The painting of Naphtali, for instance, half-dressed in a rough brown cloak and toting a shovel over his shoulder, has an unpretentious beauty that recalls Jean-François Millet's later ennoblements of French peasants.
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This helped a lot of low-nobility Finns to a more or less lucrative career. Due to the many wars, the crown needed a means to reward officers, and since cash was not plentiful, ennoblement and grants of land and other fiefs (rights to draw taxes) were used instead. During the 17th century, the number of noble families grew by a factor of five, an immense new influx being generated by royal ennoblements of hitherto commoners. (Most Swedish nobles derive their nobility no further than from ennoblements of the 17th century, usually military officers, or from 18th century ennoblements of usually civil servants.) In a few decades in midst of 17th century, the nobility's share of Swedish land rose from 16% to over 60%, which led to considerably lower tax incomes.
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Nepotism was common in this period. Another possible way to rise in social position was due to exceptional military or commercial success. Such families were rare and their rise to nobility required royal patronage at some point. However, because noble lines went extinct naturally, some ennoblements were necessary.
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From 1669, the ennobled who came mainly by then from the burgher class would only receive skartabellat (similar to the German Briefadel, or Letters patent), a specific form of institution and ennoblement introduced by pacta conventa, a lower class of nobility where newly created nobles could only hold public offices and perform legations not until after the third generation; from 1775 an obligation was imposed on newly created nobles possessing (purchasing) land estate. During the reign of Stanisław August Poniatowski (r. 1764 to 1795), almost half of the total number of Polish ennoblements was made. Under the reigns of Stanisław Leszczyński and Stanisław August Poniatowski, both were also known for circumventing the restrictions placed on conferring ennoblement, applying the so-called 'secret ennoblements', without parliamentary confirmation.
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Yolande died at the Chateau de Bouteville, Charente on 10 October 1272. She was buried at the Notre Dame Abbey in Villeneuve-lez-Nantes. Upon her death, her Breton ennoblements returned to the House of Dreux when the titles of Count of Penthievre and Porhoet were seized by her brother, John I, Duke of Brittany.
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Hence the two highest estates of the realm, i.e. nobles and priests, had Swedish as the language of the gentry. In the two minor estates, burghers and peasants, Swedish also held sway, but in a more varying degree depending on regional differences. In the entire 16th century, only a moderate number of ennoblements actually took place.
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In the Kingdom of Poland and later in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, ennoblement (nobilitacja) meant an individual's joining the szlachta (Polish nobility). At first it was granted by monarch, since the late 16th century by the sejm that gave the ennobled person a coat of arms. Often that person could join an existing noble szlachta family with their own coat of arms. The increase of number of Polish nobility by trustworthy ennoblements was proportionally minimal since the 14th century.
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Such ennoblement in fact did not give any prerogatives to Polish nobility and was mainly applied to foreigners. Without the consent of the general sejm, some Polish kings also granted personal nobility, without the right of inheritance, giving the title of Knight of the Golden Spur. Ennoblements, including secret ones, were often a way to fund the royal treasury or to reconcile supporters. Therefore, among others the right to ennoblement has also been usurped, for example, by the bishops of Kraków as the Dukes of Siewierz.
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The main societal function of the nobility in those days was to provide military officers and civil servants for the grand ducal state. Competition for administrative, judicial and military positions ("offices") was the prevalent life of the Finnish nobility, and for the most part also their main source of income. New ennoblements were granted mostly on the basis of government career. The families which have been introduced to the Finnish House of Nobility, the country's own estate of nobility, are listed on the House of Nobility website.
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The king and all deputies had legislative initiative, and most mattersknown as general laws, and divided into constitutional, civil, criminal, and those for the institution of perpetual taxesrequired a simple majority, first from the lower chamber, then the upper. Specialized resolutions, including treaties of alliance, declarations of war and peace, ennoblements and increases in national debt, needed a majority of both chambers voting jointly. The Senate had a suspensive veto over laws that the Sejm passed, valid until the next Sejm session, when it could be overruled. Article VI recognized the Prawo o sejmikach, the act on regional assemblies (sejmiks) passed on 24 March 1791.
