106, 107, 112 wealth of nobility, 104 Groningen, Ommelanden of, 98, 107, 112 The Hague, 106 Hamilton, dukes of, 66, 68 havezaten, 98 heerlijkheden, 99 Henri IV, King of France (15891610), 1367 Henry VIII, King of England (150947), 62 hereditary descent, 80 hidalgo, 62, 191, 192, 199200, 207, 288 caballero, 205 critique of, 23840 pechero, 2001 sociological variation, 192 hidalgua, 191, 193, 195, 196, 197, 199, 2003, 205, 207, 23840, 2435 hierarchy, in French nobility, 131, 1405 hobereaux, 62 Hohberg, Wolf Helmhard von (161288), 4 Holland, 94, 101, 105 decline of nobility, 97 political influence in, 956, 99, 1089 Holy Roman Empire, 287 honneur, 131, 132 House of Commons, 65, 66, 68, 71, 778, 81 influence of peerage in, 767
Index House of Lords, 62, 65, 66, 67, 70, 745, 81, 867 defeats, 778 re-establishment of, 72 reduced influence of, 767 House, concept of, 1213 Hungarian nobility, false claims, 16 industrial activity and the nobility in France, 16870 industrialisation, 52 inheritance practice, 9, 13, 314, 21011 Britain, 62, 63, 75, 80 France, 128, 133, 143, 14950, 174 Italian peninsula, 3026 Portugal, 263, 26570 intendant, 163, 165, 170, 172, 182 Irish nobility, 657 representation in Parliament, 65, 667 Irish Parliament, 667 Italian nobility, 286321 autonomy, loss of, 316 commerce, involvement in, 287, 299303 concept of, 31316 criteria, diversity of, 290, 2919 culture, 306 Curia, 289 decline in commercial activity, 299303 definition of, 286, 28991 diversity of, 286 economic crisis of seventeenth century, 299303 education of, 315 family structure, 3045 feudal power, in Naples, 2978 further reading, 3335 grandees, 288 increased land ownership, 299300 influence of Spain, 288, 30910 inheritance, 3026 Knights of Malta and proof of noble status, 290, 314 local nobilities, 31213 marriage in, 3045 Papacy, 286, 289, 316 political involvement, 306
341
privileges of, 31415 religious-military orders, 31415 size of, 2919 titles in, 288, 296 Italian peninsula, political overview, 2869, 306 Italian peninsula, states of, 285, 2867, 2919 Jacobite risings, and reduction of Scottish nobility, 65 James II, King of England (James VII of Scotland) (16858), 68, 72 James VI and I, King of Scotland (15671625), King of England (160325), 67, 71 Jefferson, Thomas (17431826), 84 John IV, King of Portugal (164056), 258, 280 John VI, King of Portugal (17921816), 262, 264 Johnson, Dr Samuel, and the decline of authority, 61 jonkers, 99 juridical privileges, 10 jurisdictions, private, 10 juros, 204, 214 Knights of Malta, Order of, and Italian nobility, 290 La Rochefoucauld, duc de, 1423, 145 land ownership, 8, 2431 Britain, 7980, 81, 878 Dutch Republic, 1013, 106, 117 France, 145, 147, 1489, 163 Italian peninsula, 2878, 299 Portugal, 274 Spain, 213, 214, 225, 235 landdag, 98 Langres, bishop of, 143 latifundia, 241, 288 Le Cid (1637), 132 Lei Mental, 263, 281n lesser nobility, loss of status, 17 Libro doro, 291, 294, 311, 312 life peerages, in Britain, 87 lifestyle, 278 limpieza de sangre, 1989, 2012 local privileges, 12
342 Index Longueville, Henri II dOrlans, duc de (d. 1663), 141 Lord Chancellors, 76 Lords Lieutenants, 76 Louis XIII, King of France (161043), 132, 133, 138, 139, 141 Louis XIV, King of France (16431715), 23, 35, 38, 43, 46, 47, 48, 49, 132, 133, 136, 140, 141, 142, 143, 146, 147, 151, 155, 181, 1845 Louis XV, King of France (171574), 161, 166, 183 Louis XVI, King of France (177493), 183, 188 Lucca, nobility of, 287, 290, 2912, 300, 303 maggiorasco, xi majorat, xi Manners, Lord, 87 Mantua, nobility of, 287, 2934 marchal de France, 150 marquis, 144 marriage and the nobility, 13, 32 Britain, 67, 