Swedish nobility
The Swedish nobility emerged in the period from the middle of the 11th to the middle of the 13th century during constant feuds between different royal families and developed from the free peasantry. At that time there was no distinction between high and low nobility. It was not until Erich XIV. At his coronation in 1561 that the most powerful and wealthy noblemen became counts and barons , so that a high and a low nobility emerged. His successor two generations later, Christina I , added around 400 families to the lower nobility, most of them of Scottish or German origin.
Knight house
As a public corporation, the nobility took shape in 1626, when King Gustav II Adolf united the nobility in a knight's house through his knight house rules. His successor two generations later, the Wittelsbacher Karl XI. , dealt a serious blow to the position of the high nobility by confiscating the state estates lent amply by his predecessors in 1682 and favoring the naturalization of many immigrant families, especially German families. Even after the death of his successor Karl XII. the nobility succeeded in disempowering the crown and seizing power in the state.
This noble regime survived until 1772, the coup d'état of Gustav III. who broke the power of the nobility. Up until the constitutional amendment between 1865 and 1866, the nobility was well represented in the Estates' Congress, because every head of the approximately 1,000 noble families had the right to appear and vote in the Reichstag after they turned 24.
Since 2003, the Ritterhaus no longer has a status under public law, but one under private law.
Three classes
The nobility was then divided into three classes:
- Herrenstand ( herrar ) - counts and barons;
- Ritterstand ( riddare ), untitled nobility who could prove that his ancestors sat on the Imperial Council ;
- Small nobility ( svenner ).
The nobility gathered in Palais Riddarhuset (built 1641–1675) in the center of Stockholm , which is still the seat of the Swedish Nobility Association today, decorated with coats of arms of all extinct and prosperous families. In 1865 the new Reichstag with two chambers was created and the nobility voluntarily gave up their political position.
In 2004 there were still about 619 Swedish aristocratic families (which together comprised about 28,000 people). As before, they are divided into counts, barons and the untitled nobility (46 count houses, 124 barons houses and 449 noble houses). As nobility in the German sense can but apply no more than 30 families, whose ancestors as early as the time of the first Wasa were large -Könige and powerful (in what was then Sweden or in the former Danish and Norwegian provinces of Skåne, Halland, Blekinge and Bohuslän by, Charles X. Gustav were conquered). The rest of them belong to the post office , which is often of foreign origin. The title of prince and duke is exclusively available to members of the royal family who are entitled to inherit.
Ranks
Up until 1809, rank increases were carried out in unlimited hereditary form of title ownership. After this year only the head of the family had the title of baron or count or the untitled nobility. Since the constitutions of 1809 and 1865 were valid with certain modifications until 1975, the monarch had the right to raise the nobility and naturalize foreign nobility: The last nobility - that of the explorer Sven Hedin - took place in 1902. Since then, no more ennobizations have been carried out. Foreign nobles who have acquired Swedish citizenship are not counted among the Swedish nobility (members of the knight's house) and are organized in a special corporation (ointroducerad adel) . Among them there are also some members of the Bernadotte family (cf. Swedish Succession to the Throne and Count of Wisborg ).
Title of nobility
With regard to the nobility predicate , there was no constant practice in the ennoblement . The oldest families of the primeval nobility (e.g. Banér , Bildt, Bjelke, Bonde, Natt och Dag , Oxenstjerna, Thott ) do not have a title of nobility. In this case, the names often evolved from the images in the shields of these families after the Middle Ages. Under Queen Christina I, the nobility was often, but not always, bestowed with the German predicate “von”, with Scottish families (such as Hamilton, Spence ) usually without “von”. The name of the ennobled was often changed beyond recognition. The predicate “von” was particularly popular during the reign of the two German kings Friedrich I of Hesse-Kassel and Adolf Friedrich von Holstein-Gottorp . Among their successors until 1809, the nobility was usually conferred without of . After 1809 only the Swedish af (equivalent of ) was used or the nobility was given without a predicate.
See also
literature
- Sveriges Ridderskaps och nobility calendar . Stockholm 1933 (the year 1923 is available online in the Runeberg project )
- Christopher von Warnstedt (ed.): Ointroducerad Adels calendar . Uppsala 1975
Individual evidence
- ↑ Riksdagsbeslut om adelns offentligrättsliga status, in: Riddarhuset ( Memento of February 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 9 kB), accessed on December 4, 2019.