In France a limited body of the higher nobility, styled the peers, were in the enjoy ment of privileges not possessed by the rest. The title of duke was subject to strict i ule, but many titles of marquis and count, believed to be pure assumptions, were recognized by the courtesy of society. The head of a noble family often assumed at his own hind the title of marquis; and if an estate was purchased which had belonged to a titled family, the purchaser was in the habit of transferring to himself the honors possessed by his predecessor—a practice to which Louis XV. put a stop. Immediately before the revolution 80,000 families claimed nobility, many of them of obscure station, and less than 3,000 of ancient lineage. Nobles and clergy together possessed two-thirds of the land. Practically the estimation in which a member of the French nobility was held depended not so much on the degree of his title as on its antiquity, and the distinction of those who had borne it. The higher titles of nobility were not borne by all members of a family; each son assumed a title from one of the family estates—a custom produc tive of no small confusion. Unlike `•roturier" lands, which divided among all the chil dren equally, noble fiefs went to the eldest son. The revolution overthrew all distinc tion of ranks. Li4iiii*urie 18, 1790, the national assembly decreed that hereditary nobility was an institution incompatible with a free state, and that titles, arms, and liveries should be abolished. Two years later the records of the nobility were burned. A new nobility was created by the emperor Napoleon I. in 1808, With titles descending to the eldest son. The old nobility was again revived at the restoration. All marquises and viscounts arc of pre-revolution titles, none having been created in later times.
Commercial pursuits have more or less in different countries been considered incom patible with nobility. In England this was less the case than in France and Germany, where for long a gentleman could not engage in any trade without losing his rank. A sort of commercial "Burger-Adel," or half-gentleman class, was constituted out of the patrician families of some of the great German cities, particularly Augsburg, Nuremberg, and Frankfort, on whom the emperors bestowed coats-of-arms. In semi-feudal Italy there was on the whole less antagonism between nobility and trade than north of the Alps. The aristocracy of Venice had its origin in commerce; and though untitled, they were among the most distinguished class of nobles in Europe. On the other hand, in Florence, in the 14th c., under a constitution purely mercantile, nobility became a dis qualification from holding any office of the state. In order to the enjoyment of civil right, the nobleman had to be struck off the rolls of nobility; and an unpopular plebeian was sometimes ennobled, in order to disfranchise him. A little later there grew up, side by side with the old nobility, a race of plebeian nobles—as the Ricci, the Medici—whose pretensions were originally derived from wealth, and who eventually came to be regarded as aristocrats by the democratic party.
Italian nobility has this peculiarity, that it does not, for the most part, flow from the sovereign, but from the municipal authorities of the towns acting in entire independence of him. The municipalities can confer nobility on whom they please, by inscribing his name in their respective Libre: d'oro. The registers of nobility of most of the Tuscan
towns are deposited in the Arcltirio della Nobiltd, or herald's office, at Florence—an insti tution created by the first sovereign of the house of Lorraine. The municipalities have, however, no p7)wer to confer titles, though at one time several persons, a few English men included, on the strength of their names being in the Libro d'oro of Fiesole, assumed the titles of marquis, count, and baron—an abuse put a stop to by the late grand duke of Tuscany. In Rome there is a small number of nobles—as the Colonnas, Ottetanis, and Orsinis—who hold their fiefs its sovereign princes; the rest of the nobility, many of them of very ancient lineage, are municipal, the power of creation being vested in the senator, himself a nominee of the pontiff, and the Conservatori, chosen by lot from the Capitoline nobles. In last century so many undistinguished persons had been added to the roll of nobility, that pope Benedict XIV. found it necessary to prohibit by it bull the admission of any one whose ancestors had not filled certain high offices in the state. The same decree limited the number of noble families to 187, designed the Patriziato Romano, out of whom 00 of the oldest and most illustrious were chosen as Nobiti Conscritti, otherwise called the capitoline nobles, and restricted the admission to the patraziato for the future to persons who had rendered important services to the city, and whose names were approved by the Congregazwne araldica, an exception being made in favor of members of the reigning pontiff's family. As the families of the eonscritti became extinct, other patrician families, designated Nobili Ascritti, were added by the municipality to make up the number. The titles at present borne by the Roman nobility are: 1. Prince or duke, generally so called, but officially designed " barone Romano"—a title acquired by the Borghesi, Rospigliosi, and others from popes of their respective families; in the case of the Colonnas, Dories, Odescalchi, etc., from roya: or imperial erection; and in other instan ces—as the Caetani and Massimi—front investiture by the pope as a temporal sovereign. 2. Marquis and count; many of these are provincial nobles, with titles generally derived front small feudal tenures, of which, in some instances, it would be difficult to show the diploma, or point out the period of creation. In some parts of the Papal States it is understood that every head of a noble house is a marquis; and in the march of Ancona, Sixtus V. conferred the right to bear the title of count ou all who were of noble blood at the period. 8. Knights (cavalieri), a designation given to all who wear a Roman order, to knights of Malta, and generally to younger sons of the titled nobility. 4. Princes, who, with the sanction of the pope, have purchased honors along with ancient fiefs, that carried with them ducal or princely titles, most of them nori homilies, as the Torlo nias. Titles do not descend to the younger members of the family; it is the general usage for the head of the house to bear the most ancient title, while the eldest son, on his marriage, assumes the second in point of antiquity. The title is sometimes the family name. sometimes the name of a feudal possession. The proper designation of the younger branches of titled families is "dei prineim," "dei duchi," "(lei marchesi," etc.