Nobility law
Nobility law regulates membership of the nobility according to traditional historical principles and goes back to the principles of Salic law . Until 1919 was the noble law in Germany Public Law regulating the membership of the state of the nobility in the states of the German Empire , roughly comparable in Austria-Hungary . Since then it is no longer codified law in Germany .
In the European monarchies that still exist , nobility law continues to exist as part of public law, even if nobility privileges have largely been abolished.
Germany
Today's meaning
The current significance of German nobility law results from the fact that in Germany after the end of the monarchy in 1918 the Weimar Constitution of 1919 determined in Article 109:
“ Public law privileges or disadvantages of birth and status are to be abolished and may no longer be conferred. Denominations of nobility are only part of the name and may no longer be awarded. "
and that law from the time before the Bundestag met (as simple federal law ) continues to apply, provided it does not contradict the Basic Law ( Art. 123 GG).
This made the nobility predicates and titles of nobility pure components of a person's name; As a result, these can (in contrast to the past) also accrue to persons who were not entitled to use a name under historical nobility law through birth or adoption outside of wedlock or through name changes of married men. In order to determine who belongs to the “historical nobility”, that is, who as a member of a family that was noble before 1919 can be considered “noble” according to the principles of nobility law, the German Aristocracy Association founded a department in 1923 to check whether a nobility name was historically correct Wise led, and to ward off the so-called "false nobility", which was emerging ever more strongly.
After the Second World War , these tasks were taken over by the German Nobility Law Committee (ARA), located at the German Aristocratic Archives in Marburg . According to its constant ruling practice, the "historical nobility" includes the group of people who meet the criteria of the nobility law applicable until 1919 and would therefore belong to the German or Austrian nobility . The ARA reserves the right, in rare, strictly examined and particularly well-founded individual cases, to grant individuals and families who do not belong to the historical nobility according to the traditional nobility law, the "nobility law non-objection to the use of their noble name". This puts those affected on an equal footing with the historical nobility.
In its own presentation, the Nobility Law Committee describes its tasks with regard to nobility law as follows:
“ The Nobility Law Committee is responsible for assessing and deciding on all nobility law issues, even without an application. This applies in particular to membership of the historical nobility, which continues to apply to the right to use aristocratic names and titles, including the title of firstborn and all cases of adoption within the nobility, and finally it is also responsible for assessing the right to use aristocratic coats of arms .
The Nobility Law Committee oversees the genealogical handbook of the nobility and makes decisions on questions of doubt that may arise in the processing of the genealogical handbook. The Nobility Law Committee is responsible for the technical supervision of the “German Aristocratic Archive” foundation in matters of nobility law and genealogy.
Matters of the former ruling houses and the German landlords ("Fürstenrecht") do not belong to the jurisdiction of the Nobility Law Committee, unless it is for the expert opinion of the association of the landlords or of those involved in a house of department I or II of the genealogical manual of the princely Houses is prompted. The decisions of the German Nobility Law Committee are taken in chambers after preparation by two units; in the event of a complaint or in the event of a resumption, the plenary of the Nobility Law Committee decides. "
Nobility law and its interpretation by the Nobility Law Committee in Germany are no longer state-set, public law. Decisions of the Nobility Law Committee are therefore non -binding for non-members of the member associations of the Association of German Aristocratic Associations and do not justify claims or privileges that would have to be observed by state authorities or courts. For the civil status of the person concerned, the decisions of the nobility law committee are neither with regard to any nobility titles (these no longer exist in Germany, previous nobility titles only exist as part of the official name) nor in terms of name law ( German naming law does not assign any competencies to the nobility law committee) significant.
Criteria of the German Nobility Law Committee for membership of the "historical nobility"
Belonging to the nobility is passed on only in the marital male line , i.e. through marital descent from a noble father. It is also acquired by marrying a civil woman with a noble man, if the wife takes his noble name. Those born in premarital or out of wedlock are legitimized by a subsequent marriage of the proven natural parents (so-called legitimatio per matrimonium subsequens ) and the nobility is thus transferred to them in the same way as with children born in wedlock. A noble lady, however, loses her membership of the nobility by marrying a non-aristocratic man, unless the recognized nobility law of a German aristocratic landscape determines otherwise. The nobility does not come back to life through divorce and the re- acceptance of the maiden name , but it does through a subsequent aristocratic marriage.
The acquisition of a noble name through the design options of today's naming law , for example in the case of illegitimate birth , through legal acts such as adoption , naming or declaration of marital status, as well as the regulations that have been in force since 1976 for determining the married name (and the possible passing on to third spouses, children, adopted children) Not recognized by the Nobility Law Committee because they contradict historical nobility law. This is made clear, for example, by the fact that in the regularly published volume series of the Genealogical Handbook of the Adels and, since 2015, the successor series Gothaisches Genealogical Handbook as well as in the German Adelsblatt, the former nobility predicates are often abbreviated ( e.g. Frhr. For Freiherr or v. For von ), while they are written out in wide print for the "Scheinadel". The latter was listed for a long time in the Genealogical Handbook of the Nobility “under the line”, ie at the end of the article about the respective noble family under a heading “Name bearers who do not belong to the historical nobility”. In the meantime, however, the false aristocracy has been left out there, as the “flood of titles” is constantly increasing.
