Reality Check: Emancipated 1500's French Aristocracy

Unlike ENgland, Grench Aristocrats were banned from a number of professions including participation in commerce. As it turn out this was a huge disadvantage to the French. Is it at all realistic that the reforms that took place in the English Aristocracy could have somehow translated into France in teh late 1500's?

Could the French Aristocracts have been allowed to participate in commerce gain higher degrees and so forth without destroying the French social fabric?
 
In France it was considered degrading for aristocrats to engage in commerce and things like that.

Edit:Maybe that was in Spain...
 
It was considered degrading practically everywhere. Very few English aristocrats engaged in any kind of work until the nineteenth century.

However, the bigger problem for the French is their definition of the nobility. Under English law, nobility was conferred via the title which passes to the heir. One heir. All other descendants were not of the nobility. For these poeople, earning a living was an unfortunate necessity.
In the French system, nobility was conferred through legitimate birth to noble parents. All the children of a nobleman were noble. And so were their children (assuming proper marriage). At some point, you run out of sinecures for all your nobles.
 
It was considered degrading practically everywhere. Very few English aristocrats engaged in any kind of work until the nineteenth century.

However, the bigger problem for the French is their definition of the nobility. Under English law, nobility was conferred via the title which passes to the heir. One heir. All other descendants were not of the nobility. For these poeople, earning a living was an unfortunate necessity.
In the French system, nobility was conferred through legitimate birth to noble parents. All the children of a nobleman were noble. And so were their children (assuming proper marriage). At some point, you run out of sinecures for all your nobles.

I think your getting Peers and nobles confused. All children of English Peers were noble but they weren't Peers.
 
I think your getting Peers and nobles confused. All children of English Peers were noble but they weren't Peers.

I think what carlton_bach was getting at is that in England, "nobility" was closely tied to the peerage: if you're considered noble only if you're a peer or a close family member of a peer. A baron's younger son, for instance, was considered a member of the nobility (at least by courtesy), but since he lacked his own peerage he couldn't pass the distinction to his own children. So a few dozen peers in Elizabethan England meant maybe a couple hundred nobles, and a couple hundred peers in Victorian Britain meant perhaps a thousand or so nobles, compared with between 100,000 and 300,000 nobles in 18th century France.
 
It was considered degrading practically everywhere. Very few English aristocrats engaged in any kind of work until the nineteenth century.

However, the bigger problem for the French is their definition of the nobility. Under English law, nobility was conferred via the title which passes to the heir. One heir. All other descendants were not of the nobility. For these people, earning a living was an unfortunate necessity.
In the French system, nobility was conferred through legitimate birth to noble parents. All the children of a nobleman were noble. And so were their children (assuming proper marriage). At some point, you run out of sinecures for all your nobles.

I do not agree that in England commerce and commercial activity was considered degrading. Obviously, at the lowest level it would be. No peer was going to stand behind a shop counter serving customers.

But , for instance, the first Duke of Bridgewater built the Bridgewater canal (obviously, not with his own hands) , and made a fortune out of it.

A LOT of peers and noblemen had shares in the East India Company. In Elizabeth's time, noblemen , and the Queen herself, sent off trading adventures. Prince Rupert of the Rhine was extensively involved in commercial ventures (Hudson Bay Company, fex), and manufacturing ventures (he set up a gun making company, amongst other things). And he was more German than English, though he operated in England.

Peers and gentry were enthusiastic about exploiting coal mines and minerals on their estates (I think this happened in Germany, too).

And of course were intensely involved in property development. And banking . And insurance.

And that's only counting the old families that were involved, without considering the new families that made their fortunes in commerce and gained titles - the Childs, Barings, Tilneys lots of others

A lot of these initiatives gave employment and income to younger sons. First son takes the title, second into the army, third into the church, fourth into the law, fifth into commerce. But , almost all wealthy peers made financial provision for younger sons, in the first generation at least. Often quite generous ones, the literature the time is full of peers complaining that they are financially crippled by portions for daughters and younger sons. And the strict settlement s of the day , with estates settled in conditional fee tail, meant they had no choice in the matter.

I don't think that the test of "nobleman" is correct either. A younger son of a peer was considered a member of the nobility. The main thing was whether he could matriculate his arms with the College of Heralds. What was different about England to the Continent, was that in England, apart from the actual holder of a peerage, being noble gave no advantages and had no visible distinction.
 
Could the French Aristocracts have been allowed to participate in commerce gain higher degrees and so forth without destroying the French social fabric?

First, you have to understand the difference between "dérogeance" and "déchéance".
The former prevent nobles families to have privileges but can't remove its nobility. Déchéance, on the other hand, makes nobles family turning commoners and can be made only by royal decree and not automatically.

That said are subject to dérogeance nobles that

- Are servants except for families higher than them
- Exerce a manual work, except farmer on his own land, glass-factory, mettalurgy and mines.
- Being a trader and a detailing seller (Participating to trade and seller of great quantities being authorised during Louis XIV's reign)

So, while it limits the possibilities of french nobility (it's worth considering that in maritime regions of the N-W existed what is called a "sleeping" nobility, whom nobles could renounce to their privileges for a time and recover them easily after, so I doubt it would have much incidence on this regard), these remained quite large.
 
Another aspect of the 1500-1643 English Nobility was the ability to "buy" a noble title by either providing a sufficient dowry or loaning money to the State.
 
You technically had that in France as well, the most known aspect being the "paulette" (that was an annual taxe facilitating the hereditary transmission of charges). It wasn't buying nobility per se, of course, but holding an office on family for a relative long time would made access to "robe" (magistrates) or "bell" (municipal/administrative) nobility easier.
 
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