689, 82 Dutch Republic, 99, 118 France, 132, 13440, 141, 153, 1737, 180 Italian peninsula, 3045 Portugal, 2668, 270 Spain, 206, 224 Mawbey, Sir Joseph, 82 mayorazgo, xixii, 204, 21011, 236, 2378 msalliance, 17, 18, 43 mezzadria, 287 Milan, nobility in, 2956, 3023 political involvement in, 30911 militarization, 44 Military Orders Portugal, 257, 260, 261, 263, 264, 271, 280 Spain, 193, 196, 197, 200, 2012, 205, 211, 217, 220, 228, 239, 246 military power, decline of, 41 Military Revolution, 40, 46 ministers, French, 1323, 142, 167, 183 Modena, nobility in, 294 monarchy, relationship with nobility, 38, 39, 44 Britain, 73 France, 132, 13440, 141 Murray, Sir Patrick, 678 Nantes, Edict of (1598), 137 Naples, feudal power in, 2978 Naples, nobility in, 2968 Napoleon Bonaparte (17691821), Emperor of France (180415), 61, 188 Nelson, Horatio, Viscount Nelson (17581805), 79 Niddry, Lord, 87 nobilities, routes into, 20 nobility, 160 capacity for leadership, 42 concept of, 719 concept of, in Spain, 1945, 197 distribution within countries, 21 diversity of, 20 historical phenomenon, 1 and the monarchy, 38, 39, 44 neglect of study of, 2 origins of, 78 problems with source material, 23 replenishment of, 14 scholarly study of, 37 terminology, 9 unified group, 23 nobility and monarchy, 38 nobility, new creations Britain, 62, 656, 702 Dutch Republic, 97, 100 France, 128, 143, 1589 nobility, promotion within Britain, 67 France, 133 noblesse, 7, 144, 156, 157, 158, 168, 174, 179, 181, 182, 185, 18690 categorization of, 15962, 170 conflict with monarchical power, 132 definition of, 128, 131, 132, 133, 161, 190 French Enlightenment, 1867 French Revolution, 188, 189 increasingly urban-based, 165, 190 indigence in, 1623 inheritance, 174 innovations in admissions, 159
Index joining through usurption, 157 pedigree, 161 provincial, 1723 sale of, 133 size of, disputed, 1568 wealth of, disparities in, 1623 noblesse de cloche, 1589 noblesse dpe, 35, 127, 1289, 130, 1312, 146, 149, 150, 153, 159, 161, 178 cooperation with noblesse de robe, 129, 155 diplomacy, 151 land ownership, 1489 lifestyle, 1701, 172 marriage, 176 military command, 1501 opposition to rise of noblesse de robe, 1289, 130 provincial administration, 153 noblesse de robe, 95, 127, 1289, 1301, 132, 144, 146, 149, 150, 1535, 159, 161, 178, 182 friction with noblesse des finances, 160 land ownership, 1489 lifestyle, 1712 marriage, 176 members of the Third Estate, 144 provincial administration, 153, 155 noblesse des finances, 159, 176 noblewomen in French nobility, 133, 17980 in Italian peninsula, 305 Northumberland, earldom of, survival of, 75 officer corps, and nobility, 42, 43 Olivares, Gaspar de Guzmn, Count-Duke of (15871645), ministry of, 219, 223, 2256, 2301 Orange monarchy, 100 Orange, princes of, 105, 11415, 119, 122 influence in provinces, 10913 restoration of power, 11314 survival of the nobility, 11617 Order of the Golden Fleece, 315 Orlans, Jean Baptiste Gaston, duc d (160860), 1389 Overijssel, 98, 101, 102 political influence in, 99, 111
343
padrones, 195, 196 Paine, Thomas (17371809), 84, 85 Palmerston, Lord, and support for primogeniture, 80 Papacy, and Italian nobility, 286, 289, 316 Papal States, nobility in, 287, 288, 295, 297, 300, 306, 316 Paris, parlement of, 129, 130, 140, 141, 143, 144, 151, 152 parlements, 129, 132, 140, 1434, 153, 155, 158, 160, 165, 169, 172, 185, 186, 18990 Parliament, British, 734 Parma, nobility in, 294 partible inheritance, xii, 312, 80 patriciates, in Italian peninsula, 287, 290, 299, 30711, 31213, 314 patrilinear inheritance, in Italian peninsula, 303 patrimony, Portuguese, 2708 Patriot movement, and