Nobility
Nobility was the highest social class in pre-modern societies. In the feudal system (in Europe and elsewhere), the nobility were mostly those who got land from the monarch and had to provide services to him, mainly military service. Men of this class were called noblemen. It soon became a hereditary class, sometimes with a right to bear a hereditary title and to have financial and other privileges in the estates of the realm.
Today, in most countries, 'noble status' means no legal privileges; an important exception is the United Kingdom, where certain titles (titles of the peerage) guaranteed until recently a seat in the Upper House of Westminster Parliament (that is why it is called House of Lords) and still provide some other, less important privileges.
Nobility by rank
Nobility Media
The House of Lords is the upper legislature of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is filled with members that are selected from the nobility (both hereditary titleholders and those ennobled only for their individual lives).
Opening of the Hungarian Diet (Országgyűlés) with the members of hungarian nobility in the Royal Palace, 1865
Polish magnates 1576–1586
Polish magnates 1697–1795
Hungarian prince Ferenc József in the typical dress of the Hungarian nobility, 18th century
Count Carl Robert Mannerheim (1835–1914), a Finnish aristocrat, businessman, and the father of Baron C. G. E. Mannerheim, the Marshal of Finland
Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia (center) and members of the imperial court
Other websites
- The German nobility
- Old Noble Family Trees[dead link]
- WW-Person Archived 2010-12-03 at the Wayback Machine, an on-line database of European noble genealogy
- Paul Theroff's An Online Gotha Archived 2006-11-08 at the Wayback Machine
- Genealogics, an extensive database of European nobles
- Worldroots, a selection of art and genealogy of European nobility
- RoyalArk- ruling houses in many non-European countries
- Web site on the Royalty, the Nobility, the History and the Patrimony Archived 2021-05-12 at the Wayback Machine
- The Armenian nobility[dead link]
- The Maltese Nobility and its ilks.
- Italian dynastic genealogies (in Italian, with an introduction in English)
- Worldwidewords
- OneTree Genealogy - European Royal and Danish-Norwegian-Swedish Nobility Lineages Archived 2022-01-22 at the Wayback Machine