Nobility facts for kids
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.
Today, in most countries, "noble status" means no legal privileges; an important exception is the United Kingdom, where certain titles (titles of the peerage, until recently guaranteed a seat in the Upper House of Westminster Parliament, that is why it is called House of Lords), and still means some less important privileges.
Images for kids
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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).
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Nobility offered protection in exchange for service
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French aristocrats, c. 1774
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A French political cartoon of the three orders of feudal society (1789). The rural third estate carries the clergy and the nobility.
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Opening of the Hungarian Diet (Országgyűlés) with the members of hungarian nobility in the Royal Palace, 1865
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Polish magnates 1576–1586
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Polish magnates 1697–1795
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Hungarian prince Ferenc József in the typical dress of the Hungarian nobility, 18th century
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Count Carl Robert Mannerheim (1835–1914), a Finnish aristocrat, businessman, and the father of Baron C. G. E. Mannerheim, the Marshal of Finland
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Russian boyars
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The Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471. Large numbers of English nobility perished in the Wars of the Roses
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In Korea, royalty and yangban aristocrats were carried in litters called gama. A Korean gama, circa 1890.
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An aristocratic family in Lhasa, Tibet in 1936.
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Emperor Farrukhsiyar Bestows a Jewel on a Nobleman
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Maratha Peshwa Madhavrao II, surrounded by nobles in his court in 18th-century India.
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Japanese samurai, 1798
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Typical costume of a family belonging to the Principalía of the late 19th century Philippines. Exhibit in the Villa Escudero Museum, San Pablo, Laguna.
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A pre-colonial Tagalog couple belonging to the Datu class or nobility as depicted in the Boxer Codex of the 16th century.
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Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia (center) and members of the imperial court
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King Radama I of Madagascar was from the Andriana stratum of the Merina people.
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The Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, on his throne in 2016.
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Angélica Larrea, Queen Consort of the Afro-Bolivians, in 2012. The queen is the wife of King Julio Pinedo.
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Portrait of Marquis of Paraná, Prime Minister of Brazil.
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Regent of Bandung, Java, Dutch East Indies, with his pajung bearer – 1863–1865
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A Siamese noble in a hammock, 1900
