Nobility register
Adelsmatrikeln (also nobility books were called), among others, in Bavaria , Finland , Courland , Austria , Russia , Sweden and Wuerttemberg official, guided by special authorities directories to all the noble families of the country had to be registered in the order to be recognized.
In Finland and Sweden these registers were (and still are) kept by the knight's house of the respective country. In Prussia, the books of the nobility were subordinate to the herald's office , in Austria to the imperial and royal archives in the Ministry of the Interior, in Hungary to the Hungarian Ministry in Vienna . In Russia there was a special office in every governorate , the "landscape" ( Sjemstwo ), which kept the registers of the noble families.
The nobility registers were supposed to prevent nobility from being usurped, such as arrogance or self- nobility . After 1918, the German Nobility Association took over this function in Germany . The nobility books were published in the “Gotha Pocket Book” until 1939 and in the “ Genealogical Handbook of the Nobility ” from 1949 onwards . There were similar efforts after 1990 in Poland , the Czech Republic and Hungary after the new aristocratic associations of these countries were formed.
literature
- Andrea Schwarz: The Royal Bavarian Reichsheroldenamt and the nobility matriculation. In: Herold Yearbook. New Series, Vol. 3, 1998, ISSN 1432-2773 , pp. 159-182.