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However, in most cases, such petty noble families were ultimately registered as nobles (the concept of "ancient nobility" was a loose one, in many cases demonstrated only by privileges enjoyed for a long time, for example in taxation or holding offices). Thus, quite many families confirmed in their nobility in the 17th century were presumably actually without any original royal ennoblement, but only became frälse by decisions of past royal bailiffs of castles and such. Nobility's marriages became restricted: generally, only a noblewoman was eligible for valid marriage of a nobleman in order to transmit the noble status to children. Because before 17th-century mass ennoblements, the number of nobles was actually only in hundreds, daughters of lower nobility became more often brides for wealthy Swedish noble families and even for magnate families.
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This was a period which produced a myriad of two-word Swedish-language finery names for nobility (very favored prefixes were Adler, "noble"; Ehren - "ära", "honor"; Silfver, "silver"; and Gyllen, "golden"). The regular difference with Britain was that it became the new surname of the whole house, and the old surname was dropped altogether. To understand ennoblements better, we may think a noble as, using a Finnish example, Augustin Schaeffer, Lord Ehrensvärd when ennobled, but they did not continue to use the old, thus he was, starting from the ennoblement, "Lord Augustin Ehrensvärd". These centuries, particularly the centralization of government in the 17th century, saw a gradual mass exodus of Finnish nobility, almost all families of high nobility and a good portion of more capable others, from Finland to the capital of Sweden and manors therearound.
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A number of legitimate titles recognised in the pre-unitary Italian states (Two Sicilies, Tuscany, Parma, Modena, Papal State), as well as the Republic of San Marino, were not recognised in the Kingdom of Italy between 1860 and 1948. In most cases these were small baronies, minor lordships (signorie) or untitled ennoblements (patrizi and nobili). In connection with this, some Sicilian titles could devolve to female heiresses in the absence of close male kin, and in a few instances there are claimants (in female lines) in Spain as well as Italy, the former looking to Two Sicilies (pre 1860) legislation and the latter citing Italian (post 1860) law. Most of the parallel claims (usually by Spanish citizens) were made after 1948, when the Consulta Araldica (Italy's heraldic authority) was suspended by the Italian constitution, which abolished recognition of titles of nobility.
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This high number of lower nobility in Finland is explained to come from its military location, there having been a constant need of tapping the frälse system for troops and officers which led to a high number of ennoblements to Finland, whereas Sweden proper had lived more peacefully as to foreign wars and additionally had its nobility axed from time to time by civil war. According to several precedents, medieval nobility was inheritable in female line in case of extinction of male line (and sometimes just because of inheritance of the manor with frälse status), shown for example by the accepted introductions (registrations) of later Stiernkors, Carpelan and Kurck female-line families to the rolls of nobility. There was a special group of petty nobility, the so-called knapadel, derived from the last centuries of the Middle Ages, who generally were not able to produce a royal letter of ennoblement to support their status. Regarding certain districts where there existed a disproportionally high number of such families, their introduction to the House of Nobility was often denied.
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Since the Parliament of the United Kingdom enacted a series of reforms (from the 1960s onward) to the honours system, few hereditary titles have been created (the last being created in 1990), while life peerages have proliferated, allowing for more openly LGBT persons to be appointed to the House of Lords. However, despite the legalization of civil partnerships for same-sex couples in 2004, spouses of ennobled civil partners have not been allowed the extension of title and privilege from their spouses' ennoblements as those accorded to married opposite-sex spouses of ennobled persons. In July 2012, Conservative MP Oliver Colvile announced a private member's bill, titled "Honours (Equality of Titles for Partners) Bill 2012-13", to amend the honours system to both allow husbands of those made dames and for civil partners of recipients to receive honours by their relationship statuses. Another bill, the Equality (Titles) Bill, which would allow for both female first-born descendants to inherit hereditary titles as well as for "husbands and civil partners" of honours recipients "to use equivalent honorary titles to those available to wives", was introduced by Lord Lucas in the House of Lords on 13 May 2013, but did not progress past Committee stage.
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