Dutch nobility, 114, 119 patronage, 234 Britain, 108 Dutch Republic, 115 France, 133, 13440 Spain, 221, 231 Spain, Royal, 21718 paulette legislation (1604), 147, 148 pays dlections, 1513, 172 land tax, 148 pays dtats, 1513, 172 land tax, 148 peasantry, 288, 299 French, 1646, 175, 185 Spanish, 192, 199, 213, 226, 231, 232, 2346 pechero, 2001, 202 Peerage Bill (1719), defeat of, 779, 81 Philip II, King of Spain (155698), 199, 216, 226 Philip III, King of Spain (15981621), 193, 200, 226 Philip IV, King of Spain (162165), 199, 200, 206, 216, 224, 229, 232, 234, 238, 239, 262 Philip V, King of Spain(170046), 219, 221, 233, 234 plooierijen, 114
344 Index political influence of nobility, see government, nobilitys role in political privileges, 910 Pombal, Sebastio Jose de Carvalho e Mello, Marqus de (16991782), 260, 263, 278, 280 Portuguese independence, and loss of noble status, 19 Portuguese nobility, 25685 absentee landlords, 274 commerce, involvement in, 260 commoners, 259 court nobility, 257 crown grants of titles, 264, 281n the crown, as source of income, 2701, 278 definition of, 25661 education of, 269 evolution of, 2567 finances of, 265, 2708 further reading, 3323 grandees, 2615, 2708, 279 growth of, 25860, 261 House as element of noble identification, 2689 inheritance, 263, 26570 jurisdictional powers, 276 lesser nobility, 257, 25860 liberal reform, 2801 living expenses, 276, 277 marriage in, 2668, 270 monarchical control, 257 preservation of, 280 privileges of, 258, 259 service to monarch, 27881 size of, 2614 stability of, 2623, 270 titles in, 257, 262, 263 and treason, 19 undermining of, 260 precedence, in French nobility, 1405 primogeniture, xii, 14, 32 Britain, 62, 80 France, 149 Italian peninsula, 302, 3034 princes du sang, 141 princes trangers, 141, 142 privileges, basis of nobility, 912 Britain, 745 Dutch Republic, 96, 98, 99, 116 France, 129, 144 Italian peninsula, 31415 Portugal, 258, 259 Spain, 1934 provincial administration, 36, 37 French nobility, 1513 public office, 10 raadpensionaris, 109 Radnor, earls of, 65 realengo, 211, 228 rebellion, and loss of status, 1819 recherches de la noblesse, 16, 17 refeudalism, 299 Spain, 202, 223, 230 Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), 85 regal union in Britain (16031707), 6770 regency, periods of in France, and patronage, 1378, 13940 regents, in Dutch society, 94, 95, 97, 1206 considered as nobility, 1246 wealth of, 123 registration of peerages in France, 1434 rentiers, 166 representative assemblies, 37 Italian peninsula, 297, 299 see also Cortes, Portuguese; Cortes, Spanish; Estates General; tats, provincial; House of Commons; House of Lords; ridderschap Restoration, the, 70, 71, 74, 75, 77 Restoration, War of (164068), 258, 2623 Richelieu, Armand Jean du Plessis, cardinal de (15851642), 133, 1389 ridderhofsteden, 98 ridderschap, 98, 100, 105, 107, 108 The Rights of Man (17912), 85 robin, see noblesse de robe Roman Catholic Church, 10 France, 182 Italian peninsula, 289, 310 Portugal, 26970, 279 Spain, 206, 211, 218, 220 Roxane (1637), 132 Russell, fortunes of family, 71
Index St Petersburg, 50 Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvray, duc de (16751755), 143, 161, 183, 184 Savoy, Duchy of, nobility of, 286, 288, 293, 297, 307 Scottish nobility, 65, 66, 6770, 86 British titles, 86 decline of, 69 English education, 6970 integrated into English nobility, 679 representatives in the House of Lords, 65, 66 size of, 689 Second Estate, see nobility secrtaire du roi, 158 Sgur, Louis Philippe, comte de (17531820), 734 Sgur Law, 42 seigneurial system, 1645 seigneuries, Portuguese, 264 seigneurs, 144, 1645 