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Traditional rank amongst European imperiality, royalty, peers, and nobility is rooted in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Although they vary over time and among geographic regions (for example, one region's prince might be equal to another's grand duke ), the following is a reasonably comprehensive list that provides information on both ...
The fundamental social structure in Europe in the Middle Ages was between the ecclesiastical hierarchy, nobles i.e. the tenants in chivalry (counts, barons, knights, esquires, franklins) and the ignobles, the villeins, citizens, and burgesses. The division of society into classes of nobles and ignobles, in the smaller regions of medieval Europe ...
The landed gentry, or the gentry (sometimes collectively known as the squirearchy), is a largely historical Irish and British social class of landowners who could live entirely from rental income, or at least had a country estate. It is the British element of the wider European class of gentry.
In modern European societies, the aristocracy has often coincided with the nobility, a specific class that arose in the Middle Ages, but the term "aristocracy" is sometimes also applied to other elites, and is used as a more general term when describing earlier and non-European societies. [5]
European nobility originated in the feudal/seignorial system that arose in Europe during the Middle Ages. [44] Originally, knights or nobles were mounted warriors who swore allegiance to their sovereign and promised to fight for him in exchange for an allocation of land (usually together with serfs living thereon).
The British nobility is made up of the peerage and the gentry of the British Isles. Though the UK is today a constitutional monarchy with strong democratic elements, historically the British Isles were more predisposed towards aristocratic governance in which power was largely inherited and shared amongst a noble class.
The landed nobility show noblesse oblige, they have duty to fulfill their social responsibility. Their character depends on the country. The notion of landed gentry in the United Kingdom and Ireland varied over time. [1] In Russian Empire landed nobles were called pomeshchiks, with the term literally translated as "estate owner".
Only those classified within the social class of royalty and upper nobility have a style of "Highness" attached before their titles. Reigning bearers of forms of Highness included grand princes, grand dukes, reigning princes, reigning dukes, and princely counts, their families, and the agnatic (of the male bloodline) descendants of emperors and kings.