804 Appendix III
- In regard to the essential rights and attributes of the noble estate there is no
difference between old and new nobility.
Privileges of the Nobility- Persons of the nobility are normally subject to the jurisdiction only of the
highest court in the province. - The nobleman has an especial right to places of honor in the state for which
he has made himself fit. - But the sovereign retains the power to be the judge of fitness and make se-
lection from among candidates. - Only the nobleman has the right to possess noble property.
- Which properties are noble is determined by the particular constitutions of
the several provinces. - Only the nobleman may create entails and family trusts for noble pro perties.
- Noble property- owners have the right to exercise, in their own name, the
hunting rights appertaining to their property. - They may have the jurisdictional powers pertaining to their property exer-
cised in their name. - They possess the honorific rights that go with church patronage.
- They may use the names of their property as personal names, and in official
documents or on public occasions, use the possession thereof as a special title. - Only the resident nobility normally have the right to appear in the noble
assemblies of circles and provinces, and to have a voice on matters under consider-
ation there. - Persons of the burgher estate cannot own noble property except by permis-
sion of the sovereign. - Burgher owners cannot convey ownership of noble property to other per-
sons of burgher estate, except by special concession. - Noblemen shall normally engage in no burgher livelihood or occupation.
- Where a wholesale business is not associated with a gild, a nobleman may
enter upon it. - No nobleman, normally, except with special permission of the sovereign,
may become a member of a closed merchant gild. - Particular rights and duties of the nobility, as belonging either to the whole
estate, or to individual members, with respect to their person and property, are
determined by the special laws and constitutions of the different provinces. - Whoever, by concealing or denying his noble estate, slips into a gild or cor-
poration and carries on a burgher trade, will suffer the loss of his noble rights. - The same is all the more true when anyone of noble birth chooses a dishon-
orable way of life, or any way of life by which he sinks into the common people.
Translated from Allgemeines Gesetzbuch für die preussischen Staaten, 4 vols. (Berlin,
1791). The clauses printed above appeared in identical form in the Allgemeines
Land- recht für die preussischen Staaten of 1794, except that those marked with an