Austria and Switzerland
In Austria-Hungary , historical nobility law was applied in the same way as in the other successor states of the Holy Roman Empire ( e.g. the Benelux monarchies). In Austria, however, after the end of the monarchy in 1919, all titles of nobility, including those included in names, were abolished with the Nobility Repeal Act, even if - as in Germany the titles of primogeneity - are still partly used in private and social dealings. For the Austrian nobility, therefore, the only thing that counts is knowing which families and which of the associated namesake belong to them. The same applies to the historical Bohemian and Moravian nobility, since the titles were also abolished in Czechoslovakia in 1918. (The Italian nobility was abolished in 1946 and the nobility titles without the rank titles were part of the name).
The Swiss nobility belonged to the nobility of the Holy Roman Empire until 1648, but then developed in a separate way. In the free imperial cities had since the Middle Ages, a Swiss federal patricians developed, which consists of wealthy merchant families with or without nobility , of bourgeois notables and sometimes stadtsässig gewordenem nobility composed. Soon after the separation from the Reich, the Grand Council of the City and Republic of Bern created its own social hierarchy that was not based on nobility law in the empire, whereby the Bern patriciate was divided into status groups and from 1783 the Grand Council made it available to all genders eligible for regiment of Bern free to use the title of nobility from . It is part of the name in Switzerland to this day, while titles such as Freiherr or Graf, which go back to awards from the Reich or other European monarchies, are only used unofficially.
The historical Austrian, Bohemian and Swiss aristocratic families, their lineage and current members, insofar as they belong to the historical nobility in accordance with traditional nobility law, are also presented in the Genealogical Handbook of the Nobility and, since 2015, in the Gotha Genealogical Handbook and the Nobility Law Committee is consulted on questions of doubt.
German-speaking monarchies and neighboring states
In the three remaining monarchies with German as the official language , the Kingdom of Belgium , the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the Principality of Liechtenstein , nobility law is still public law today , even if the privileges and privileges associated with the nobility were largely abolished. In these countries, nobilizations continue to take place, and nobility titles and titles are inherited and awarded. This also applies to the Dutch nobility and the nobility in Scandinavia , which essentially follow the same (Salic) nobility law as the successor states of the Holy Roman Empire or the French nobility .
In the British aristocracy and the Spanish aristocracy , independent and differing traditions have developed, which are also regulated by public law to this day. For the historical Italian nobility , Salian law applied in the north, but Spanish nobility law in the south. Titles of nobility from other countries, irrespective of whether they were abolished there or not, are generally recognized when foreigners are naturalized in monarchies, provided they are in accordance with nobility law, and are therefore adopted when they are incorporated into the local nobility, for example in the case of Claus von Amsberg (as "Jonkheer van Amsberg ") or Lorenz Habsburg-Lothringen (as" Archduke of Austria-Este ").
literature
- Joseph von Berswordt: Ius illustrium Germaniae familiarum, quod centum assertionibus absolutum (= German nobility law ). Dissertation, University of Bonn 1777 ( President : Joseph Lomberg).
- Harald von Kalm: The Prussian herald's office (1855-1920). Nobility authority and nobility law in the Prussian constitutional development (sources and research on Brandenburg and Prussian history; Vol. 5). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-07965-5 (plus dissertation, University of Bonn 1993).
- Sigismund von Elverfeldt-Ulm: Nobility law. Origin, structure, significance in the modern age of the historical nobility and their descendants (From the German Aristocratic Archive, New Series; Volume 1). Starke Verlag, Limburg / Lahn 2001, ISBN 3-7980-0601-6 .
- Otto Krabs: From illustrious to spectabilis. Small lexicon of titles and salutations . 3rd edition Beck, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-61124-7 (EA Munich 2004).
- Reinhard Binder-Krieglstein: Austrian nobility law 1868-1918 / 19. From the elaboration of the nobility law of the cisleithan half of the empire to the nobility surrender law of the republic with special consideration of the aristocratic naming law (Legal History Series; Vol. 216). Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 2000, ISBN 3-631-34833-9 (also dissertation, University of Vienna 1998).
- Gabriel N. Toggenburg: The "wrong princess". On the cross-border movement of nobility titles against the background of European citizenship . In: European Law Reporter , Vol. 3 (2011), pp. 74-81, ISSN 1028-9690 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Constitution of the German Reich ( "Weimar Constitution") August 11, 1919 , accessed in the portal verfassungen.de on May 4, 2014
- ↑ a b Replaced from 2015 by the newly published Gothaische Genealogische Handbuch .
- ^ Website of the German Nobility Law Committee: Tasks , accessed on August 27, 2017