What is nobility

Question

What is nobility

4 Answers

Best answer

Hi Allan, can you edit to make the footnote visible? :)

The first point to make is that this terminology was not always the same in every country, and was not fixed for most of the middle ages. Dukes in the very early middle ages were consciously using a Roman term and in some cases the word was used to avoid calling someone a king. (Burgundy, Aquitania, Alemania had their own kings, and the Franks took over and replaced them with Dukes.)

The original counts and earls were at least clearly defined, but they were administrators appointed by kings or emperors, not even hereditary positions. They gradually became hereditary by force as much as anything, not a theory of nobility. All the other titles developed slowly over time and started with ideas that did not involve any clear theory about ranking people.

The idea that there were ranks to these things, which could be registered, and which would include lower down folk like barons and knights (originally quite inexact words that could be used by people of very wide ranges of rank) really only developed quite late in the middle ages, and more in the early modern era.

So in Wikitree we have to be careful of anachronism, and of confusing the systems of different countries and different periods. A lot of the time when people use these terms they are referring to periods when the terms were not necessarily being used in the way we might expect.

answered Mar 3, 2017 by Andrew Lancaster G2G6 Pilot (142k points)
selected Mar 3, 2017 by Cynthia Rushing

Thanks Andrew. Yes basically we are talking about the same thing. I had not seen your previous G2G. Perhaps together we can get Euroaristo leaders to sort this out.

Using their definitions:-

*Royals are/were the monarchs and their immediate family. See the following Wiki article re: royalty:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_family

*Nobles are/were the highest social class and generally held land or an office in exchange for allegiance and services to a monarch or higher-ranking nobleman. See the following Wiki article re: nobility: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobility

*Aristocrats are/were persons with elevated social status and generally held titles granted by a monarch. See the following Wiki article re: aristocracy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristocracy_(class)

*Gentry are/were persons with elevated social status, often called ladies and gentlemen, without titles or coats of arms. See the following Wiki article re: gentry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentry

It is too wide a catchment for one template what about one each.

commented Mar 4, 2017 by Allan Stuart G2G6 Mach 2 (27.7k points)

Perhaps clearer instructions could help.

The definition of gentry might not be very clear above. I would think many gentry would have claimed to have a family coat of arms, to be esquires, lords of manors, maybe even knights. It was quite an amorphous leftover group, that changed over time, but in reality normally quite distinct from aristocracy.

It was approximately the relatives of the aristocracy! They developed lesser titles and rules as time went on, but I think were never really the same as aristocracy.

Concerning the cut-off for aristocracy, I see we mention the monarch granting those titles, but we should keep in mind that this started at different times in different countries, and before then we have categories like the English "Barons" (as they came to be called) - clearly important people, but not necessarily because any monarch wanted them to be. There are often books which try to help us draw a line between barons and non-barons in those periods.

commented Mar 4, 2017 by Andrew Lancaster G2G6 Pilot (142k points)

Answer 1 · 2017-03-06T02:15:14+0000

Hi Allan, I think this might be a case of categories vs projects.

The terminology of Nobility changes both across nations and through time. See https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:European_Nobility for the European classifications. For the British Nobility see: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:British_Nobility.

In Britain the Nobility are normally categorised into Peerages which can be found linked from that page. Again the terminology changed over time eg from c. Edward I to Edward III there were different classifications of Knights and in Scotland post c. 16th Century Barons were no longer Lords.

Hence, if looking to categorise a noble please follow the categorisation rules and attribute the person to the appropriate category level.

However the template you mention relates to a Project, specifically the Euroaristo project dealing with British Isles 1500 to present. These are profiles that the project deems relevant to their study. In this case https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Project:British_Isles_Royals_and_Aristocrats_1500-Present The project generally takes a broad view over inclusion to ensure that effort is placed on Profiles that are important to the integrity of the tree. Some are deemed so important we project protect them to force collaboration. Thus you will see Profiles that are part of the project but may not, in themselves, be noble.

answered Mar 6, 2017 by Doug Straiton G2G6 Mach 2 (23.0k points)

Hi Doug, Andrew and John,

Doug I used the Question Title What is Nobility as a lead in to a point about the Template member of royalty, nobility or aristocracy in the British Isles and its use. As you know from a previous G2G thread I have concerns about the use or rather misuse of Templates. This point may well involve categories but my question was about a Template. In a reply above I also included the Euroaristo definitions to clarify matters.

