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The Notion of Nobility and the Impact of Ennoblement on Early Modern Central Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 September 2019

Klaus Margreiter
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Abstract

This article discusses the problem of why there was a constant demand for ennoblement in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Central Europe, even though those who aspired to it had little or no prospect of integration into the established feudal nobility. Nobility was first and foremost an ideological concept closely connected to power and rule. The Holy Roman emperors ennobled persons who exercised power precisely because, in the premodern social order, the exercise of power was a prerogative of the nobility. However, the newly ennobled had only their title in common with the old aristocratic families and rarely attained the other privileges enjoyed by these families. For this reason, the emperors’ practice of ennoblement gradually reshaped the nobility as a whole and simultaneously the ideological notion of nobility. Certainly, ennoblement still served a strategic purpose in the context of social advancement. Particularly for civil servants and military officers, it was the most effective means of preserving their newly acquired status for their descendants and possibly establishing their families in a new bureaucratic and military hereditary elite, which in some places coexisted with the old aristocracy. The central element of the new ideological concept was the notion of the nobility as a hereditary ruling class, both qualified for and entitled to the exercise of power on account of inherited superiority.

Der Aufsatz erörtert das Problem, warum im Mitteleuropa des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts eine anhaltende Nachfrage nach Adelstiteln bestand, obwohl eine Integration in den alten Feudaladel sehr unwahrscheinlich war. Adel war zunächst ein ideologisches Konzept, das eng mit Herrschaft und Macht verbunden war. Die römischen Kaiser erhoben Personen in den Adelsstand, die Herrschaft ausübten, weil in der vormodernen Gesellschaftsordnung Herrschaftsausübung nur dem Adel zukam. Neunobilitierte teilten aber mit den alten Familien lediglich den Titel und gelangten selten in den Genuss von Privilegien, über die alte Familien verfügten. Aus diesem Grund veränderte die kaiserliche Nobilitierungspraxis langfristig den Adel insgesamt und damit zugleich seine ideologische Konzeption. Allerdings konnte die Nobilitierung einem strategischen Zweck im Zusammenhang mit sozialer Aufstiegsmobilität dienen. Für Beamte und Offiziere war der Adelsstand die wirksamste Absicherung des erreichten Status für die Nachkommen und konnte die Familie eventuell in einer Beamten- und Militäradelsgruppe verankern, die sich an manchen Orten neben dem alten Adel entwickelte. Das Kernelement der neuen ideologischen Adelskonzeption bildete die Vorstellung des Adels als erblichem Herrschaftsstand, der kraft ererbter Überlegenheit zur Ausübung von Herrschaft sowohl qualifiziert als auch berechtigt war.

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Article
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Central European History , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , September 2019 , pp. 382 - 401
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Copyright © Central European History Society of the American Historical Association 2019 

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References

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6 We know the applicant's place of habitation in only 55 percent of all cases. Among these cases, 42 percent were inhabitants of the Habsburg Monarchy.

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14 Whether non-noble persons were legally permitted to purchase noble estates varied widely from region to region and was subject to respective legal customs. In any case, it was regarded as an irregularity, at least on the part of the nobility.

15 Wunder, “Die Sozialstruktur in den Geheimratskollegien in den süddeutschen protestantischen Fürstentümern (1660–1720),” 219.

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23 de Saint Martin, Monique, L'Espace de la noblesse (Paris: Editions Métailié, 1993)Google Scholar.

24 Cases in which some authority did not recognize imperial grants of ennoblement, which sometimes occurred in imperial cities, provoked sharp reactions from the government. The emperor could not tolerate such disobedience, particularly if imperial prerogatives were at stake. See the cases of Markus Tobias Neubronner, 1692, and Johann Friedrich Sichart, 1696, both at Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv, Adelsarchiv.

25 Huppert, Les Bourgeois Gentilshommes, 23.

26 Strictly speaking, it was authority rather than power that resulted from this kind of dominance. According to Max Weber's definition, authority as opposed to power implies a certain degree of willingness to obey on the part of the subordinate. Power in the narrow sense of the word invokes force to make people comply, whereas authority causes people to conform voluntarily by bowing to somebody's superior qualification or endowment. The power derived from honor was, therefore, legitimate authority justified by custom and tradition. See Weber, Max, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundriß der verstehenden Soziologie, 5th ed. (Tübingen: Mohr, 1985), 108–20Google Scholar.

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30 The register has been published: Frank, Standeserhebungen und Gnadenakte für das Reich… The figure of 25,000 ennoblements is an estimation based on a random sample of 5,016 cases covering approximately 20 percent of all acts of ennoblement from 1500 to 1800.

31 Riedenauer, “Zur Entstehung und Ausformung des landesfürstlichen Briefadels in Bayern,” 662. Alongside the emperor, several other sovereign princes had the privilege to grant nobility. Theoretically, each prince enjoying the palatinatus in ampla forma was permitted to raise someone to the nobility by right. Because a bestowal by the emperor was regarded as superior and imperial nobility (Reichsadelsstand) was formally applicable in all the parts of the empire, only a few rulers risked conferring titles of lower esteem. In some states, such as Bavaria, though, officers were tacitly requested to submit an application for nobility to the respective chancellery in order to avoid being considered disloyal. Most people aspiring for nobility, however, still chose the route of supreme authority for promotion, thus nonimperial ennoblement remained an exception to the rule.

