Nobility, that distinction of rank in civil society which raises a man above the condition of the mass of the people. Society has a tendency to inequality of condition, arising from the natural inequality, physical, moral, and intellectual, of those who compose it, aided by the diversity of external advantages, and of the principles and habits imbibed at an early age. This inequality is apt to increase; the son inheriting the faculties of his father is more favourably situated than his father was for making use of them; and hence in almost every nation in even the very early stages of civilisation we find something like a hereditary nobility. Privileges originally acquired by wealth or political power are secured to the family of the possessor of them; and the privileged class come to constitute an order, admission into which requires the consent of society or of the order itself.
The ancient Romans were divided into nobiles and ignobiles, a distinction at first corresponding to that of patricians and plebeians. A new nobility afterwards sprang out of the plebeian order, and obtained (336 B.C.) the right to rise to high offices in the state; and in course of time the descendants of those who had filled curule magistracies inherited the jus imaginum, or right of having images of their ancestors—a privilege which, like the coat-of-arms in later ages, was considered the criterion of nobility. The man entitled to have his own image was a novus homo, while the ignobilis could neither have his ancestor's image nor his own.
The origin of the feudal aristocracy of Europe is in part connected with the accidents which influenced the division of conquered lands among the leaders and warriors of the nations that overthrew the Roman empire, and is sketched in the article Feudalism (q.v.); and the evolution of the dignities of Baron, Count (Comes), Earl, Marquis, Duke, and other ranks will be found under those several heads. In the subinfeudations of the greater nobility originated a secondary sort of nobility, under the name of Vavasours, Castellans, and lesser barons; and a third order below them comprised vassals, whose tenure, by the military obligation known in England as knight's service, admitted them within the ranks of the aristocracy. In France the allegiance of the lesser nobles to their intermediary lord long continued a reality; in England, on the other hand, William the Conqueror obliged not only his barons who held in chief of the crown, but their vassals also, to take an oath of fealty to himself; and his successors altogether abolished subinfeudation. The military tenant, who held but a portion of a knight's fee, participated in all the privileges of nobility, and an impassable barrier existed between his order and the common people. Over continental Europe in general the nobles, greater and lesser, were in use, after the 10th century, to assume a territorial name from their castles or the principal town or village on their demesne; hence the prefix 'de,' or its German equivalent 'von,' still considered over a great part of the Continent as the criterion of nobility or gentility. Britain was, to a great extent, an exception to this rule, many of the most distinguished family names of the aristocracy not having a territorial origin. See NAMES.
Under the feeble successors of Charlemagne the dukes, marquises, and counts of the empire encroached more and more on the royal authority, and by the end of the 9th century the Carolingian empire had been parcelled into separate and independent principalities, under the dominion of powerful nobles, against whom, in Germany, the crown never recovered its power. In France, however, the royal authority gradually revived under the Capetian race, the great fiefs of the higher nobility being one by one absorbed by the crown. In England, where the subjection of the feudal aristocracy to the crown always was, and continued to be a reality, the resistance of the nobles to the royal encroachments was the means of rearing the great fabric of constitutional liberty. All those who, after the Conquest, held in capite from William belonged to the nobility. Such of them as held by barony (the highest form of tenure) are enumerated in Domesday. Their dignity was territorial, not personal, having no existence apart from baronial possession. The comes was a baron of superior dignity and greater estates; and these were in England the only names of dignity till the time of Henry III.
After the introduction of Heraldry (q.v.), and its reduction to a system, the possession of a coat-of-arms was a recognised distinction between the noble and the plebeian. On the Continent whoever has a shield of arms is a nobleman; and in every country of continental Europe a grant of arms, or letters of nobility, is conferred on all such a noble's descendants. In England, on the other hand, the words noble and nobility are restricted to the five ranks of the peerage constituting the greater nobility, and to the head of the family, to whom alone the title belongs. Gentility, in its more strict sense, corresponds to the nobility of continental countries (see GENTLEMAN). This difference of usage is a frequent source of misapprehension on both sides of the Channel; at some of the minor German courts the untitled member of an English family of ancient and distinguished blood and lineage has sometimes been postponed to a recently-created baron or 'Herr von,' who has received that title, and the gentility accompanying it, along with his commission in the army. It has been taken for granted that the latter belongs to the 'Adel' or nobility, and not the former. For the German nobility, see GERMANY, Vol. V. p. 177. Throughout the middle ages the lesser nobility of Britain preserved a position above that of most continental countries, being, unlike the corresponding class in Germany, allowed to intermarry with the high nobility, and even with the blood-royal of their country.
