Service nobility

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The service aristocracy was initially a personal official nobility , through heredity in the next generation this could lead to further ennoblement . In the course of the Middle Ages, this procedure was not only used for royal service, but also for servants of principalities and monasteries.

Early Middle Ages

The service nobility in the early Middle Ages ( ministeriality ) were originally followers in royal or imperial service, to whom the ruler had given a position at his court or in the service of the empire. The kings first lent the property acquired through conquest to the military leaders , who combined their inherited allodial property with it and understood how to make the property hereditary with the office (e.g. the dignity of a count ). Initially, this only established a personal service nobility, which, however, became a hereditary nobility through the combination of office and leased property. In the course of time he formed a new ruling class and became part of the nobility in the 12th century .

High and late Middle Ages, early modern times

In the high and late Middle Ages , a new type of service nobility developed, these were mainly from Ritterbürtigen , Semper outdoors and Schöffenbarfreien from. In the northern Hochstifte the pin nobility developed from this , which later formed the North German lower nobility, because many Westphalian, North Rhine and North German service nobility were later recognized as aristocratic in the Holy Roman Empire . The first "old" pin nobility then made it partly through the baron class up to the count class , the "newer" service nobility class mostly only in the untitled nobility class. In southern monasteries such as the Hochstift Worms and the Electorate of Mainz (see service aristocracy in Mainz ) there were only 4 estates of free imperial knights, citizens, farmers and residents (newcomers). The hereditary nobility was counted among the (numerically small) middle class. The imperial knights , who claimed all high offices , prevented a stronger development of an untitled lower nobility. Many members of this lowest nobility were absorbed into the general bourgeoisie after the fall of the Old Empire , and only a few managed to be recognized as nobility in Germany.

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  • Nobility in the 19th and 20th centuries , 2012, Heinz Reif, Oldenbourg Verlag, ( Google Books )
  • The court rights of Bishop Burchard von Worms:, 1859, Heinrich Gottfried Philipp Gengler, Carl Joseph Anton Mittermaier ( Google books )
  • Law in Bohemia and Moravia :, 1866, Hermenegild Jireček, Bellmann Verlag, ( Google Books )