History of Nobility

The Nature of Nobility

The French concept of nobility was very different from the English one. Whereas, in England, only a peerage bestows nobility on the holder, in France, nobility was a quality, a legal characteristic of the individual, which was held or acquired in specified ways, and which conferred specified rights and privileges. The manners of acquiring nobility being specific, French nobility isn't the same as the English gentry either, which has no legal definition or status.Nobility was usually a hereditary characteristic, but some forms of nobility could not be transmitted. When it was hereditary, nobility usually came from the father, but sometimes a higher percentage of noble blood might be required (counted in number of "quartiers") or that the family be noble for a certain number of generations. A nobleman marrying a commoner did not lose his nobility, but a noblewoman who married a commoner lost it, as long as she was married to the commoner.
Nobility was an important legal concept, in particular because of the privileges attached to it. Taxes were originally levied to help the sovereign in times of war; and since nobles were expected to provide help in kind, by fighting for their sovereign, they were usually exempted from taxes. This privilege lost its rationale after the end of feudalism and nobility had nothing to do with military activity, but it survived for the older forms of taxation until 1789 (more recent taxes, levied in the 17th and 18th centuries, allowed for weaker or no exemption for nobles).
A number of offices and positions in civil and military administrations were reserved for nobles, notably all commissions as officers in the army. This privilege created a significant obstacle to social mobility and to the emergence of new talents in the French state. It remained very real until 1789.

Acquisition of Nobility

But one could also acquire nobility, and that was a numerically significant mode since the 16th c.There were three main ways one could be noble:

1. by birth: usually, but not always, from the father, and the mother could be a commoner. Some regions in Eastern France allowed for transmission of nobility by the mother, notable Champagne at least until the 16th century, and Bar until 1789 (subject to the prince's approval), but otherwise an edict of 1370 restricted transmission to the father. Bastards of nobles became noble when legitimated by letters of the sovereign, until 1600 when a separate act of ennoblement was required (royal bastards were always noble, even without legitimation).
2. by office: depending on the office, the holder of the office became noble eirher immediately or after a number of years, nobility was personal or hereditary, hereditary for 2, 3 or more generations, etc. There were about 4000 offices conferring nobility of some kind in the 18th century. Nobility thus attained was called "noblesse de robe" (for judicial offices; "noblesse de cloche" for municipal offices). Offices were usually bought, and oftentimes they were sold once ennoblement had occurred. The types of offices were varied:
• municipal offices (in sixteen French towns: Angers, Angoulême, Arras, Bourges, Cognac, Issoudun, La Rochelle, Le Mans, Lyon, Nantes, Niort, Paris, Poitiers, Saint-Jean d'Angély, Toulouse, Tours). The offices were usually those of aldermen or members of the city council, but after 1667 the ennobling privilege was restricted to the office of mayor, except for Lyon (comtes de Lyon) and Toulouse (capitouls). The registered burghers of Perpignan were considered noble, an Aragonese privilege confirmed after French annexion.
• judicial offices: members of the courts or Parlements were ennobled after 20 years or death in office for two consecutive generations (some courts, such as Paris, ennobled "in the first degree", that is, at the first generation); a variety of other judicial offices carried similar privilege. These offices were bought and sold freely.
• fiscal offices: members of the tax courts and state auditors, senior tax collectors and the like; also bought and sold.
• administrative offices: various positions in the king's household, and the several hundred offices of secrétaires du Roi, which ennobled in the first degree, and were bought and sold.
• military commissions: in the Middle ages, the owner of a noble fief could be ennobled if he wasn't so, but after 1275 a condition that three consecutive generations hold the fief ("tierce foi") was added, and the privilege was abolished in 1579. The Edict of November 1750, when some military commissions were opened to non-nobles, it was decided that officers reaching the rank of general would automatically receive hereditary nobility. Officers of lesser rank who received the Order of Saint-Louis and fulfilled certain requirements were exempt from the taille (a tax on non-nobles); the third generation meeting the requirements received hereditary nobility.
3. by "letters": that is, by royal grant.  The king could always ennoble anyone he wished. The earliest examples date from the last third of the 13th century. In times of financial distress, the king sold such letters of nobility, sending them blank to his provincial administrators.

Note that one could lose nobility, by failing at one's feudal duties ("déchéance") or practising forbidden occupations ("dérogeance"): commerce, manual crafts were cause to lose nobility. Medicine, glass-blowing, exploitation of mines, maritime commerce, and wholesale commerce were exempted. Tilling one's land was acceptable, but farming someone else's (except the King's) was not.A nobleman son and grandson of nobles was called a noble de race or gentilhomme(although the term of gentilhomme is often used for any noble by birth). If all 4 of his grandparents were noble he was a gentilhomme des 4 lignes (nobility of all lines, and not just the paternal line, was usually of little importance in France, though a prestigious lineage in female line could be a source of pride; the emphasis on nobility in all lines may be due to the particular requirements for admission into the Order of Malta from the 16th century). If his pedigree went further and no commoners could be found in the male lign, he was deemed a gentilhomme de nom et d'armes. These definitions vary from author to author, and are not very important. In general, the status depends primarily on the length of the pedigree, and everyone agrees that a gentilhomme is a born noble: not even the king can make a man into a gentilhomme. Adoption did not transmit nobility.