Liege Count
Feudal counts as the “privileged nobility” of the Kingdom of Denmark are considered high nobility after 1671 ; the less wealthy feudal lords also belong to the high nobility as “privileged nobility”. Foreign counts and barons are counted among the lower nobility in Denmark.
history
In the centuries prior to 1661, the most powerful Danish nobles had negotiated concessions with foreign candidates for royal office on the basis of elective royalty, which gradually shifted power in the kingdom. The nobility secured, among other things, the participation of the Reichsrat in the filling of vacant posts in the high civil service, with the Reichsadmiral and the governor of Norway.
After his victory over Sweden in the Danish-Swedish War of 1658–1660, King Frederik III (1609–1670) succeeded in converting the Danish electoral monarchy into a hereditary kingship. From then on the king was an absolute and sovereign heir .
Since then there was the normal class of nobility among the older nobility and above that the nobility "with honorary names". In addition to the feudal counts and the barons, there were the dukes who were reserved for the royal line. A “younger nobility” emerged through the ennoblement of the bourgeoisie. From 1661 there was no more participation of the nobility in the exercise of power.
After the death of Frederik III, Christian V issued the details of the new titles on May 25, 1671 and later with the decree of 1688. So all goods of the counts and barons were defined as royal fiefs . The simple nobility had to turn to the regional courts in disputes; the privileged nobility were only subject to the court. In accordance with primogeniture law, the inheritance was passed to the earliest sons of the counts, who were also called liege counts from birth, alternatively to daughters. Subsequent sons were called Freiherren / Barons. If they owned enough property, they could call themselves liege counts without much formalities. In the absence of legitimate heirs, all goods fell back to the crown.
By around 1750, around 20 feudal counties and just as many barons had been established in Denmark, gradually, as the crown intervened to support the consolidation of the possessions so that the required size of the possessions could be achieved.
The Danish ranking ordinance of October 14, 1746 differentiated between Danish counts (feudal counts) those counts "who do not have a feudal county" - in each case this also included the eldest sons of the feudal counts and foreign counts. In the Kingdom of Denmark there were no counts of the Holy Roman Empire with the exception of Count Christian zu Rantzau from 1653 and his descent until 1726 (see County Rantzau ) .
The Danish Rank Decree of 12 August 1808 was different in relation to the rank of real Lehnsgrafen (who were in possession of a Danish Lehnsgrafschaft, a Familienfideikommiss , the most by merging several manors was created), and the oldest sons of Lehnsgrafen - if they do not royal chamberlains are .
With the Danish constitution of 1849 , all noble privileges were abolished. The concept of nobility as such was retained. The establishment of new fiefs (including feudal counties) was prohibited and the transfer of existing goods to free property was ordered. After 1849 nobody was ennobled in Denmark, but there were some takeovers of foreign nobles in the Danish nobility ( naturalization ).
In the course of the "Lensafløsningen" (feudal dissolutions) in 1919, such existing estates (family fideikommisse, including the feudal counties ) passed into the free property of the owners, but it was determined that the feudal titles attached to them (including feudal counts or lensgreve ) were only three generations into the family can be retained.
literature
- Niels Nikolaus Falck, Handbook of Schleswig-Holstein Private Law , Volume 4, Altona 1840, § 40 d - of the titled nobility ( digitized version )
- Bertha von Bülow born von Schulze, History of the von Knuth Family in Mecklenburg , Volume 1, Schwerin 1911 ( coat of arms and branches )
- Baron Ludwig v. Holberg, Danish and Norwegian Empire History (1729), German by Ludolf Conrad Bargum, Copenhagen / Leipzig 1750, digitized at https://books.google.de/books
- NN, The general history of the Kingdom of Denmark, in: Continuation of the general world history, 33rd part, 2nd main part, 8th section, § 116, p. 503 ff., Preface by Johann Christoph Gatterer, Halle (Johann Justinus Gebauer) 1770
Individual evidence
- ↑ Keyword "Adel (Adel i Danmark)" in: Den store Danske