The higher nobility, or nobility in the exclusive sense, of England consist of the five temporal ranks of the peerage—Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, and Baron (in the restricted signification of the word, q.v.), who are members of the Upper House of Parliament. Archbishops and bishops are lords temporal, but not peers. The dignity of the peerage is hereditary, but in early times was territorial, the dignity originally being attached to the possession of lands held directly from the crown in return for services to be performed to the sovereign. Later, peers were created by writ of summons to attend the king's council or parliament, but now the creation of a new peer is always made by letters-patent from the crown. In order to the efficient carrying out of the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords there are now a limited number of life peers, styled Lords of Appeal in Ordinary. By the Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 1876, as amended 1887, it is enacted that every such lord, unless he is otherwise entitled to sit in the House of Lords, shall by virtue and according to the date of his appointment be entitled during his life to rank as a baron, and shall be entitled to a writ of summons to attend and to sit and vote in the House of Lords. But his dignity is not to descend to his heirs. A peerage is forfeited by attainder for high-treason; attainder for felony forfeits a peerage by writ, not by patent; on attainder, peerage cannot be restored by the crown, only by an act of parliament. Ladies may be pecresses in their own right either by creation or by inheritance. The wives of peers are also styled peeresses. The question as to descent through males only or heirs-female will be found noted at the articles on the several orders of nobility. The oldest English peerage is the earldom of Arundel, dating from 1155, and now held by the Dukes of Norfolk; the Irish barony of Kingsale dates from 1181; to the period 1181-1205 belong four baronies now merged in other titles; the Scottish earldom of Sutherland goes back to 1228; and the baronies of Le Despencer, De Ros, and Hastings are all of the year 1264.
By the Act of Union between England and Scotland the Scotch peers elect sixteen of their number to represent their body in the House of Lords in each parliament. The peers of Ireland, in virtue of the Irish Act of Union, elect twenty-eight of their number to sit in the House of Lords for life. The Act of Union with Scotland has been understood to debar the sovereign from creating any new Scotch peerages; all peers created in either England or Scotland between that date and the union with Ireland are peers of Great Britain; and peers created in any of the three kingdoms subsequently to the union with Ireland are peers of the United Kingdom, with this exception that one new peerage of Ireland may be created on the extinction of three existing peerages. When the Irish peers are reduced to one hundred, then on the extinction of one peerage another may be created. All peers of Great Britain or of the United Kingdom have a seat in the House of Lords. A Scotch peer, though not one of the sixteen representative peers, is debarred from sitting in the House of Commons, a disability which does not attach to Irish peers. The peerage has from time to time recruited by new additions, the persons selected being in general peers of Scotland or Ireland; younger members of the families of peers; royal bastards (so recently as 1831); persons distinguished for naval, military, political, or diplomatic services; eminent lawyers promoted to high judicial appointments; persons of large property and ancient family, noble in the more extended sense; and lastly, persons who have by commerce acquired large fortunes and social importance. Many of the Scotch and Irish peers sit in the House of Lords as peers either of England, Great Britain, or of the United Kingdom. The privileges belonging to peers as members of parliament will be explained under PARLIAMENT; as peers, they also possess the following immunities: they can only be tried by their peers for felony, treason, or misprision of treason, when the whole members of the peerage are summoned. All the privileges belonging to the English peers, except the right of sitting in the House of Lords, were extended to the peers of Scotland by the Treaty of Union. A peer who has different titles in the peerage takes in ordinary parlance his highest title, one of the inferior titles being given by courtesy to his eldest son. Certain Courtesy Titles (q.v.) belong also to the daughters and younger sons of a peer, but do not extend to their children. British subjects can hold foreign titles of nobility only by consent of the crown. The ancient Scottish barony of Fairfax has since 1800 been confirmed to citizens of the United States, landholders in Virginia. The sixth baron was a friend of Washington, the tenth (1829-69) was speaker of the California House of Representatives. The barons of Longueuil, a Canadian family, are recognised in Britain (see LE MOYNE).