seoro, 21115, 235 abolition of, 236 Bourbon reform, 234 elements of, 21213 extension of, 228 hostility to, 2367 jurisdictional, 236 purchase of offices, 229 re-seorialization, 22930 reaction against, 227 service nobilities, 15 Sicily, nobility in, 298 size, of nobilities, 20 Britain, 623, 689, 70, 71 Dutch Republic, 978, 122 France, 63, 127, 1568 Italian peninsula, 2919 Portugal, 2614 Spain, 192, 199, 207 Smith, Adam (172390), 82 social privileges, 1112 Society for Constitutional Information, 85 Somerset, earl of, see Carr, Robert, earl of Somerset (c.15901645) Spanish nobility, 191255 admission into, 199200, 201, 202, 233, 23940
345
changing nature of, 207, 209, 21617, 233 closure of, 202 commerce, involvement in, 2402 concept of, 1945, 196, 1989 crisis of, 22332 decline of military power, 21920 definition of, 191 education of, 219 finances of, 198, 203, 207, 214, 2245, 2312, 235 further reading, 32932 grandees, 191, 20810, 217, 21819, 223, 231, 232, 246 growth of, 2067 increase in power, 22930 landlord, absentee, 214, 235 lifestyle, 235, 2401 limpieza, 1989 local authority of, 2212, 223 marriage, 206, 224 metropolitization of, 223 modernization of, 2467 opposition to, 2379 privileges of, 1934 provincial nobility, 1912, 209 purchase of titles, 2067 rank, 201 royal authority, 21618, 2256, 232 size of, 192, 199, 207 status, 2001, 203 taxation, 193, 194, 224, 2256 titles in, 191, 204, 207 wealth of, 211 Spanish Succession, War of (170114), 232, 233, 239 special remainder, 75, 78 stadhouder, 107, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 115, 122, 124 State-administered justice, growth of, 10 States General, 108 States of Holland, 108, 109, 115, 1201 status, 1516 fraudulent assumption of, 16 loss of, 1719 noble, 8 status of nobility, how acquired Italian peninsula, 290, 307 Portugal, 258, 25960, 261 Spain, 195203, 23940
346 Index Stirling, earls of, 68 stratification of nobility, 213 strict settlement, xii, 33, 59 structure, of nobilities Dutch Republic, 99 France, 1405, 15962 Italian peninsula, 288, 2919 Portugal, 2578, 2602 Spain, 193, 20110, 246 Tuscany, 2945 Swift, Jonathan, and rise of commerce, 81 szlachta, 623 Tables of Rank, 15 taille personnelle, 11, 148 taille relle, 148, 185 taxation, exemption from, 11 taxation, growth in, 35 tercias, 213, 214 terriers, 165 Third Estate, 7, 144, 156, 157, 158, 168, 181, 187, 188, 190 titles, 8, 223 Dutch Republic, 99 France, 128, 1405 Italian peninsula, 288, 296 Portugal, 257; granting of, 262, 263 Spain, 191, 204, 207 titulo, 191, 204, 206, 207 treason, and loss of status, 1819 Tuscany, Grand Duchy of, nobility in, 2945 political involvement, 3079 urban lite, in Dutch Republic, 1206 urbanization, in Britain, 83 Utrecht, 98, 99, 110 Valencia, nobility in, 191, 199, 235, 243 seorial dues, 213, 215 venal office, 1289, 151 vnalit, 128, 160, 181 Venice, nobility of, 287, 292, 3012, 304 political involvement, 31112 vicomtes, 144 Vienna, 50 vivant noblement, 131, 147, 148 Wales, lack of independent nobility, 65 Walpole, Sir Robert, Earl of Oxford (16761745), 76, 789 Waterloo, battle of (1815), 89 wealth of nobility, 243 Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of (17691852), 89 Welsh titles, 65 William III, stadhouder of United Provinces (16721702), King of England, Scotland and Ireland (16891702), 110, 111, 114, 119 Zamoyski landholding, 2930 Zeeland, 98, 99, 10910

The Consolidation of Noble Power in Europe

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Contents

vi vii viii ix xi 1 61 94 127 156 191

The Consolidation of Noble Power in Europe, c.16001800

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