Andrew, I agree with your reply to Doug it is a major point for discusion as many P.M. 's are adding templates to people who clearly do not fit the description but are included because they may be gentry. I also thought that this type of Template was for Historical use only, very strange when you see it on a Profile of a living PM.

John, Thanks for your input and although it is applicable to the overall picture it is clearly not applicable to the Template {{British Isles 1500-Present}} the original subject matter.

commented Mar 6, 2017 by Allan Stuart G2G6 Mach 2 (27.7k points)

Allan, I'm sorry but I'm really not sure what it is your questioning?

There are actually 5 templates that are part of the Euroaristo project, of which 2 specifically apply to Britain. As a number of people have already stated, it isn't totally clear, and perhaps never will be, exactly which profiles should be considered a part of this project.

Part of the problem is that who is considered a noble, or an aristocrat or even a member of a royal family has changed over the centuries and is also different from one culture or country to the next.

Britain in particular is difficult because who is considered a part of an aristocratic family can be very fluid. If a Duke in England decided to marry a peasant, then she becomes his Duchess, regardless of who her family might have been. Nor is it clear for instance when the descendants of a younger son of a Duke, stop becoming members of the nobility. We could follow tables of precedence, but again those change with time.

If you have an idea about who you think should or should not get the template then tell us what that is, and we can discuss it. Or if you think there are certain profiles that have the template and they shouldn't then again let us know which profiles these are and we can talk about those.

By the way as the template British Isles 1500-Present states, it can be applied to living members of British aristocratic and royal families.

commented Mar 6, 2017 by John Atkinson G2G6 Pilot (621k points)

Howdy Allan, along these same lines there are more Categories some with Templates some without. =

Categories: Aristocracy and Nobility | Europe (en) | European Aristocrats Project Part of the European Aristocrats Project / https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:European_Nobility (Note: There are 47 subcategories to this category.) . . .

Example:

King James IV "James of the Iron Belt" Stewart aka King of Scots / https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Stewart-588 .

Categories: House of Stewart | Dukes of Rothesay | Battle of Flodden | Clan Stewart. =

[[Category:House of Stewart]]
[[Category:Dukes of Rothesay]]
[[Category: Battle of Flodden]] .

Templates:

This person is a member of the House of Stewart.

James IV Stewart is a member of Clan Stewart.
Join: Scottish Clans Project
Discuss: SCOTTISH_CLANS

James IV Stewart is a member of royalty, nobility or aristocracy in the British Isles.
Join: British Isles Royals and Aristocrats 742-1499 Project
Discuss: EUROARISTO . =

{{European Aristocrat
| house = House of Stewart
| image = European Aristocrats Project-20.png
}}

{{Scottish Clans | clan =Clan Stewart |tartan = Clan Tartans-7.png }} .

commented Mar 6, 2017 by Anonymous Vickery G2G6 Pilot (259k points)
edited Mar 6, 2017 by Anonymous Vickery

There was a discussion of the project templates (late last year?) and they are all now a standard size and set up. I think there could be still a slight change to the wording, but not to add many or any extra words.

The Medlands source template along with some other templates, I think is still up for discussion.

Andrew if you or Allan want to re-word the existing template and/or come up with a black and white ruling about who should or shouldn't get the template then I'm quite happy for those options to be discussed.

With current work commitments and other things happening on Wikitree, at the moment I don't have the time to work on either of those things, but as members of the Euroaristo project you are quite within your rights to suggest changes.

Thank you

commented Mar 6, 2017 by John Atkinson G2G6 Pilot (621k points)

I suppose in the end, after so many attempts to improve Wikitree, one question keeps coming up: why bother work on any wiki which has been specially tweaked away from everything that works in other wikis in order to make it hard to improve? (Improve means make less wrong. Not caring if we have wrong information means not caring about improving.)

Does that not take the wind out of the sails?

Different non reasons and "I do not understands" abound for every particular case, but the theme is always the same. You just can not get things done on wikitree, whereas the basic idea of a wiki is to make it easy to work, encouraging it to happen massively in small packets.

This wiki will fail unless this changes, and improvement becomes encouraged and easy. We have to realize that wikitree is one experiment among many, that people like myself are trying out and supporting for the time being.

The first wiki to encourage real quality and low tolerance to wrong information in all pre 1700 profiles will be a breakthrough, because it will give a backbone to the rest of the tree that no other tree has.

But please everyone remember that that breakthrough has NOT happened. There is too much complacency in wikitree coming from being the recent big short term "thing". It will not last long like this.

There are many ways in which wikitree is just too quirky, and neutral towards quality.