In France a limited body of the higher nobility, styled the peers, were in the enjoyment of privileges not possessed by the rest. The title of Duke was subject to strict rule, but many titles of Marquis and Count, believed to be pure assumptions, were recognised by the courtesy of society. The head of a noble family often assumed at his own hand the title of marquis; and if an estate was purchased which had belonged to a titled family the purchaser was in the habit of transferring to himself the honours possessed by his predecessor—a practice to which Louis XV. put a stop. Immediately before the Revolution 80,000 families claimed nobility, many of them of obscure station, and less than 3000 of ancient lineage. Nobles and clergy together possessed two-thirds of the land. Practically, the estimation in which a member of the French nobility was held depended not so much on the degree of his title as on its antiquity, and the distinction of those who had borne it. The higher titles of nobility were not borne by all members of a family; each son assumed a title from one of the family estates—a custom productive of no small confusion. Unlike 'roturier' lands, which divided among all the children equally, noble fiefs went to the eldest son. The Revolution overthrew all distinction of ranks. On 18th June 1790 the National Assembly decreed that hereditary nobility was an institution incompatible with a free state, and that titles, arms, and liveries should be abolished. Two years later the records of the nobility were burned. A new nobility was created by the Emperor Napoleon I. in 1808, with titles descending to the eldest son. The old nobility was again revived at the Restoration. All marquises and viscounts are of pre-revolution titles, none having been created in later times.
Commercial pursuits have more or less in different countries been considered incompatible with nobility. In England this was less the case than in France and Germany, where for long a gentleman could not engage in any trade without losing his rank. A sort of commercial 'Bürger-Adel,' or half-gentleman class, was constituted out of the patrician families of some of the great German cities, particularly Augsburg, Nuremberg, and Frankfurt, on whom the emperors bestowed coats-of-arms. In semi-feudal Italy there was on the whole less antagonism between nobility and trade than north of the Alps. The aristocracy of Venice had its origin in commerce; and, though untitled, they were among the most distinguished class of nobles in Europe. On the other hand, in Florence, in the 14th century, under a constitution purely mercantile, nobility became a disqualification from holding any office of the state. In order to the enjoyment of civil right, the nobleman had to be struck off the rolls of nobility; and an unpopular plebeian was sometimes ennobled in order to disfranchise him. A little later there grew up, side by side with the old nobility, a race of plebeian nobles—as the Medici—whose pretensions were originally derived from wealth, and who eventually came to be regarded as aristocrats by the democratic party.
The nobility of Spain boasts of a special antiquity and purity of blood, a descent from warriors and conquerors alone. 'Hidalgo' (q.v.) is a term which implies gentility or nobility; the hidalgo alone has in strictness a right to the title 'Don,' which has latterly been used by persons who have no proper claim to it about as extensively as 'Esquire' in England. The higher nobility are styled Grandees (q.v.); the class of nobility below them are called 'Titulados.' Red blood is said to flow in the veins of the hidalgo, blue in that of the grandee. The preservation of noble blood, untainted by plebeian intermixture, has often been reckoned a matter of much moment. In Spain most of all this purity of lineage has been jealously guarded. In the German empire no succession was allowed to feus holding immediately of the emperor, unless both parents belonged to the higher nobility. In France the offspring of a gentleman by a plebeian mother was noble in a question of inheritance or exemption from tribute, but could not be received into any order of chivalry. Letters of nobility were sometimes granted to reinstate persons in this position. In Norway titular hereditary nobility was abolished in 1821; in Sweden it still survives. It is in Germany still important for many purposes to possess eight or sixteen quarterings—i.e. to be able to show purity of blood for four or five generations, the father and mother, the two grandmothers, the four great-grandmothers, and also, in case of the sixteen quarterings, the eight great-great-grandmothers, having all been entitled to coat-armour. Among the higher grades of the peerage in England a considerable number may be pointed out who do not possess this complete nobility.
See the works of May, Hallam, Stubbs, and Herbert Spencer; Sir H. Nicolas's Historic Peerage (1825; new ed. by Courthope, 1856); Freeman's Comparative Politics (1873); also the Peerages of Debrett (since 1802); Burke (since 1826), and J. Foster (since 1880).