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Persons who are closely related to peers are also more correctly described as gentry than as nobility, since the latter term, in the modern British Isles, is synonymous with peer. However, this popular usage of nobility omits the distinction between titled and untitled nobility. The titled nobility in Britain are the peers of the realm, whereas ...
Jones, Michael ed. Gentry and Lesser Nobility in Late Medieval Europe (1986) online. Lieven, Dominic C.B. The aristocracy in Europe, 1815–1914 (Macmillan, 1992). Wallerstein, Immanuel. The modern world-system I: Capitalist agriculture and the origins of the European world-economy in the sixteenth century. Vol. 1 (Univ of California Press, 2011).
The distinction between the ranks of the major nobility (listed above) and the minor nobility, listed here, was not always a sharp one in all nations. But the precedence of the ranks of a baronet or a knight is quite generally accepted for where this distinction exists for most nations.
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".
(However, this is merely a matter of semantics; the gentry of England were roughly equivalent to lower nobility of other countries.) With the Partitions these restrictions were loosened and finally any commoner could buy or inherit land. This made the 20th-century Polish landed gentry consist mostly of hereditary nobles, but also of others.
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.
From the ancient Greeks, the term passed to the European Middle Ages for a similar hereditary class of military leaders, often referred to as the nobility. As in Greece, this was a class of privileged men and women whose familial connections to the regional armies allowed them to present themselves as the most "noble" or "best" of society.
In Great Britain and Ireland, the "upper class" traditionally comprised the landed gentry and the aristocracy of noble families with hereditary titles. The vast majority of post-medieval aristocratic families originated in the merchant class and were ennobled between the 14th and 19th centuries while intermarrying with the old nobility and ...