The exercise of arms had been an intrinsic element in proving a noble’s worth but after 1500 “letters were often disassociated from arms and proved a far more certain road to wealth and nobility that the life of the warrior” and an education became as important as military prowess had been previously. This is another example of the nobility being forced to adapt to the social pressures of the period. As the middle classes grew they forced the nobility to change its outlook and modernise to keep up with the rest of society or become diminished and backwards. Educational standards also enabled the nobles to be “judged by the universal standards of achievement rather than birth”. This demonstrates the changing attitudes of the lower classes as they began to require justification of the nobility’s high status.
The nobility’s high social position was confirmed by their privileges, which “firmly distinguished noble from commoner”. These included fiscal advantages, such as being exempt from taxation, judicial privileges, their exclusion from menial work within state service, their political right to a seat in the House of Lords and honours such as a coat of arms and an allowance to carry a sword in public. The political privileges were slowly eroded during the period 1500-1789 as well-educated ‘commoners’, usually having received a university education in law, took over posts within the state administration. These high positions were no longer reserved exclusively for the nobility and they now could only be sure of a seat in the House of Lords as proof of their political privilege.
Although the crown aimed to reduce the privileges held by the nobility, it realised that out of practical necessity it would not be possible to entirely remove the nobility from government. The “battering” which parliamentary privileges received under an absolutist monarchy, was assuaged by the crown’s respect for reserved office and the noble’s right to represent their tenants in parliament. However eighteenth century administrators realised that the burden the nobility placed on the peasants reduced their ability to support the state through taxation and took such actions as the abolishment of serfdom, led on the continent by Savoy in 1772. The French Kings even refused to convene their estates in 1615 and ruled without them for 175 years, imposing significant taxes on the nobles in 1695. This lack of observance of the nobility’s fiscal privileges served to widen the gap between the monarchy and the aristocracy.
From 1500 onwards the nobility in central and Eastern Europe managed to secure a series of important legal changes, all of which led to the growth of the nobles’ power. They increasingly dominated local administration and justice with the result that the peasants under their dominion could not escape or find justice from their rule. The governments in this area of Europe were generally weak and therefore granted the demands of the nobility in order to ensure their cooperation. By 1700 the aristocracy in eastern Germany, Poland, Denmark and Bohemia were all very powerful.
Spain also witnessed the expansion of seigniorial power in this period. The monarchy sold grants of ennoblement and used the growth of privileges to raise money. “The crown’s weakness gave to the Lords monopolies, extensive regulatory powers and the right to levy rents and taxes over peasant subjects”. For example by the early seventeenth century three quarters of all the law courts in Catalonia were under the nobility’s direct control. Ruiz believes that the nobility’s social status might have increased over the early modern period but their influence over political, military and economical affairs decreased, as is seen to be the case in other Western European countries. However this was compensated for with an increase in income through royal largesse. The Spanish aristocracy was also treated leniently in the case of law breaking; they could not be tortured and were imprisoned in separate institutions from the rest of the populace. The Spanish nobility’s social position was therefore very secure in this period, even though this was at the expense of its political influence.
Most of Western Europe saw “the erosion of Lordship, its steady loss of power and economic significance” The concept of property was changing. The decline of feudalism was followed by the rise of a more capitalistic approach to land in that the nobility aimed to gain wealth from their domains, not influence over the men who dwelled there. The barony of Pont St. Pierre in France received 90% of revenue from feudal sources in 1400 and only 11% in 1780, while the revenue from the lands and forest had grown to 89%, a complete reversal The nobility were able to greatly expand their domains during the early modern period through purchase of church lands after the Reformation, confiscated lands, the monarchy selling their own estates and the property of the European peasants at the expense of the peasants themselves. This happened to the greatest extent in England and was vital in ensuring that the nobility was able to keep up with economical developments. The decay of feudalism was not the death warrant of the aristocracy. However it did decrease the traditional loyalty shown to the Lords in their country seats, as the “centre of the community” as feudal tenures disappeared and tenants became less dependant on their lords”the tenants became less dependent on them.
The nobility as it was in 1500 did not survive the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Instead they adapted to the social, economic and political changes during that period to emerge as a more modern and stable class. The aristocracy had become less dependant on feudal tenures as they were gradually abolished and instead derived its wealth from the land. The social gap between the upper and lower classes decreased. The nobility began to be judged by the same standards as commoners, in behaviour and ideology. Their political privileges within the state system were eroded, although the monarchies of Europe accepted that social hierarchy must be maintained and did not exempt them entirely. There was a marked difference between the power of the nobility in Eastern Europe and Western Europe, due mostly to the greater strength of the monarchies in the west. By 1789 there was no question of the death of the nobility; they had survived situations which could have led to their collapse and while their social and political positions were somewhat diminished, they were still a secure class in Europe.
Bibliography
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Bush, M.L., Social Orders and Social Classes in Europe Since 1500: Studies in Social Stratification (1992)
Bush, M.L., Noble Privilege (1983)
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Scott, H.M., The European Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Vol. 1: Western Europe (1995) p.8.
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