Pretty families

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The lovely families represented in the 18th and early 19th century electoral Hanover and the Kingdom of Hanover in the class society unofficially - in addition to the nobility and clergy - third estate, the bourgeoisie . They represented its social top and often served as state officials.

Word origin

Etymologically , the word pretty is related to “ courtly ” and originally meant something like “allowed at court ”.

State patrician

In the class structure , the pretty families formed a bourgeois upper class , a kind of " patrician state ", after the high and low nobility . In contrast to the mostly original aristocratic members of the families of the local nobility, who were incorporated into the knighthood , who lived on landlords and often served in the military , the pretty families always attached importance to a solid academic education, mostly as lawyers, and thus recommended themselves to court especially for administrative positions such as chancellor, councilor, bailiff, bailiff, etc. They often also provided mayors. In terms of level of education, they corresponded to the clergy , into which their descendants often joined or married, as well as to the professorship . They thus formed an educated bourgeoisie from which the monarchy recruited its civil servants.

Some of these families rose to and up in such positions as early as the late Middle Ages , acquired urban or rural property and were occasionally awarded a letter of nobility (such as the Wedemeyer ). Since the pretty families in the hierarchy in the civil service aspired to positions such as secret secretary or privy councilor , this status was also ironically called "secretocracy".

The pretty families, like the nobility, paid attention to equality and homogeneity , as well as comparable property and tradition . The families distinguished themselves from other citizens such as craftsmen, pharmacists, doctors, lawyers, notaries, merchants or manufacturers , although there was definitely (family) connection with their upper echelons. In 19th century Vienna, a similar mélange was known as the “ Second Society ”. From the era of the Electorate of Hanover , however, there is also a report of the “indescribable arrogance” with which the mostly aristocratic court society looked down on the pretty families who often came into conflict with them due to their official functions on behalf of the sovereign (mostly in London) .

Familiar families

The - in some cases ennobled - pretty families included members of the families

Paintings, gouaches, valuables

The Hannover Historical Museum owns a work that is assigned to the pretty families:

literature

  • Joachim Lampe: Aristocracy, court nobility and state patriciate in Kurhannover. The spheres of life of the higher officials at the Hanoverian central and court authorities 1714–1760. In: Publications of the Historical Commission for Lower Saxony and Bremen , Volume 24: Investigations into the corporate history of Lower Saxony , Issue 2, ed. from the Historical Commission for Lower Saxony and Bremen , Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963.
    • Volume 1: Presentation
    • Volume 2: Lists of officials and pedigrees
  • Henning Rischbieter (Ed.): Hannoversches Lesebuch or: what was written, printed and read in Hanover and about Hanover , Volume 1: 1650-1850 , 3rd edition, Hanover: Schlütersche Verlagsgesellschaft, ISBN 3-87706-039-0 , p 64f. and p. 145ff.
  • H. Barmeyer: Court and court society in Hanover. In: Hans-Dieter Schmid (Hrsg.): Hannover - am Rande der Stadt , in the series Hannoversche Schriften zur Regional- und Lokalgeschichte , Volume 5, Bielefeld: Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, 1992, ISBN 3-927085-44-8 , p 67-89.
  • Friedrich Wilhelm Boldewin Ferdinand von dem Knesebeck : Historical paperback of the nobility in the Kingdom of Hanover , Hanover 1840, p. 408 f. (Pretty families in the Kingdom of Hanover)
  • Klaus Mlynek : Nice families. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 310.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Klaus Mlynek: Pretty families. In: Stadtlexikon Hannover , p. 310.
  2. ↑ Keyword “ pretty ” in the Grimm dictionary .
  3. ^ Wilhelm LA von Hassell: The Electorate of Hanover from the Peace of Basel to the Prussian Occupation in 1806. C. Meyer, 1894, p. 98.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g Walther lamp : Hanover as a cultural center. In: Erich Wunderlich (Red., Ed.): Yearbook of the Geographical Society in Hanover , special volume Hanover. Image, development and importance of the capital of Lower Saxony. For the 700th anniversary of the city of Hanover , Part 1, Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1942, pp. 369–416; here: p. 391; limited preview in Google Book search
  5. ↑ Hartmut von Hinüber: Concluding remark. In: "... the true intention of our most gracious king" - The profile of the Hanoverian family v. Over. In: Reports from the home country , ed. from the Heimatbund Lower Saxony , 2007.
  6. ↑ Dirk Henning Hofer: Karl Konrad Werner Wedemeyer (1870-1934). A legal and scholarly life in three realms. A biography (= legal history series , vol. 399), also dissertation 2009 at the University of Kiel, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2010, ISBN 978-3-631-59422-3 , p. 29 ( online via Google books ) .
  7. ^ Bernhard Dörries, Helmut Plath : Grape-picking children. In: Old Hanover. The history of a city in contemporary images from 1500–1900 , fourth, improved edition 1977, Hanover: Heinrich Feesche Verlag, ISBN 3-87223-024-7 , pp. 83 and 138.