352 Ch. 10 • Eighteenth-Century Economic And Social Changejewelry, to occupy special church pews near the altar (in some places Mass
could not start until the local nobles had taken their accustomed places),
to receive communion before anyone else, and to sit in specially reserved
sections at concerts and on special benches at universities. Commoners
were expected to bow, curtsy, or tip their hats when a noble walked by, ges
tures upon which nobles increasingly insisted. The right to duel over fam
ily “honor” in some states and the right to wear a sword were honorific
privileges that served to distinguish nobles from their social inferiors.
There were significant differences in the wealth and status of European
nobles, however. The wealthiest, most powerful nobles considered them
selves “aristocrats,” although this was not a legal category. They were proud
possessors of the most ancient titles (in France, they were the nobles of the
sword, whose titles originated in military service to the king), and many of
them were members of the court nobility. Aristocrats viewed themselves as
the epitome of integrity, honor, and personal courage, and the embodiment
of elite culture. The grands seigneurs in France and the grandees in Spain
were identified by their great wealth and ownership of very large estates.
But the wealthiest nobles may have been the great landed magnates of
East Central Europe. Prince Charles Radziwill of Poland was served by
10,000 retainers and a private army of 6,000 soldiers. Another Polish
nobleman’s property included 25,000 square kilometers of land, territory
about four-fifths the size of today’s Belgium. A single Russian prince
owned 9,000 peasant households.
On the other hand, in every country there were also nobles of modest
means who eagerly, even desperately, sought advantageous marriages for
their daughters, and state, military, and church posts to provide a living for
their sons. Demographic factors put pressure on poorer nobles, because
now more noble children survived birth and childhood. Many Sicilian, Pol
ish, and Spanish nobles owned little more than their titles. About 120,000
Polish nobles were landless, many so poor that they were referred to as the
“barefoot nobility.” The hobereaux were the threadbare nobles of France.
Spanish hidalgos depended on modest state pensions, and some were so
poor that it was said that they “ate black bread under the genealogical tree.”
In Spain, these impoverished nobles retained the right to display their coat
of arms and to be called “Don” (“Sir”), and freedom from arrest for debt.
But until 1773 they were not permitted to engage in manual work, and
hence they had few ways to emerge from poverty.
Nobles who could afford to do so tried to maintain an aristocratic lifestyle,
keeping up chateaux (manor houses) on their rural estates, some also own
ing elegant townhouses with gardens designed to recreate the illusion of a
rural manor. Some nobles of lesser means attempted to keep an aristo
cratic lifestyle, going into debt as a result.