Talk:Nobile (aristocracy)

NOBILE (Untitled Nobleman)

1/The rank denotes some, but not all, aristocratic Italian families which lack titles. This class may be compared to the landed gentry of Great Britain. There are, strictly speaking, two kinds of nobili-the younger sons of titled nobles and male members of the noble families in which there have never been titles.

2/"Nobile" is not used immediately before the family name, like the titles "baron" or "count", but before the given name (like "Sir John") !

3/THE English EQUIVALENT IS NOT "BARONET" BUT "ESQUIRE" ! AND "JONKHEER" in the Netherlands.

relative rank?

an additional title of nobility, that of nobile, as the lowest rank in the hierarchy of Italian titles of nobility (but compare cavaliere ereditario, patrizio and coscritto).

Okay, how do we compare them? Are these last three not titles of nobility, and thus lower than Nobile, or what? —Tamfang (talk) 22:57, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

The problem with comparing any Continental title to Britain's gentry, is that although gentry are often referred to as an "untitled nobility" in fact, the latter were never nobility by law and only "nobility" by courtesy if their style or honorific derives from direct first, second or third generation descent from a peer (although there is a recent, persistent group of interested dissenters who insist that Innes of Learney, in his capacity as Lord Lyon, officially "recognized" all members of the Scots gentry as "lower nobility"). By contrast, most of Europe's continental nobility lacked any legal or courtesy titles, but were nonetheless noble under the law. So Jonkheer in the Netherlands; Edler (Noble) and Ritter (Knight) in Germany and Austria; Sieur/Sire ("Lord"; but not, properly, Seigneur (Squire), since the latter indicated manorial ownership but did not imply nobility), Chevalier (Knight), Écuyer (Esquire), Gentilhomme, in France (see Velde's excellent summary); Don, Nobile, Cavaliere, Coscritto ("Select") and Patrizio in Italy; are all ranks and/or honorifics (but not "titles") used as prefixes (or, occasionally with a city-state's name, as suffixes) to the name, denoting legal but untitled nobility in one of Italy's former monarchies. In Italy, according to the best informal explanation I've seen in English, it seems that the rank among untitled nobles, highest to lowest, is Don/Donna, Cavaliere, Coscritto, Patrizio, Nobile and, finally, the vast majority of nobles who were entitled to no prefix at all. These designations were sometimes combined with noble titles, but when used alone they indicated that the individual held no personal title of nobility, but belonged to a legitimately noble family. For instance, members of a noble (as distinct from dynastic) family whose head by primogeniture was a principe or a duca, they were all entitled to be called Don/Donna exactly as a British duke's children are Lord/Lady -- except that all legitimate male-line descendants were entitled to this style, not just the first generation of children. There was no female equivalent for the other three Italian styles. Unfortunately, I know of no published work in English which explains all of the above, which may be why Europe's "untitled nobility" is not an article in English Wikipedia. FactStraight (talk) 08:38, 7 April 2017 (UTC)