32 Clark, State and Status, 166; Paul Janssens, “Coûts et profit des structures nobiliaires dans une société de type pré-industiel: les Pays-Bas méridionaux du Xème au XVIIème siècle” (n.d.), chapter 6; Viviane Richard, “Les anoblissements dans les Pays-Bas autrichiens” (master's thesis, Brussels, 1960), 121.

33 Important authors were, among others, Dominicus Arumaeus, Johann Moritz Guden, Dietrich Wilhelm Ziegler, Johannes Limnaeus, Josua Nolden, and Matthias Stephani. Most of them owed their basic arguments to Bartolus de Sassoferrato.

34 Clark, State and Status, 174–89.

35 Johann Georg Hanaw stated that the act of ennoblement referred directly not only to the supplicant but uno actu to all his descendants as well. Accordingly, the typical wording in letters patent that the emperor grants nobility to the supplicant and to his legitimate heirs and their heirs’ heirs both men and women for ever (“seine eheliche leibs Erben und derselben Erbens Erben, Mann und Weibs personen, in ewig Zeit”) can be interpreted as evidence for ennoblement generally conferring noble status to all present and future members of the family. In other words: nobles did not inherit nobility because they had already been virtually ennobled prior to their birth by the sovereign. See Hanaw, Johann Georg, Synoptica resolutio quaestionum ducentarum … de nobilitate (Guben, 1672), 482Google Scholar; Bleek and Garber, “Nobilitas,” 96.

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37 On the ideology of lineage see particularly Gaunt, David, “Kinship: Thin Red Lines or Thick Blue Blood,” in Family Life in Early Modern Times 1500–1789, The History of the European Family, eds. Kretzer, David I. and Barbagli, Marzio, vol. 1 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001), 257–87Google Scholar; Delille, Gérard, “The Shed Blood of Christ: From Blood as Metaphor to Blood as Bearer of Identity,” in Blood and Kinship: Matter for Metaphor from Ancient Rome to the Present, eds. Johnson, Christopher H., Jussen, Bernhard, and Sabean, David Warren (New York and London: Berghahn Books, 2013), 127–33Google Scholar; Jouanna, Arlette, Le devoir de révolte: La noblesse française et la gestation de l’État moderne, 1559–1661 (Paris: Fayard, 1989)Google Scholar.

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39 Johann Christian Lüning and Christian von Wolff. See Andreas Gestrich, “Höfisches Zeremoniell und sinnliches Volk: Zur Rechtfertigung des Hofzeremoniells im 17. und frühen 18. Jahrhundert,” in Zeremoniell als höfische Ästhetik in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, eds. Jörg Jochen Berns and Thomas Rahn, Frühe Neuzeit, vol. 25 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1996), 57–73.

40 See, for instance, the astutely observed characterization of nobles in Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship or in Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

41 Clark, State and Status, 164; Guttandin, Das paradoxe Schicksal der Ehre, 322–23, 347.

42 Wunder, “Die Sozialstruktur in den Geheimratskollegien in den süddeutschen protestantischen Fürstentümern (1660–1720),” 209–10, 216.

43 Clark, State and Status, 182.

44 “Ehrbarkeit, Redlichkeit, gute adelige Sitten, Tugend und Vernunft.” In special cases, experience (Erfahrenheit/Experienz) and erudition (Gelehrsamkeit) were added. In contrast to the first set of qualities, the latter pair are accidental (rather than essential) in nature; they can be acquired through application, which made a significant difference.

45 Montesquieu, L'esprit des lois, book 3, chapter 5; Möser, Justus, “Den Patriotischen Phantasien verwandte Handschriften,” in Sämtliche Werke (Oldenburg, Hamburg: Stalling, 1968), 64Google Scholar.

46 “… damit noch mehrere durch dergleichen milde Belöhnung zur Nachfolge guten Verhaltens und Ausübung adelicher Thaten gleichfalls bewegt und aufgemuntert werden.” This quote is from the letters patent for August Wilhelm Crayen from Leipzig and dates from 1788, but more or less the same phrasing can be found in every one of these eighteenth-century documents. Adelsakt August Wilhelm Crayen, Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv.

47 Clark, State and Status, 180–81.

48 The figure of 87.76 ennoblements per year is calculated from the sum of 3,528 cases of ennoblement from 1600 to 1800 out of a random sample covering approximately 20 percent of all acts of ennoblement from 1600 to 1800. The confirmations of allegedly lapsed nobility taken into account, the value is thereby increased to approximately 94.75 per year.

49 See MacHardy, Karin J., War, Religion and Court Patronage in Habsburg Austria: The Social and Cultural Dimensions of Political Interaction, 1521–1622, ed. Clark, J.C. D. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 Hochedlinger, “Mars Ennobled,” 175.

51 To be sure, an investigation report confirming that the supplicant was well off might have guided the decision in favor of the supplicant. The government would not have requested such information if this had not been a relevant factor. One's economic standing was, however, never part of the formal justification of ennoblement.

52 Clark, State and Status, 184; Demel, Walter, “Der europäische Adel vor der Revolution: Sieben Thesen,” in Der europäische Adel im Ancien Régime. Von der Krise der ständischen Monarchien bis zur Revolution (ca. 1600–1789), ed. Asch, Ronald G. (Weimar, Wien: Böhlau, 2001), 412–14Google Scholar; Doyle, William, “Was There an Aristocratic Reaction in Pre-Revolutionary France?” Past & Present 57 (1972): 108, 113CrossRefGoogle Scholar.