Trial of nobility

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Hochstift Würzburg ancestry sample for a subject from the von Hettersdorf family (1782)

The aristocratic test (also: ancestral test ) is documentary evidence of the noble descent of a gender or a person.

history

The first essential proof of ancestry from the 12th century onwards was the ability to play tournaments , which was made dependent on the proof of descent from four knightly ancestors and the laying of a coat of arms test.

Later certain functions were reserved only for the nobility , such as membership in knight orders , cathedral chapters and foundations ( ability to become a pen ) as well as in religious orders , women's foundations and holding court dignity (e.g. chamberlain , court admission). So only "four shields", i. H. Those descended from four noble grandparents can participate in the noble privileges of a foundation or an order of knights. The candidate had to show the coats of arms of his ancestors, which had to be conjured up by the members of the sexes concerned. It was not uncommon for the monasteries to increase the required number of noble ancestors (from four grandparents to eight great-grandparents or even sixteen great-great-grandparents) through chapter resolutions in order to make admission more difficult. The eligibility for the state parliament in the class of knighthood was also dependent on the test of nobility.

Which parentage requirements had to be fulfilled resulted from the rules of the institution concerned. However, in order to maintain exclusivity, the requirements up to the 16-ancestor test (proof that all great-great-grandparents were born noble) tended to be tightened more and more. In older times, the evidence was regularly provided by the so-called " revolt ": In this process other nobles confirmed the accuracy of all the information on the pedigree . The information related to the marital birth of all listed ancestors of the subject and to the nobility of the listed persons. With the secularization and the end of the old empire , the documentary evidence took the place of the nobility trial.

In the period from 1900 to 1918, the nobility trial was only required for the Order of Malta , the Order of St. John and the Chamber of Commerce.

today

In Germany, since the abolition of aristocratic privileges in 1919, the ancestral test has only been a social question, for example in the event of differences of opinion or doubts about the entries in the Genealogical Handbook of the Nobility (GHdA) and the associated access to aristocratic societies and associations in Germany. The historical nobility law is the benchmark for this.

For the admission of a test person into the noble ranks of the Order of Malta , proof of the age and ancestry of the family is still required. In the case of civil knights and ladies, this is waived. There are no nobility ranks in the Order of St. John , so there is generally no examination there.

literature

  • Johann Georg Estor : Practical instructions for fitting: This is common with the German arches and monasteries, orders of knights and inheritance . Müller, Marburg 1750 ( digitized version )
  • Carl Edmund Langer: The ancestral and nobility trial, the acquisition, confirmation and the loss of nobility rights in Austria . Manz, Vienna 1862.
  • Philipp Blittersdorf: Nobility and ancestral samples in old Austria-Hungary , in: Yearbook of the Association of Catholic Nobles in Austria 1932, Innsbruck / Vienna / Munich 1932, 109ff.
  • Friedrich Graf Lanjus: Review of “The German nobility in the picture of its ancestral samples” , in: monthly Adler 12 (1935–1938), p. 163 f.
  • Maurice Keen: Chivalry . Artemis, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-7608-1216-3
  • Klaus Graf : Ahnenprobe , in: Friedrich Jäger (Ed.): Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit . Vol. 1. Stuttgart 2005, Col. 146–148 ( preprint version as e-text )
  • Jörn Eckert: Art. Ancestry sample . In: Albrecht Cordes , Heiner Lück , Dieter Werkmüller , Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand (eds.), Concise Dictionary of German Legal History , 2nd, completely revised and expanded edition, Volume I, Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 2008, Sp. 106 f.
  • Elizabeth Harding, Michael Hecht (Ed.): The ancestral test in the premodern. Selection - initiation - representation . Rhema, Münster 2011, ISBN 978-3-86887-006-0 .

Web links